2009
Thursday 11/05
In a strong and principled editorial, the Intermountain Jewish News decried the fact that “some national Jewish organizations lied about the Armenian Genocide” to ensure Israel’s good relations with Turkey. Berating these lies as “disgraceful,” the editorial stated, “Lying about the Armenian genocide should not be part of the currency of Israeli – or American Jewish – diplomacy with Turkey . . . Something so immeasurably and absolutely immoral as genocide cannot effectively be subjected to diplomacy or politics.” Pointing to the deterioration of Turkish-Israeli relations, the editorial noted, “All of that genuflection on the Armenian genocide did not help,” and concluded that posterity “treats genocide deniers very unkindly.”
Sunday 11/01
Continuing to shill for the genocide-denying Turks, Abe Foxman confirms that the Anti-Defamation League remains opposed to a Congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide, according to Hurriyet. “We continue to oppose a bill being passed on this subject and welcome the steps taken to establish relations between Turkey and Armenia. We believe that problems should be resolved between Turkish and Armenian people in this way and not in the United States Congress or the French parliament.” Foxman also commented that he personally feels “very close to Turkey.”
Tuesday 09/22
American Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, were first on Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s calendar after his arrival in New York on Monday, according to Today’s Zaman. Among the approximately 50 Jewish representatives from these groups was the ADL’s Abraham Foxman, who told ANKA news agency, “For us, what matters is the fact that Prime Minister Erdogan received us first as soon as he came to New York. This is an important point for us because Prime Minister Erdogan has shown the importance he attached to us as well as to relations between Turkey and Israel.”
Today’s Zaman added that “Foxman insists that two resolutions pending in the US Congress endorsing the genocide claims would not help resolve the dispute between Turks and Armenians.”
Foxman labeled the tensions that arose between Turkey and Israel following Israel’s attack on Gaza as “history,” and called the session “a very positive meeting,” while Erdogan discussed Turkish-Armenian rapprochement and Karabakh.
Incredibly, the Jewish representatives “expressed concern” to Erdogan – himself a genocide denier – over Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial. Two years ago, Erdogan told officials from these same organizations that Armenian “genocide claims were not supported by any scientific or historical documentation,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
Friday 08/07
In a blog entitled “The Decline of the ADL” posted on the The American Prospect webpage, Ezra Klein writes that Abraham Foxman “made the astounding decision to oppose recognition of the Armenian Genocide in Congress -- because it was ‘counterproductive.’ Until 2007, the ADL hadn’t even recognized the murder of a million Armenians as genocide.”
Pointing out that Foxman has “repeatedly thrown himself into the fray to advance right wing interests in his role as head of the Anti-Defamation League,” Klein concludes that “The ADL’s former embrace of universal human rights . . . has become entirely selective, depending on who is hurting who.”
Friday 06/05
Asbarez reports that Armenian and other human rights activists at UC Santa Barbara have convinced campus organizations to disassociate with the ADL because lobbying against recognition of the Armenian Genocide is “inconsistent with such a profound human rights issue.” Student leaders organized a letter-writing campaign, spoke to university officials and legislators, sponsored a panel discussion, and educated campus groups. Students vow to “continue to work to keep the genocide deniers at the ADL off their campus.”
Wednesday 05/20
Ultraconservative publication FrontPageMag condemns “the ADL’s predatory take on the Armenian Genocide,” reporting that the ADL “was finally forced to sever its ties to the Armenian Genocide Denial movement because outraged board members threatened to resign and take their contributions with them.”
Stephen Steinlight writes that the “ADL's debacle over the Armenian Genocide . . . trivializing the enormity inflicted on the Armenian people by the Ottomans and their Kurdish henchmen” achieved little.“Apart from the irreparable damage ADL did to its own reputation – it lost an enormous share of its moral capital – it's worth pointing out just how much it accomplished by way of improving Turkish-Israeli or Turkish-Jewish relations. That a Jewish organization was prepared to equivocate about another people's genocide in exchange for what it perceived as immediate Jewish self-interest – to toss the murder of over a million Armenians under the bus was so monstrous and revolting – if there is a cardinal sin a Jewish organization can commit this is it – the fact that its intentions have backfired appears Providential (though there is of course no causal connection).”
