In recent decades, Holocaust denial has reached extraordinary and worrying proportions. And it is not only states hostile to Israel that are engaged in this -- various social trends around the Western world are also creating new and disturbing forms of Holocaust denial. While the older forms of this phenomenon simply denied the events, the numbers and the historical facts, the newer, more sophisticated forms are distorting history and the memory of the Holocaust by portraying its victims as the evil protagonists. The most common method of distorting history is termed by post-Holocaust researchers as "reversal." According to a system of logic with clear goals, the Israel Defense Forces is presented as the modern version of the Wehrmacht, the Palestinians are in prisoners' garb and the Gaza Strip is none other than a new ghetto in which the Jews, in an act that has been ongoing since their arrival in the Middle East from the death camps, are intentionally starving the Arabs. Given this reality, in which Israel is dealing with a challenging propaganda front, International Holocaust Remembrance Day stands out as one of the rare diplomatic successes won by the State of Israel in recent years. The dedication of this day of recognition was made unanimously in 2006, and the wording of the decision notes that during the Second World War, a third of the Jewish people, along with members of other minority groups, were murdered by the Nazis. In a rare consensus, 100 countries from around the world signed the resolution, including some not considered to be close friends of Israel's. However, the diplomatic success and proper, fair recognition of our national tragedy holds us to moral standards that we were not always able to meet. An important message is hidden in the marking of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27. This was the date that the Red Army entered Auschwitz and liberated the remaining survivors from the concentration camp. Even the greatest admirers of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters, even those who are rightly proud of the exceptional fighting of the Zionist youth groups in harsh battles against Nazi soldiers, cannot ignore the fact that it was the free world -- led by the Americans and the British in the West and by the Soviets in the East -- that rescued the remaining survivors from the fate of the other 6 million. International Holocaust Remembrance Day, for us, comes with an additional duty, one that is deeper and more difficult. As others mark our tragedy, so too is it our duty to honestly and fairly recognize the tragedies of others. In the Armenian genocide -- which included mass murders, exile and death marches carried out under Turkish rule during World War I -- about 1.5 million Armenians were killed, alongside Assyrians and Greeks, at Turkey's initiative. Turkey sought to carry out ethnic cleansing in Asia Minor. Israel has stammered and stuttered when it comes to addressing this event, which is a "Holocaust of others." Some changes have been made in Israel, albeit at a pace of one step forward and two steps back, since the screening of a documentary on the Armenian genocide was canceled in 1989. But then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' statement in 2001 still echoes and does not reflect honorably upon Israeli diplomacy. He said that while the Armenian people had undergone tragedy, it was not a genocide. Two years later, Naomi Nalbandian, a member of Israel's Armenian community and a nurse at Hadassah Hospital, was selected to light a torch on Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism, but was asked to remove any mention of her people's genocide from her speech. Absurdly, a year after the nations of the world decided to recognize International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Knesset removed a discussion on the Armenian genocide from its agenda. More than on any other day, Jan. 27 is, for us, a good opportunity not only to thank the world -- which, despite its hostility toward us, is prepared to recognize the terrible tragedy that is a part of our history -- but also to engage in some introspection, and perhaps to reach a clear, determined decision that we too must recognize the Holocausts of others, without bringing politics into the equation. Dr. Eyal Levin is the head of the Multidisciplinary Department at Ariel University's Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities.