ABSTRACT
The Armenian Diaspora is about seven million strong.2 Armenian Americans number about one million and, with their relative wealth and political influence in Washington, have proven to be influential in agenda-setting.3
They, and not their brethren in Armenia, have been at the forefront of keeping memory of the genocide alive. Invoking the Holocaust actively keeps the Armenian genocide and the struggle with Turkey at the top of the agenda. Desires for Turkish recognition of the genocide, for apology, and for compensation will only come when sufficient pressure is put on them by American and Western European governments to force them to buckle. And Western governments will only be persuaded to push if the Armenian genocide is sufficiently like the Holocaust to elicit a sense of moral outrage against continued denial – so the thinking goes.