Steinlight concludes his remarks on the ADL and the Armenian Genocide by saying, “If I sold t-shirts for a living, my fantasy would be to create one for Abe Foxman, ADL's longtime leader, with a logo of the Star of David, an X superimposed on it, with the words ‘I denied the Armenian genocide and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!’ If Foxman had a shred of decency, he would have resigned long ago for heaping such shame on all Americans who are Jews, let alone his own organization. The ADL has done good work in the past, and so occasionally has Foxman; there have been times when his tough-guy persona permitted him to be the one American-Jewish leader who, to use the cliche, "spoke truth to power." But genocide denial is unforgivable: one cannot come back after that. It is still not too late for his board to demand his resignation, though I'm under no illusions about how much backbone it possesses. The truth is without Foxman there is no ADL; at this stage, however, whether that would represent a loss is an open question.”
Wednesday 04/29
The Anti-Defamation League has announced its continued opposition to a Congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. In an e-mail to the Jewish Daily Forward, the ADL wrote, “...our position is that a Congressional resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion and will not foster reconciliation between Turks and Armenians, who should work out the issue between themselves.”
The Forward article reports that the Jewish community is split on the issue: “While some groups see this as a human rights issue related to the Holocaust, others have stayed silent or even actively opposed the ‘genocide’ designation.”
According to the Forward, “A handful of powerful Jewish advocacy groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, has declined to support the resolutions in past years, and some Jewish groups have even worked against them. Still, a host of other Jewish groups, including American Jewish World Service; the Progressive Jewish Alliance, a California-based activist group, and Jewish World Watch, which mobilizes synagogues around human rights issues, have supported efforts to recognize the mass killings of Armenians as a genocide.”
Wednesday 03/25
Israel will not recognize the Armenian Genocide despite its friction with Turkey over Gaza, according to an article in the Jerusalem Post. “Israel’s position on this is important,” according to the Post, “because it impacts the position of major American Jewish organizations which in the past have helped Turkey lobby against the legislation in Congress to declare the event a genocide.”
Jess Hordes of the Anti-Defamation League’s Washington office attests to the bond between Israel and Turkey: “Both countries recognize they have strategic relations that are important to maintain.” He also reiterates the ADL continues to oppose a Congressional resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide. Likewise, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein is quoted as saying, “The relationships between Turkey, Israel and the United States remain very important.”
Not all Jewish groups agree with the ADL or the Conference, however, according to the article. One senior official of a major American Jewish organization reported, “The grassroots membership of the major organizations has never been happy about looking the other way about the massacre of Armenians . . . There’s not a lot of support in the grassroots for bending over backwards to meet the needs of Turkey right now.”
Thursday 03/19
Responding to the March 4 letter to Hampshire College by the Armenian National Committee of Massachusetts, the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund has written to the school in support of the Anti-Defamation League. Authored by attorneys Bruce Fein and David Saltzman, the letter proclaims, “In contrast to the Holocaust, no court has ever adjudicated the Armenian genocide accusation,” and says Armenian Americans oppose “debating the question.The letter also lists those who “dispute the Armenian genocide,” such as Justin McCarthy and Guenter Lewy, and accuses the ANC-MA of defaming the ADL.
Friday 03/13
Former ADL New England Regional Director Andrew Tarsy has stated that it is important to call the massacres of Armenians “a genocide,” and that “I was fired for that.” In a March 7 speech to Bay Area Armenians, Tarsy also described watching the No Place for Hate program, which he had helped build, “literally fall apart because of the politics that our organization decided to get involved in, that . . . really contradicted our very mission.” He added, “When you begin to make exceptions to statements like No Place for Hate, or social justice and equality and validation for all, the whole enterprise begins to crack.”
Tarsy also questioned why that despite his education, he had “no knowledge at all about the Armenian Genocide.” Yet, he pointed out, “While the Armenian Genocide was taking place, the entire world knew exactly what was going on . . . in the New York Times in 1915 alone, there were 145 articles about what was happening. There were 145 articles in one year about the systematic destruction of this people, of this culture, of these human beings.”
