October 28, 2007
Dear ADL Commissioners:
On the eve of your national convention, we are writing on behalf of the Massachusetts Armenian-American community to ask you to ensure that the Anti-Defamation League unambiguously acknowledges the Armenian Genocide and supports U.S. recognition of this crime against humanity.
This request is consistent with the New England ADL’s commendable and courageous position as reported in the Boston Globe on August 19, 2007: “The executive committee of the regional [ADL] board broke with the national office, calling on the national ADL to recognize the genocide and, according to a source, resolving to support the legislation in Congress.”
As you may know, reacting to the Anti-Defamation League’s unexplainable position on the Armenian Genocide, seven Massachusetts communities have withdrawn from the No Place for Hate program that the organization sponsors. In addition, several Massachusetts towns as well as the Massachusetts Municipal Association will re-evaluate their association with the ADL based on whether or not the ADL, at its national convention in November, decides to recognize unequivocally the Armenian Genocide and support Congressional affirmation thereof.
During the efforts aimed at bringing the ADL to the right side of this issue, Armenian-Americans, Jewish-Americans and human rights activists have consistently praised the invaluable anti-bias and diversity work performed by the No Place for Hate committees in our cities and towns.
We maintain, however, that a human rights organization that engages in a form of genocide denial and opposes recognition of genocide does not have the moral authority to sponsor such important programs in our communities.
Our deep concern with the ADL’s position on the Armenian Genocide is manifold.
The ADL’s leadership, evidently unbeknownst to its members, has denied the Armenian Genocide and actively opposed U.S. recognition of it for years. It was under pressure that National Director Abraham Foxman somewhat insincerely released a statement on the Armenian Genocide on August 21, 2007. Referring to the events of 1915-1918, the statement declared, “The consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide.”
Aside from the fact that the Armenian Genocide began in 1915 and continued through 1923, we do not consider the statement to be a full, unequivocal acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide.
First, the qualifier “tantamount” is inappropriate. The Armenian Genocide was not “tantamount to genocide,” it was genocide.
Much more critical, however, is that by employing the word “consequences,” the statement circumvents the international legal definition of genocide by avoiding any language that would imply intent, a crucial aspect of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention definition.
In that same statement, and on numerous occasions since, Mr. Foxman reiterated the ADL’s opposition to U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide. This position is inconsistent with the ADL’s mission statement. A human rights organization working “to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike” should not be working against recognition of any genocide. Human rights are universal and should never be subordinated to geopolitical interests.
Finally, in an August 23, 2007, press release, and on numerous occasions since, Mr. Foxman asked Armenians to “respond favorably to the several recent overtures of Turkey to convene a joint commission . . . to investigate what happened in the past.”
The Armenian Genocide is not open to debate. These proposed commissions to examine the Armenian Genocide are no different from last year’s Holocaust conference in Iran that the ADL rightly condemned. Why, then, does Mr. Foxman advocate Armenians participate in such a conference with state-appointed denialist historians on the payroll of the Turkish government?
We ask that the ADL remain true to its mission and fully and unequivocally acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, refrain from advocating for Turkish calls for a “historical commission,” and express support for U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
Armenian-Americans also rightfully expect an apology from Mr. Foxman for the damage and pain the ADL’s actions and statements have caused thus far.
Attached please find a “Questions and Answers” packet with supporting documents elaborating on our concerns.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Sharistan Melkonian
Armenian National Committee of Massachusetts
Herman Purutyan
Chair Armenian Assembly, Massachusetts State Chair
ANCA Letter to ADL Commissioners
October 29, 2007
Dear ADL Commissioners:
I am writing, as you prepare for your national meeting, to go on the record formally requesting that the national leadership of the Anti-Defamation League clearly recognize the Armenian Genocide and openly support proper U.S. recognition of this crime against humanity.
In making this request, we stand with the many members of your own national and regional leadership as well as with ADL grassroots members and supporters around the nation who believe that your willingness, as a human rights organization, to work energetically to recognize and condemn all instances of genocide must be unconditional. We share the points raised and concerns expressed by our Massachusetts chapter, along with our friends in the Armenian Assembly’s Massachusetts chapter, in their October 28, 2007 letter, and join with them in respectfully requesting an apology from Abraham Foxman for his longstanding denial of the Armenian Genocide.
