Haaretz.com -- The defense minister paid a visit to Turkey this week. They say it was a success. If so, it is possible to renew the conspiracy of silence and the silencing.

This is what happened a few months ago after Recep Tayyip Erdogan once again poured bitter words upon us. An important Israeli personality telephoned me and said the following: "Now you have to hit back at the Turks, to denounce them for the crimes they committed against the Armenians. You, Yossi, have the right to do so. Today you are a private citizen, but even when you were a public figure you did not hold yourself back. You expressed yourself often, in writing and orally, against the way they shirked responsibility for the genocide."

I was filled with revulsion and my soul wanted to puke. The person who telephoned me was an example of the ugly Israeli who had disgracefully been at the forefront of those who denied the Armenian Holocaust.

Mr. Jivan Tabibian, political theorist, diplomat, teacher, government affairs consultant, design and cinema consultant, food critic and restaurateur, cigar aficionado, systems designer and member of the Civilitas Foundation Honorary Board, passed away in Vienna, Austria, on July 31, 2009.

Mr. Tabibian, whose rich career in academia, international organizations, government and business took him all over the world, had been for the last decade, the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Armenia to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He retired from that post in 2008. For most of that period, he was also Armenia’s ambassador to Hungary, Austria, Czech and Slovakia.