Tarsy, who is currently Chief Institutional Advancement Officer at Facing History and Ourselves, spoke at the annual Hye Tahd banquet hosted by the Bay Area Armenian National Committee.
Thursday 03/12
The town of Easton became the 14th Massachusetts town to withdraw from the No Place for Hate program due to the ADL’s position on the Armenian Genocide. According to an article in the Easton Journal, town selectmen created a new human rights committee to replace the NPFH committee “which was disbanded in February after the Anti-Defamation League, their sponsor, refused to fully recognize the Armenian genocide that killed up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during and after World War I.”
Wednesday 03/04
The Armenian National Committee of Massachusetts has sent a letter to the president of Hampshire College decrying the school’s invitation to the Anti-Defamation League to visit the campus “to ensure that all students feel welcome and safe on campus.” This invitation follows reports, disputed by college officials, that Hampshire College had divested in companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
“The Anti-Defamation League is an organization that actively engages in genocide denial, which is the highest form of hate speech and the final stage of genocide,” wrote the ANCMA. “Hampshire College’s inclusion of the ADL in campus discussions on tolerance is an affront to all those fighting for genocide prevention and human rights.
“It is highly hypocritical for the ADL to present itself as an organization that secures the rights of all people while it actively perpetrates the worst form of hatred against Armenians,” the ANCMA declared. “The Anti-Defamation League is most assuredly not the group upon which Hampshire College should call to ensure an atmosphere of respect and safety for all members of its community.”
“Hampshire College, widely known for its progressive values and mandate, must not sanction the ADL’s unethical actions by allowing it to define the terms of tolerance. By partnering with the ADL, Hampshire College will become indelibly associated with genocide denial,” the letter concluded.
Tuesday 02/24
According to the Guardian, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan “dismissed fears that the US pro-Israel lobby would retaliate” against his walkout at Davos by lifting its opposition to a congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. “I believe the United States feels and knows the importance of Turkey within the region,” he said. “The so-called Armenian genocide is not an issue that can affect Turkey-American relations in a very strong way. I don’t believe the US Congress would take a decision based on emotions. It should be left to historians.”
Monday 02/16
In an editorial entitled "A cynical use of morality," Haaretz argues that Israel should not threaten to recognize the Armenian Genocide as a punishment for Turkey's "blunt statements" about Israel's actions in Gaza. "If Israel seeks to alter its stance on the question of the murder of the Armenians," writes Haaretz, "it would be wise to do so at a more appropriate time, from a worthy position of morality and not as a way to make threats."
Friday 02/13
“Does it take an outburst by an imbalanced head of state [Erdogan] for Jewish organizations and the state of Israel to re-posture on something as fundamental as recognizing the Armenian Genocide?” asks Ara Khachatourian in The Armenian Weekly.
This is a question “that should boggle the minds of all human rights advocates and supporters of genocide recognition,” he says, and wonders if the decision will be “based on historic fact or for political expediency.”
Thursday 02/12
Writing on the Armenian Genocide, journalist Sean Gannon argues in The Jerusalem Post that despite repercussions for Turkish-Israeli relations and Turkey’s Jewish community, “Israel, perhaps more than other nations, has a moral obligation to call this crime by its name.” Describing Turkish denial as “part of Turkey’s founding mythology,” Gannon writes, “The fact is that the Armenian massacres constituted genocide by any international standard.”
Sunday 02/07
The former executive director of the ADL, Andrew Tarsy, says that the "entire Jewish community of Greater Boston" stood with him in his battle against the national ADL over recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Participating in a panel discussion on the legacy of Hrant Dink, Tarsy told the audience that "for those of you who didn't know that then, it's important you know that now."
Wednesday 02/04
=Abraham Foxman provides yet more proof that the Anti-Defamation League prioritizes Israel’s interests over securing the human rights of all people in his comments to The New York Times on the strain in the Israeli-Turkish alliance resulting from Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s denunciation of Israel’s attack on Gaza.
Acknowledging that American “Jewish groups have helped Turkey block a resolution that condemns the genocide of a more than a million Ottoman Empire Armenians from being discussed in Congress,” the Times reports: “Abraham H. Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, said that Mr. Erdogan’s criticism was ‘like a shock to the system,’ but added that the league had not changed its opposition to the genocide bill in Congress. ‘It’s not a question of punishment,’ he said. ‘There’s too much at stake in the relationship.’”