Thank you for your consideration of our concerns and best wishes for a fruitful meeting in the service of your organization’s noble mission.
Sincerely,
Aram Hamparian
ANCA Executive Director
Dear ADL Commissioners:
I am writing, as you prepare for your national meeting, to go on the record formally requesting that the national leadership of the Anti-Defamation League clearly recognize the Armenian Genocide and openly support proper U.S. recognition of this crime against humanity.
In making this request, we stand with the many members of your own national and regional leadership as well as with ADL grassroots members and supporters around the nation who believe that your willingness, as a human rights organization, to work energetically to recognize and condemn all instances of genocide must be unconditional. We share the points raised and concerns expressed by our Massachusetts chapter, along with our friends in the Armenian Assembly’s Massachusetts chapter, in their October 28, 2007 letter, and join with them in respectfully requesting an apology from Abraham Foxman for his longstanding denial of the Armenian Genocide.
Thank you for your consideration of our concerns and best wishes for a fruitful meeting in the service of your organization’s noble mission.
Sincerely,
Aram Hamparian
ANCA Executive Director
Diocese of The Armenian Church Letter to ADL Chair
October 30, 2007
Dear Mr. Foxman,
I hope this letter finds you well. I know that you are preparing for a leadership meeting of the ADL so I wanted to follow-up on my letter of 28 August.
Again, I reiterate my appreciation for the ADL leadership taking up the issue of the Armenian Genocide. I know that organizational change, especially on sensitive, long-standing policy issues is difficult, yet a further clarification will be important for our two communities.
The Jewish ethic of Tikkun Olam, perfecting our broken world, requires us all to move out of our comfort zones, especially when matters of justice and human rights are at stake. While the ADL’s position on the recognition of the genocide has become clearer, I urge you and your colleagues to take the next, necessary step and make unequivocally clear the condemnation of the Armenian Genocide. Only by removing any language the does not fully express uniform recognition and condemnation in the most resolute terms possible, by the ADL and/or any other body, can the fullness of justice be achieved.
To acknowledge the Armenian Genocide only to speak against resolutions condemning it sets a terrible, moral precedent. Recognition leads to condemnation and without that, there can be no steps towards prevention. Recognition without condemnation does not promote justice. The last century, and sadly the first decade of this century, have seen man’s continued assault on the fundamental right to live, most notably in the Armenian Genocide, the Shoa, Cambodian Genocide, Rawandan Genocide, and sadly the Genocide that now rages on in Darfur. We cannot expect the protection of our own human rights if we are not courageous enough to speak out in favor of human rights for all. When the rights of one are diminished, all are diminished.
As you know, in law, silence is tantamount to acquiescence, therefore we must not condone and therefore share in preferential selection of one race against another through our silence. We cannot allow the political considerations that whisper today to define our resolute condemnation of all crimes against humanity, for such a decision would resonate for eternity. We must give full and unwaivering voice to our commitment to humanity.
I urge you and all members of the ADL leadership, to join in removing all objections to the condemnation of any and every genocide and crime against humanity. Because of the good work the ADL has done throughout the decades you have a unique ability to speak out. Please use that voice resoundingly in this moral imperative.
With Prayers,
Archbishop Khajag Barsamian
Primate
Dear Mr. Foxman,
I hope this letter finds you well. I know that you are preparing for a leadership meeting of the ADL so I wanted to follow-up on my letter of 28 August.
Again, I reiterate my appreciation for the ADL leadership taking up the issue of the Armenian Genocide. I know that organizational change, especially on sensitive, long-standing policy issues is difficult, yet a further clarification will be important for our two communities.
The Jewish ethic of Tikkun Olam, perfecting our broken world, requires us all to move out of our comfort zones, especially when matters of justice and human rights are at stake. While the ADL’s position on the recognition of the genocide has become clearer, I urge you and your colleagues to take the next, necessary step and make unequivocally clear the condemnation of the Armenian Genocide. Only by removing any language the does not fully express uniform recognition and condemnation in the most resolute terms possible, by the ADL and/or any other body, can the fullness of justice be achieved.
