Armenia has officially recognized Palestine as a state. This is a brave move coming from an oppressed and long suffering nation that has endured genocide again in the last four years at the hands of Azerbaijan and Turkey. Armenia has given a slap to Israel which has unscrupulously armed and abetted Azerbaijan.
Armenia has longstanding ties with Iran. Only Iran has stood with the Armenians during their plight. Iran and its ally Hezbullah in Lebanon are therefore allies of Eastern Christianity. Eastern Christians should oppose any potential war against Iran and should stand with the Palestinians in Gaza.
The Armenian recognition of Palestine has even more crucial significance considering the attacks on the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem by extreme Israeli fanatics. The Armenians are embattled everywhere from Jerusalem to Artsakh, but they are bravely striking back and expressing support for the Palestinians who are suffering much like the Armenians.
If only Greek leaders had the ability and willingness to fight like the Armenians.
The Lebanese and Iranian affiliated “Hezbullah” is threatening Cyprus since Nicosia may be considering giving support to Israel from its territory. This very bad news and shows that Cyprus like Greece is becoming a satellite of the west. The Mitsotakis government in Athens ruined the traditional good relations that the Greek world had with Iran when it seized an Iranian tanker.
The Mitsotakis government had also bent over backwards to aggravate the Russians. On Ukraine, Athens should have emulated the example of Hungary. Budapest has accepted Ukrainian refugees and provided humanitarian relief while adopting strict neutrality and refusing to get involved. The Mitsotakis government has repeatedly insulted Moscow in a shameless display of currying favor with the west.
Cyprus seems to be following the path of submission to interests that are outright anti Hellenic. Iran and Hezbullah were on the side of Orthodox Christianity when they fought to save the Assad regime in Syria. Iran and Hezbullah fought against the genocidal ISIS and other western funded jihadists who were slaughtering Christians, Yazidis, and Shiite Muslims.
In the recent past, it made sense for Greece and Cyprus to work with Israel against Turkey. The stupidity here is that the government of Cyprus is contemplating working with Israel not against Turkey, but Iran and Hezbullah. It should be remembered that ethnic Greek Orthodox Churches in Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai have survived because of traditional friendships between Greece and the Arab world.
Working with Israel right now is not to the interests of Greece and Cyprus for two reasons. Israel is complicit in full scale genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. The Hellenic world becomes morally complicit in genocide if it supports the Netanyahu government.
Orthodoxy has become less of a factor in Greek and Cypriot foreign policy. The Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos and other ethnic Greek bishops have condemned the genocide in Gaza. Archbishop Alexy of Gaza (a Greek) heroically declared his willingness to die with the people of Gaza by refusing to leave.
Many Gazans are Christians. Greeks should not be indifferent to their plight. The interests of Christianity and Hellenism in the Middle East necessitate good relations with Iran and Syria. Good relations with Israel matter as well, but the policies of Netanyahu make cooperation between the Hellenic states and Israel impossible.
Will a Greek leader emerge in Greece or Cyprus that is not a western stooge?
Roderick Eaton is one of the finest writers of Greek history. Since the publication of this book, he has published, “The Greeks a Global History” which recounts all of Greek history going back to the classical era. This book goes back to the era preceding the War of independence.
This book is great history and is better than similar books (also good) by Christopher Woodhouse and Richard Clogg. A good deal of the book recounts Greek nationalism and the ideas preceding the uprising of 1821. The contrast between the views of Adamantios Korais and Rigos Pherais are compared.
The book does a great job in recounting the evolution of Greek politics. From the era of the Republicanism vs the Monarchy and the National schism to the Greek Civil War where the Communists filled the vacuum of the fall of Venizelism.
The author brilliantly recounts the national schism during the First World War. He properly describes the dispute between Venizelos and the King as a dispute between the nation vs the state. A very important distinction.
Also, much information is provided regarding dictator Metaxas and the later regime of the Colonels. The book makes clear these were not mass movements but regimes imposed on Greeks from the top.
Alas, these were not nationalist movements. The history in this book is not partisan but exonerates figures such as Venizelos and the great Col Nikolaos Plastiras.
Other historians have tended to misinterpret the legitimacy of Greece’s campaign in Asia Minor. But this book gets it right and even points out how close Greece came to defeating the Turks. At one point Mustafa Kemal almost threw in the towel!
Perhaps the best book available that focuses on the two hundred year history of modern Greece.
The Biden administration has provided Ukraine with weaponry. This is nothing new. What is new is that the administration has approved of Ukraine’s intentions to hit Russia proper. This is exactly what every administration from Truman to Bush senior avoided during the Cold War.