=Unlike other Jewish groups, the ADL is still “actively opposing” a Congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide, reports The Jewish Daily Forward. “Right now we have no intention of changing our position from last year,” states Jess Hordes of the ADL’s Washington office. According to the Forward, “Turkish diplomats in Washington have ratcheted up their outreach efforts to the Jewish community in recent weeks.”
Tuesday 02/03
=The Jerusalem Post reports that an official with a leading American Jewish organization said his and other groups may “reconsider Armenian efforts to win recognition of the century-old Turkish massacres as genocide.” The Post writes that the Congressional resolution “sparked a row in the American Jewish community between those who sided with Turkey in an effort to protect Israel's political interests, and those who argued that Jews were particularly responsible for helping other groups block the public denial of genocide.”
Yet, the ADL’s Abraham Foxman told the Post “that as long as Israel maintained diplomatic ties with Turkey, he saw no immediate reason to change his position on any future genocide resolutions.”
Maintaining his opposition to a resolution, Foxman declared, “The interests between Israel and Turkey continue,” and the two countries remain “friends.”
=Turkish analysts are attempting to predict the ramifications of the possible loss of the Israel lobby and President Obama’s pledge to recognize the Armenian Genocide reports Today’s Zaman. The paper also says that Israeli parliamentary sources predict a bill acknowledging the Armenian Genocide will be introduced again this year. It quotes Likud member Zeev Elkin as stating, “Ankara’s stance has proven the absolute inevitability of the recognition of the Armenian genocide by the Israeli parliament.”
Friday 01/30
=Turkey’s geopolitical position has actually benefited from its harsh criticism of Israel, writes Allen Yekikan in Asbarez. The intelligence group Stratfor states, “Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party are making use of the Gaza crisis to further their goals of reasserting Turkey's leadership of the Arab Middle East, and of the wider Muslim world.”
=Emrullah Uslu writes in Eurasia Daily Monitor that although Turkish-Isareli relations have been harmed, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan “has become a hero of the masses” for his condemnation of Israel’s attack on Gaza, and may become a “new Nasser” in the Arab world.
Thursday 01/29
=“We’re not convinced that Turkey has earned the right to lecture Israelis about human rights,” declares the Jerusalem Post in a story on tensions between Turkey and Israel, according to the Armenian Reporter.
=Writing in the Huffington Post, Harut Sassounian says, “There are serious indications that Israel and American-Jewish organizations are no longer willing to support Turkey's lobbying efforts in Washington.” Sassounian quotes Professor Benjamin Yafet as saying he had "very reliable information that all major American Jewish organizations are now fed up with Turkey and are ready to support the Armenian Genocide resolution."
=The Economist has weighed in on how strains in Turkey and Israel’s “special relationship” might affect an Armenian Genocide resolution: “But if anti-Israeli rhetoric in Turkey persists, the Israeli lobby in the United States could hit back by backing a congressional resolution to call the mass killings by Turks of some 1m Armenians “genocide”. Hitherto, Israel’s influential lobby in America has repeatedly helped block such a resolution, though Barack Obama and his vice-president, Joe Biden, have both referred to genocide in the past and have pledged to back the bill.
Secret talks between Turkey and Armenia to open diplomatic ties and reopen their borders are hotly opposed by some in the Armenian diaspora’s lobby in America. American Jews have long felt queasy about defending Turkey over the massacre of Armenians. Hitherto, pragmatism has prevailed and they have sided with the Turks. But if Mr Erdogan keeps on lambasting Israel, they may change their mind.”
Wednesday 01/28
=Under Abraham Foxman, “antidefamation is not really the ADL’s line; defamation is,” charges Eric Alterman in scathing criticism published in The Nation. Alterman declares: “Foxman's moral compass has gotten so twisted, he has the ADL working to undermine Congressional resolutions condemning genocide--specifically, that committed by Turks against the Armenians. Foxman does not dispute that genocide took place; rather, he argues that it would be inconvenient for Turkish (and Israeli) Jews were Congress to take note of it. So we have reached a point where an organization founded by Jews in 1913 to "secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike" is now in the business of defaming those with whom its director disagrees and purposely turning a blind eye to genocide. In light of the desire of so many anti-Semites to treat the Holocaust in a similar fashion, Foxman's position strikes this Jew at least as one too many ironies to be tolerated.”