To acknowledge the Armenian Genocide only to speak against resolutions condemning it sets a terrible, moral precedent. Recognition leads to condemnation and without that, there can be no steps towards prevention. Recognition without condemnation does not promote justice. The last century, and sadly the first decade of this century, have seen man’s continued assault on the fundamental right to live, most notably in the Armenian Genocide, the Shoa, Cambodian Genocide, Rawandan Genocide, and sadly the Genocide that now rages on in Darfur. We cannot expect the protection of our own human rights if we are not courageous enough to speak out in favor of human rights for all. When the rights of one are diminished, all are diminished.
As you know, in law, silence is tantamount to acquiescence, therefore we must not condone and therefore share in preferential selection of one race against another through our silence. We cannot allow the political considerations that whisper today to define our resolute condemnation of all crimes against humanity, for such a decision would resonate for eternity. We must give full and unwaivering voice to our commitment to humanity.
I urge you and all members of the ADL leadership, to join in removing all objections to the condemnation of any and every genocide and crime against humanity. Because of the good work the ADL has done throughout the decades you have a unique ability to speak out. Please use that voice resoundingly in this moral imperative.
With Prayers,
Archbishop Khajag Barsamian
Primate
Is the Armenian Genocide “settled history?”
Yes, unequivocally.
In a June 13, 2005 letter to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), an “organization of the world’s foremost experts on genocide,” made the following points:
In a June 13, 2005 letter to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), an “organization of the world’s foremost experts on genocide,” made the following points:
- “In 1997, the IAGS “unanimously passed a formal resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide.”
- "126 leading scholars of the Holocaust including Elie Wiesel and Yehuda Bauer placed a statement in the New York Times in June 2000 declaring the ‘incontestable fact of the Armenian Genocide’ and urging western democracies to acknowledge it.”
- “ . . . It is not just Armenians who are affirming the Armenian Genocide but it is the overwhelming opinion of scholars who study genocide: hundreds of independent scholars, who have no affiliations with governments, and whose work spans many countries and nationalities and the course of decades.”
- “The scholarly evidence reveals the following: On April 24, 1915, under cover of World War I, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens – an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches. The rest of the Armenian population fled into permanent exile. Thus an ancient civilization was expunged from its homeland of 2,500 years.”
- “The Armenian Genocide is abundantly documented by thousands of official records . . . Ottoman court-martial records, by eyewitness accounts of missionaries and diplomats, by the testimony of survivors, and by decades of historical scholarship.”
- “Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, when he coined the term genocide in 1944, cited the Turkish extermination of the Armenians and the Nazi extermination of the Jews as defining examples of what he meant by genocide.”
- “The killings of the Armenians is genocide as defined by the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”
What does the person who coined the term "genocide" say?
Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin referred to the Armenian genocide on numerous occasions.
In a CBS program first broadcast in 1949, he said, “I became interested in genocide because it happened to the Armenians . . . [and the Turkish] criminals were guilty of genocide and were not punished . . . So, you see, as a lawyer, I thought that [such crimes] should be punished by a court, by a national law.”
In an article in the Hairenik Weekly (later the Armenian Weekly) on January 1, 1959, he wrote that the suffering of the Armenians had paved the way to the ratification of the Genocide Convention: “The sufferings of the Armenian men, women, and children thrown into the Euphrates River or massacred on the way to [the Syrian desert of] Der-el-Zor have prepared the way for the adoption for the Genocide Convention by the United Nations . . . This is the reason why the Armenians of the entire world were specifically interested in the Genocide Convention. They filled the galleries of the drafting committee at the third General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris when the Genocide Convention was discussed.”
At the end of the article, Lemkin asserted, “One million Armenians died, but a law against the murder of peoples was written with the ink of their blood and the spirit of their sufferings.”
In his autobiography, Lemkin wrote, “I identified myself more and more with the suffering of the victims, whose numbers grew, and I continued my study of history. I understood that the function of memory is not only to register past events, but to stimulate human conscience. Soon contemporary examples of genocide followed, such as the slaughter of the Armenians.”
