Lewis is not 'denying' the killing of Armenians, but is distinguishing between genocide, killing to ethnically cleanse a population at peace within the society, and an armed struggle of different ethnic groups for autonomy and control.
Not relevant to this issue, but genocide doesn’t require killing. Hitler’s plan to enslave the Poles was genocidal, even had they been treated well in slave labor camps. Our attempt to solve the Indian problem by removing children from their parents and re-educating them as Christians was likely genocidal. Killing civilians with the intent of exterminating their culture from the region is genocide, irrespective of whether an armed struggle. IMO acts of genocide went on in Bosnia, as well as todays Kosovo
Obviously the term didn’t exist at the time, but as I noted in an earlier post, Raphael Lemkin clearly considered it genocide. Henry Morgenthau, who resigned his post due to American inaction, was of essentially the same opinion.
Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (1913-16)
When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact."
"Practically all of them were atheists, with no more respect for Mohammedanism than for Christianity, and with them the one motive was cold-blooded, calculating state policy."
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One day I was discussing these proceedings with a responsible Turkish official, who was describing the tortures inflicted. He made no secret of the fact that the Government had instigated them, and, like all Turks of the official classes, he enthusiastically approved this treatment of the detested race. This official told me that all these details were matters of nightly discussion at the headquarters of the Union and Progress Committee. Each new method of inflicting pain was hailed as a splendid discovery, and the regular attendants were constantly ransacking their brains in the effort to devise some new torment. He told me that they even delved into the records of the Spanish Inquisition and other historic institutions of torture and adopted all the suggestions found there. He did not tell me who carried off the prize in this gruesome competition, but common reputation through Armenia gave a preeminent infamy to Djevdet Bey, the Vali of Van, whose activities in that section I have already described. All through this country Djevdet was generally known as the "horseshoer of Bashkale" for this connoisseur in torture had invented what was perhaps the masterpiece of all — that of nailing horseshoes to the feet of his Armenian victims.
Yet these happenings did not constitute what the newspapers of the time commonly referred to as the Armenian atrocities; they were merely the preparatory steps in the destruction of the race. The Young Turks displayed greater ingenuity than their predecessor, Abdul Hamid. The injunction of the deposed Sultan was merely "to kill, kill", whereas the Turkish democracy hit upon an entirely new plan. Instead of massacring outright the Armenian race, they now decided to deport it. In the south and southeastern section of the Ottoman Empire lie the Syrian desert and the Mesopotamian valley. Though part of this area was once the scene of a flourishing civilization, for the last five centuries it has suffered the blight that becomes the lot of any country that is subjected to Turkish rule; and it is now a dreary, desolate waste, without cities and towns or life of any kind, populated only by a few wild and fanatical Bedouin tribes. Only the most industrious labour, expended through many years, could transform this desert into the abiding place of any considerable population. The Central Government now announced its intention of gathering the two million or more Armenians living in the several sections of the empire and transporting them to this desolate and inhospitable region. Had they undertaken such a deportation in good faith it would have represented the height of cruelty and injustice. As a matter of fact, the Turks never had the slightest idea of reestablishing the Armenians in this new country. They knew that the great majority would never reach their destination and that those who did would either die of thirst and starvation, or be murdered by the wild Mohammedan desert tribes. The real purpose of the deportation was robbery and destruction; it really represented a new methods of massacre. When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact.
[paragraphs omitted]
I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared with the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915. The slaughter of the Albigenses in the early part of the thirteenth century has always been regarded as one of the most pitiful events in history. In these outbursts of fanaticism about 60,000 people were killed. In the massacre of St. Bartholomew about 30,000 human beings lost their lives. The Sicilian Vespers, which has always figured as one of the most fiendish outbursts of this kind, caused the destruction of 8,000. Volumes have been written about the Spanish Inquisition under Torquemada, yet in the eighteen years of his administration only a little more that 8,000 heretics were done to death. Perhaps the one event in history that most resembles the Armenian deportations was the expulsion of the Jews from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. According to Prescott 160,000 were uprooted from their homes and scattered broadcast over Africa and Europe. Yet all these previous persecutions seem almost trivial when we compare them with the sufferings of the Armenians, in which at least 600,000 people were destroyed and perhaps as many as 1,000,000. And these earlier massacres when we compare them with the spirit that directed the Armenian atrocities, have one feature that we can almost describe as an excuse: they were the product of religious fanaticism and most of the men and women who instigated them sincerely believed that they were devoutly serving their Maker. Undoubtedly religious fanaticism was an impelling motive with the Turkish and Kurdish rabble who slew Armenians as a service to Allah, but the men who really conceived the crime had no such motive. Practically all of them were atheists, with no more respect for Mohammedanism than for Christianity, and with them the one motive was cold-blooded, calculating state policy.
Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co.: 1919), pp. 307-309, 321-323
"I’m not sure your article is relevant. Lewis is addressing an apparent comparison between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. Not having access to the Ha’aertz article, I don’t know what points he was refuting, but none of that addresses the question of genocide."
Lewis in the piece I posted is definitely saying that the massacre of Armenians was not a genocide when he says that genocide has a specific definition. Further he was convicted of 'denying crimes against humanity' in France for saying that Armenia was not a genocide in an interview with Le Monde in 1993. He was fined a franc.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=12055&r=sbhvq
I have read and posted here from Morgenthau. Lewis does not dispute that their were massacres but he defines genocide as precluding the type of land and territorial dispute that occurred. Was there an armed Armenian separatist movement? That is more the type of question Lewis asks.
One might also ask why the terminology matters. I think it matters. But given the way it is thrown around and the way much lesser events are called a Gulag or Nazi like, I guess it doesn't matter to many. OTOH what appears to be a current present day unequivocal genocide in Sudan interests very few.
Sorry, Scoop, but Genocide has to at least include killing, because that's what the "-cide" means. Some have referred to "cultural genocide," but that term is contemptible. It's like calling a fantasy about consentual sex, "mental rape": It demeans the horror of the actual term.
By your definition of genocide, almost any societal change can be termed genocide.