ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces an analysis of denial before studying the attitudes of the State of Israel towards the Armenian Genocide. Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, denial of this genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has continued from 1915 to the present. The US Holocaust Memorial Council reported similar threats over plans to include references to the Armenian Genocide within the interpretive framework of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Clues to the thinking of academics who question the reality of the Armenian Genocide have been provided by Israel Charny and his colleague Daphna Fromer. Richard Hovannisian analyzes the methodology, the mechanism, and the strategy of denial and surveys the shifting patterns of denial of the Armenian Genocide from one of absolute denial to more sophisticated approaches of rationalization, relativization, and trivialization.