=David Boyajian writes in the Newton Tab that the ADL has been criticized by Jews as well as Armenians, and that the ADL, the AJC and other organizations lobbying “to support Turkey’s genocide denials . . . clearly have a moral obligation to repair the immense damage they’ve done to human rights and Armenians.”
Friday 01/23
=Reporting on the Turkish-Israeli strategic alliance, Gerald Caplan writes in Toronto’s Globe and Mail: “As part of the Faustian bargain between the two countries, a succession of Israeli governments of all stripes has adamantly refused to recognize that in 1915 the Turkish government was responsible for launching a genocide against its Armenian minority.”
“Over the years, Israelis, with a few notably courageous exceptions, have actually worked against attempts to safeguard the memory of the Armenian genocide,” writes Caplan, and “many established Jewish organizations in other countries, especially the United States, have followed suit. In the United States, those who argue that denying the Holocaust is psychologically tantamount to a second holocaust have taken the lead in pressuring presidents and Congress against recognizing the reality of 1915.”
Noting the recent tensions between Israel and Turkey over Gaza, Caplan conjectures leading Jewish organizations may no longer support Turkey on this issue. “Whatever the outcome,” he concludes, “be sure that politics, not genocide, will be the decisive factor.”
=Asbarez reports that ADL National Director Abraham Foxman accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan of using “very sharp words” in his denunciation of Israel’s actions in Gaza, according to the Turkish paper Milliyet. “Turkey was our friend. I am sorrowful and confused,” lamented Foxman.
=The Anti-Defamation League is one of five American Jewish organizations that sent a letter to the Turkish prime minister expressing concern over the current wave of anti-Semitism in Turkey, reports PanARMENIAN.Net. The letter points to a connection between “the inflammatory denunciation of Israel by Turkish officials and the rise of anti-Semitism.”
Wednesday 01/21
Three letters published in the Newton Tab support David Boyajian's criticism of the ADL: Ralph Filicchia writes that Larry Epstein's charge of anti-Semitism is "way out of line" and that many Jewish people and groups agree with Boyajian on the question of the Armenian Genocide. Joseph Dagdigian points out that recognition of the Armenian Genocide is not a historical issue, but a political one. He adds, "Mr. Epstein should read his history a bit more closely. Turkey was not at war with Armenia; Turkey committed a genocide against its own civilian Armenian citizens." Finally, Karnig Boyajian states that "genocide cannot be considered the sole domain of the Jewish nation" and that acknowledging the Armenian Genocide would not "somehow diminish the Holocaust."
Friday 01/16
Harout Sassounian reports in Asbarez that Turkey’s condemnation of Israel’s attack in Gaza has so angered Israeli officials that they may “retaliate either by recognizing the Armenian Genocide or refusing to help Turkey to lobby against a congressional resolution on the genocide.” Several Turkish media outlets quoted Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majalli Whbee, for instance, as saying, “Erdogan says that genocide is taking place in Gaza. We will then recognize the Armenian related events as genocide.”
“While it is unlikely that Israel would reverse its long-standing refusal to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide,” writes Sassounian, “it may decide not to accommodate future Turkish requests to have American Jewish organizations to lobby against a congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide.”
Tuesday 01/13
Andrew Kevorkian replies to Larry Epstein by pointing our that professional historians associated with the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the International Commission for Transitional Justice, and others, including 56 professional Israeli and Jewish historians who called on Turkey in 2001 to recognize the Armenian Genocide all agree with Mr. Boyajian. The only “so-called scholars” who deny the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide are those “who are now or who have been in the pay directly or indirectly of the Turkish government.”
Tuesday 01/06
A response to David Boyajian’s article in the Newton Tab claims that there “is legitimate debate among historians regarding the question of genocide in Armenia,” and that professional “historians disagree on the intent of the Turks’ war upon Armenia.” Larry Epstein also accuses Boyajian of anti-Semitism and scapegoating of Jews.
UPDATES FOR 2009