The government of President Putin has said it is now interested in peace talks. America and Europe should engage Russia and should ignore Ukraine’s immature President who seeks to drag the world into the Russo-Ukrainian war. Russia should make territorial concessions while the west should abandon bringing Ukraine into NATO.
The French have spoken of sending troops to Ukraine to fight Russia. During the Second World War, European fascists joined Hitler’s army to fight Russia. Western leaders have lost all sense of reason.
The sanest politician in the western world remains Donald Trump who opposes this war and always opposed bringing Ukraine into NATO. If World War Three can be avoided until next January, the world could survive if Trump wins the Presidential election.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during his campaign rally in Wildwood, N.J., Saturday, May 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Bitter realities since the Genocide of the Greek populations of Asia Minor in 1922 and the irreversible pro-Turkish foreign by America, Europe, and NATO lead one to conclude that it it unlikely for the foreseeable future that the so called “democracies” will support Greece and Cyprus over Turkey. President Joe Biden was pro-Greek when he was in the United States Senate but his Presidency has been one of endless appeasement of the Turkish aggressor.
Turkish officials from all political parties have repeatedly put forward claims on the Greek islands.
When Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis asked NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to condemn Turkish threats against Greece, the NATO chief refused to do so. When Greece appealed to Germany not to sell submarines to Turkey, Berlin ignored Greek appeals. With the rise of anti Russian hysteria over the past decade, western powers have reverted to the Cold War position that led them to overlook Turkish crimes and atrocities. Even further back in 1853 with the outbreak of the Crimean War, anti-Russian sentiment led Great Britain and France to declare war on Russia and to support the Ottoman Empire.
As for the United States foreign policy establishment, Greece has two problems. The Democratic Party and the anti-Trump faction within the Republican Party support traditional pro-war policies that led to the bombing of Serbia, the invasion of Iraq, and the disastrous intervention in Syria. Furthermore, the traditional advocates for Middle Eastern war have promoted anti-Russian sentiment and the expansions of NATO to the Russian border since the American elections of 2016. As Turkey is close to the Middle East and to Russia and Ukraine, Ankara exercises a sinister and unhealthy influence that America and NATO rely upon for the achievement of their perceived aims.
Pro-War and Anti-Russia are inevitably pro-Turkish. It must be remembered that no administration that has made past promises to Greece have ever kept them. The Carter administration lifted the Congressional Arms Embargo on Turkey that Congress imposed after the invasions of Cyprus. The Clinton administration forced Greece to back down and remove the Greek flag when Turkey claimed the Islet of Imia on January 31, 1996. Furthermore, the Clinton administration did nothing when the Grey Wolves, a terrorist group in occupied Cyprus supported by Ankara, murdered Greeks Tasos Isaac and Solomos Solomou.
During the summer of 2020, the New York Times published an op-ed criticizing the Trump administration for interfering in Greek-Turkish matters.
This was when Turkey was threatening the area around the island of Kastellorizo. The Times specifically cited the Clinton administrations fictional ‘mediation’ in the Imia affair as an example to be emulated. The example of the Imia affair obviously did not end well for Greece as the Turks prevailed. Meanwhile, with the Kastellorizo affair, Greece was able to chase a Turkish ship away from the area. The Trump administration’s reluctance to intervene can be seen as a victory for Greece.
When American administrations involve themselves with Greece, they do so by exerting pressure on Greece to back down. This was what happened after the September 1955 pogroms in Constantinople and in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson openly threatened and insulted Greek Ambassador Alexander Matsas. The Trump administration was a rare administration that did not exert pressure on Greece.
In some areas, the Trump administration did bad as when it betrayed the Kurds of Syria and allowed Turkish to occupy parts of Syria. But fixing American foreign policy cannot be done overnight. The Trump administration’s hostility to NATO and its anti-war and friendly stances toward Russia are factors that have the potential to help Greece. American foreign policy has long been pro-Turkish and is not likely to be pro-Greek any time soon.
Therefore, the most promising way over the short term to help Greece and Cyprus is to curb American foreign policy excesses and interventionism.
This means friendlier American ties with Russia are necessary to begin curbing Turkish influence, and ending American wars in the Middle East will certainly help curb dependence on Turkey. Turkey supported ISIS in Syria and Al Quada in Azerbaijan’s genocide against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.
For these reasons, this writer is voting for Trump for president.
Theodore G. Karakostas is the author of the books In the Shadow of Hagia Sophia, and With This Sign Conquer.
