The Wall Street Journal ran a full-page ad Wednesday for a website that denies the Armenian genocide, an ethnic cleansing that left 1.5 million people dead.

Full-page ad in today’s @WSJ denying the Armenian genocide pic.twitter.com/LjBGjCo80l

— Gary Bass (@Gary__Bass) April 20, 2016

“Truth = Peace,” the ad reads. A hand with the Turkish flag makes a peace sign, while two hands crossing their fingers have the Russian and Armenian flags on them. The ad directs readers to visit FactCheckArmenia.com to get the real story.

The site in question excuses in broken English the mass killing and removal of the Armenians during the First World War by claiming they were “collectively guilty” of treason against the Ottoman Empire.

Armenians gave the greatest harm to the Turkish people, by the massacring them during the First World War. In this period, the Armenians spied for the Russians, they fled from their military service, by not obeying the mobilisation orders, and those Armenians who were taken under arms joining onto the Russian Army, with their arms, and they thus committed collectively the guilt of being “ treacherous to the land “.

The paper’s decision to publish the ad met with criticism online, with frequent comparison to a hypothetical ad denying the Holocaust.

The WSJ would not print an ad from a group denying the Holocaust, which is equally well established. Awful judgment. https://t.co/WuilThB9Zy

— Popehat (@Popehat) April 20, 2016

Would the Wall Street Journal publish an ad by Holocaust revisionists? https://t.co/WFZItGwVZx

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) April 20, 2016

The Washington Post also earned criticism in 2015 for its decision to run a full-page ad urging President Obama and Congress not to recognize the Armenian genocide. The New York Times refused to run the same ad.

[Image via Twitter/Gary Bass]
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