ADL Says Protecting Israel Justifies Not Memorializing Armenian Genocide

by on August 21, 2007 6

In an ad in the Boston Globe, the Anti-Defamation League says the controversy over its nonrecognition of the Armenian genocide in Turkey in '15-'18 has "nothing to do" with its program of fighting hatred and bigotry. Huh. It goes on to justify its refusal to support official recognition of the Armenian Genocide (in which, the Armenian community says, 1.5 million Armenians were killed) by stating that Turkey is a "staunch friend of Israel" and "the most critical country     in the world" in the battle against radical Islam.

What a pity. It's central to the business of any human-rights organization to memorialize genocides. So that civilization can move forward, so that the victims will have honor, so that the killers will suffer disgrace. It's called historical justice. The ADL's very-political position on the Armenians tends to undermine its own ceaseless efforts to memorialize the Jewish holocaust in Europe. How much of that campaign is also political: to maintain moral support for Israel? 

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Israel/Palestine, Middle East, US Policy in the Middle East

{ 6 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. WEISS IS A LIAR says:
    August 21, 2007 at 7:37 am

    TEXT FROM THE AD:
    "ADL has acknowledged and never denied the massacres of hundreds of thousands of Armenians — and by some accounts more than one million — at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1918.

    We believe that the Turkish government must do more than it has to confront its history and to seek reconciliation with the Armenian people. We have said that to the Turkish government and its officials, we will continue to do so, and we take this opportunity to repeat it publicly. We will continue to work to convince Turkey to pursue recognition and reconciliation, and we will seek ways to encourage this process.

    We believe that legislative efforts outside of Turkey are counterproductive to the goal of having Turkey itself come to grips with its past. We take no position on what action Congress should take on House Resolution 106."

  2. bill pearlman says:
    August 21, 2007 at 8:52 am

    First, Gauleiters, very subtle, and who exactly is pushing Christians out of the middle east you now, Bethlehem for example.
    Second, I know this is going to be shocking to the hitler/hamas brigades that inhabit these talk backs but the ADL is not seen has a particularly right wing, strong on Israel crew. Its way more liberal than Jewish should be closed up and the money chenneled into Jewish day schools. But, again, somebody explain to me how a genocide carried out by MOSLEMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! becomes a Jewish issue.

  3. DLevy says:
    August 21, 2007 at 8:56 am

    "We take no position on what action Congress should take on House Resolution 106"

    This is an outright lie and every Jew who works on the Hill (including myself) knows it)

    As a 15 year Hill veteran I can say the ADL is the chief organization lobbying Congress against recognition. It does so more than Ankara and on behalf of Ankara. One need to go no further than the Jerusalem Post or Haaretz to to read about it, as responsible pro-Isrel US interests have been concerned about this morally bankrupt support of the worst aspects of Turkey's relations with its neighbors since the phenomena started in the mid-late 1990's.

    ADL is now firmly in the genocide denial camp. The ADL is cravenly destroying relations between the Jewish American community and the Greek and Armenian American communities.

  4. William Burns says:
    August 21, 2007 at 11:46 am

    Bill Pearlman,

    Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been properly condemned for casting doubt on the Holocaust, even though the Holocaust was the responsibility of Germans, not Iranians. How did this become a Muslim issue?

  5. lester says:
    August 21, 2007 at 1:02 pm

    Now Foxman has brought way more attention to the cause than any senate resolution would have. and as a bonus, he has taken his career down with it! goodbye and thanks jewish al sharpton.

  6. Joachim Martillo says:
    August 21, 2007 at 3:52 pm

    I am not expecting admission any time soon that the Zionist movement plotted genocide against the native Palestinian population in the 19th century, carried out most of the program in the middle 20th century, and are trying to finish the job right before our eyes.

    http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/103751.html

    ADL reverses itself on Armenian genocide

    Published: 08/21/2007

    In a dramatic reversal, the Anti-Defamation League's national director issued a statement Tuesday using the term "genocide" to describe the massacres perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians.

    The ADL and its national director, Abraham Foxman, have faced mounting criticism in recent weeks for refusing to use the genocide label and essentially opposing a proposed congressional resolution that would do so. The controversy heated up last week when Foxman fired the director of the ADL's New England region for denouncing the organization's position in an interview with the Boston Globe.

    "In light of the heated controversy that has surrounded the Turkish-Armenian issue in recent weeks, and because of our concern for the unity of the Jewish community at a time of increased threats against the Jewish people, ADL has decided to revisit the tragedy that befell the Armenians," Foxman said in his statement.

    "We have never negated but have always described the painful events of 1915-1918 perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians as massacres and atrocities," Foxman said. "On reflection, we have come to share the view of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. that the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide. If the word genocide had existed then, they would have called it genocide."

    Foxman said that he had consulted with "friend and mentor Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and other respected historians who acknowledge this consensus."

    The ADL leader said the organization still believes "that a Congressional resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion and will not foster reconciliation between Turks and Armenians and may put at risk the Turkish Jewish community and the important multilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States."

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