In “Pulling the Plug on NATO” (March 2024 Chronicles), Prof. Trifkovic writes “NATO went rogue after the collapse of the USSR, and its shaky military alliance.” As an Orthodox Greek, I would argue that NATO went rogue long before the 1990s. Long before NATO proceeded to become an offensive alliance by bombing Serbia and gradually expanding with new members, NATO indulged and supported external acts of aggression such as the Turkish invasions of Cyprus in 1974.
Even before, NATO indulged the ethnic cleansing of the Greek Orthodox population of Constantinople and the islands of Imbros and Tenedos through terror campaigns including pogroms and forcible mass expulsions. Most recently, NATO refused to intervene when Turkish leaders claiming the islands of Greece threatened to invade. NATO member Turkey recently assisted its ally in Azerbaijan to commit genocide against Christian Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.
These are in fact additional reasons why NATO should be abolished. When NATO itself is not committing itself to offensive wars as in Serbia, Turkey is gradually carrying out acts of aggression and crimes against humanity. Exactly the same thing that NATO pretends to oppose elsewhere.
—Theodore Karakostas
Boston, Mass.
Prof. Trifkovic replies:
While I agree entirely with Mr. Karakostas about the culpability of NATO—the United States government, really—in effectively facilitating and condoning Turkey’s crimes against the Greek remnant in Constantinople and against the Cypriot Greeks, I believe that some distinction should be made between the crimes of commission and the crimes of omission.
A boneheaded Pentagon planner or CIA operative could claim more or less persuasively, in 1955 or in 1974, that Turkey was too important to alienate in the broader context of then-ongoing Cold War and the country’s huge geopolitical significance to the Western alliance.
That position would be both morally bankrupt and operationally flawed, of course, but at least it could make some sense in the context of the time.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, on the other hand, NATO has been engaged in outright criminality, aggression and subterfuge, well documented by Chronicles authors including yours truly.
NATO’s passivity over the final solution of the Greek question in Turkey 70 years ago and NATO’s proactive role in fomenting the war in Ukraine are indicative of a similar mindset, but the magnitude of the crime and its global implications are “objectively” different (hat tip to V. I. Lenin).
Controversy in Greece continues over the legalization of gay marriage. At least three bishops have excommunicated politicians who voted to legalize gay marriage. The President of Greece and other politicians have been disinvited from the celebration of the Sunday of Orthodoxy later this month.
The bishops are within their rights to deny communion to anyone whom they feel should not receive. This is not understood by Greek politicians who reveal how out of touch they really are with Orthodoxy and Hellenism. They are so infatuated with Europe and western culture they have forgotten about Greece’s spiritual and cultural roots.
Syriza leader Kasselakis and his American friend have suggested that a problem with the new law is the fact that it does not address trans rights. So, the Prime Minister has opened up a Pandora’s box which will not so easily be closed. The trans movement with its beliefs in pregnant men and advocacy for mutilating children is going to follow gay marriage.
In fairness, gay people have rights. Hate crimes and discrimination in work or housing should be prosecuted. Individuals, gay or straight should be permitted to leave their propery and health care benefits to whomever they like. But, marriage can never be anything other than a union between man and woman.
Greece has many problems. The rise of organized crime is one problem. The large number of migrants in Greece remains a problem. The biggest problem however are the continued threats of Turkey to invade the islands.
Turkey has established influence in the Russo- Ukrainian war as a mediator. Greece has played no part in a mediation between two Orthodox countries largely because Greek officials are so thoroughly westernized they have a limited knowledge of Orthodoxy. Are they even aware that the Greeks converted Russia and Ukraine to Christianity one thousand years ago?
The Church’s fight here is both spiritual and political. They are fighting first and foremost for the gospel and the faith. Secondly, they are fighting for the sovereignty and independence of Greece against western imperialism. At a time when Greece needs unity, Mitsotakis has divided Greeks.
The passage of the gay marriage law is proving to be disastrous and divisive. Mitsotakis deserves to be removed as Prime Minister. The worst leader Greece has had since Costas Simitis.
“The Vanishing” is an excellent journalistic account about the plight of Christians in the Middle East. The book examines the plight of Christians in Iraq, Gaza, Syria, and Egypt. This is excellent journalism with great interviews of Christians in all of the above mentioned countries.
There is also a great deal of historical background and an examination of the differing views on authoritarian regimes such as Syria and Iraq. Christians interviewed in these countries were overwhelmingly pro regime and condemned western efforts to overthrow those governments. An examination was undertaken to examine the undemocratic nature of these regimes.
Undemocratic as they are, they are tolerant of Christianity and the author made it clear why Christians support these governments. This is a very good survey and examination about the plight of middle eastern Christians.
The following letter is in response to the February 23 interview with former American National Security Advisor John Bolton. Mr. Bolton is a notorious “neoconservative” and advocate for the pro war foreign policy of the United States. Much of the interview focused on Donald Trump and the possibility of a future Trump administration leaving NATO. NATO has not been good for Greece. The staff at Ekathemerini need reminding that after the anti Greek pogroms of September 1955 and the further ethnic cleansing campaigns by Turkey against the Greeks of Constantinople and the islands of Imbros and Tenedos, NATO did nothing to condemn the Turks or to restrain them.
NATO member Turkey invaded Cyprus and still occupies thirty seven percent of Cyprus after having ethnically cleansed Greek Cypriots from the occupied territories. History has shown that American wars in the middle east and American and European wars (hot and cold) against Russia increases the west’s reliance on Turkey. This is what happened in 1853 after the outbreak of the Crimean War when an anti Russian hysteria in Europe broke out. Great Britain and France went to war on behalf of the Ottoman Empire against the Russians.
The more recent anti Russian hysteria which broke out in the United States over the past decade has led to a revival of the traditional pro Turkish foreign policy by NATO and the United States. The Russians in turn have sought to counter NATO by attempting to gain Turkey as an ally. This rivalry between the west and Russia has once again increased Turkish influence and power as both Washington and Moscow desire Turkey as an ally.
Either the abolition of NATO or a reconciliation between the west and Russia is a necessity for Greece. While the west has viewed Moscow as its main enemy, Turkey has gradually been increasing its influence and power over the Middle East, the Balkans, and Central Asia. Turkey assisted Azerbaijan in the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. Where is NATO to condemn the Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression?
The former administration of Donald Trump was unique in recent American history. It did not start any wars in contrast to its predecessors,or its successor. This is important for Greece as long as American administrations come along which seek to pursue policies in pursuit of an empire, and wars specifically in areas surrounding Turkey, then Ankara will be looked upon as indispensable for American and western interests. It would be beneficial for Greece to have an administration in office that seeks to stop intervening abroad and considers dismantling the Cold War era alliance.
It is telling that the interviewer only asked one question about Greece and that was the very last question. The interview focused exclusively on NATO. Greek interests do not coincide with NATO or the pro war policies that American officials such as Mr. Bolton support. Greece’s primary interests lie in self defense against increasing hostility and territorial expansionism openly espoused by Turkish President Erdogan and other Turkish officials.
When Prime Minister Mr. Mitsotakis appealed to NATO to demand that Turkey stop threatening to invade the Greek islands, the Secretary General of NATO refused to intercede. When Athens asked Germany to stop the sale of submarines to Turkey, the German government refused. Greece is in serious trouble with “allies” such as this.
The following letter is in response to the February 16 item “Turkey and Greece to join European missile shield”. The report states that the initiative is intended against the kind of attacks that Russia launched against Ukraine. There is plenty of irony in this assertion and the article in general. Europe has been attacked in recent years by Al Quada and ISIS, not by the Russians. This is an important fact to point out because NATO member Turkey which has been invited to join the Sky Shield Initiative has been a prominent collaborator with both ISIS and Al Quada.
Columbia University published an entire report that showed the extent to which Turkey was helping ISIS when the latter was engaging in full scale genocide against Christians, Shiite Muslims, and Yazidis. Furthermore, Turkey has been assisting the Al Nusra front and others in Syria who were part of Al Quada’s terrorist network. The Turkish government was supporting Al Quada elements who were fighting in the civil war in Libya as well. Most recently, Turkey exported Al Quada terrorists from Libya and Syria where they participated in the genocide and ethnic cleansing of ethnic Armenians by the Turkish army of Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The article falsely states that Turkey has “a longstanding rivalry and unresolved disputes with fellow alliance member Greece”. Actually, this is not true. Turkey is a predator nation that has openly threatened to invade Greece and seize the Greek islands that are located near the Asia Minor coast. The leader of one of Turkey’s fascist parties (National Action Party) openly displayed a map which showed the Greek islands as being part of Turkey.
In 1974, Turkey invaded and occupied thirty seven percent of Cyprus and instituted a policy of ethnic cleansing against 200,000 ethnic Greeks. Turkey has also threatened Cyprus over oil rights which belong under the sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus. Inviting Turkey to join the Sky Shield Initiative is absurd. The greatest threat facing Europe comes from Turkey under the leadership of Recep Teyyip Erdogan who has threatened to flood Europe with millions of refugees.