In a CBS program first broadcast in 1949, he said, “I became interested in genocide because it happened to the Armenians . . . [and the Turkish] criminals were guilty of genocide and were not punished . . . So, you see, as a lawyer, I thought that [such crimes] should be punished by a court, by a national law.”
In an article in the Hairenik Weekly (later the Armenian Weekly) on January 1, 1959, he wrote that the suffering of the Armenians had paved the way to the ratification of the Genocide Convention: “The sufferings of the Armenian men, women, and children thrown into the Euphrates River or massacred on the way to [the Syrian desert of] Der-el-Zor have prepared the way for the adoption for the Genocide Convention by the United Nations . . . This is the reason why the Armenians of the entire world were specifically interested in the Genocide Convention. They filled the galleries of the drafting committee at the third General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris when the Genocide Convention was discussed.”
At the end of the article, Lemkin asserted, “One million Armenians died, but a law against the murder of peoples was written with the ink of their blood and the spirit of their sufferings.”
In his autobiography, Lemkin wrote, “I identified myself more and more with the suffering of the victims, whose numbers grew, and I continued my study of history. I understood that the function of memory is not only to register past events, but to stimulate human conscience. Soon contemporary examples of genocide followed, such as the slaughter of the Armenians.”
Why is there opposition to affirmation of the Armenian Genocide?
In short, because Turkey denies that Armenians were the victims of a state-planned, deliberate policy of genocide, and some are reluctant to offend a supposed ally.
On October 11, 2007, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s government released a statement that declared, “It is not possible to accept such an accusation of a crime which was never committed by the Turkish nation.”
And writing in the Wall Street Journal on October 19, 2007, Mr. Erdogan asserted, “The truth is that the Armenian allegations of genocide pertaining to the events of 1915 have not been historically or legally substantiated.”
The Turkish government funds a multi-million dollar genocide denial campaign which includes public relations firms, high-priced lobbyists, and even a handful of academics. Turkey has disrupted foreign academic conferences on the Armenian genocide, has threatened to limit ties with governments that recognize it, and has stifled domestic discussion of it by prosecuting dissenters under a law that prohibits "insulting Turkishness."
Whatever the stated motivation, the Anti-Defamation League’s failure to acknowledge unambiguously the Armenian genocide and its opposition to U.S. recognition of the genocide, makes it complicit in this international genocide denial campaign.
On October 11, 2007, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s government released a statement that declared, “It is not possible to accept such an accusation of a crime which was never committed by the Turkish nation.”
And writing in the Wall Street Journal on October 19, 2007, Mr. Erdogan asserted, “The truth is that the Armenian allegations of genocide pertaining to the events of 1915 have not been historically or legally substantiated.”
The Turkish government funds a multi-million dollar genocide denial campaign which includes public relations firms, high-priced lobbyists, and even a handful of academics. Turkey has disrupted foreign academic conferences on the Armenian genocide, has threatened to limit ties with governments that recognize it, and has stifled domestic discussion of it by prosecuting dissenters under a law that prohibits "insulting Turkishness."
Whatever the stated motivation, the Anti-Defamation League’s failure to acknowledge unambiguously the Armenian genocide and its opposition to U.S. recognition of the genocide, makes it complicit in this international genocide denial campaign.
Didn’t the ADL acknowledge the Armenian Genocide in August?
No, not really.
After pressure from the New England Region ADL and other Jewish-Americans, ADL National Director Abraham Foxman issued a highly disingenuous press release on August 21, 2007 that some claimed was an acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide. It read, in part: “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 . . . the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide.”
This carefully worded statement is not an acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide.
First, aside from the fact that the Armenian Genocide began in 1915 and lasted until 1923 (not 1918), the statement uses the qualifier “tantamount.” The Armenian Genocide was not “tantamount to genocide.” It was genocide.
Second, and most critical, is that by employing the word “consequences,” the statement circumvents the international legal definition of genocide by avoiding any language that would imply intent, a crucial part of the 1948 UN Genocide treaty.
Article II of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide states:
“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such . . .”
Legal scholars have long regarded the word “intent” in that definition to be key. That is, to be termed genocide, the deaths cannot simply be an accident or the “consequence” of conditions beyond the responsible party’s control. The actions must have been planned and deliberate.
Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to the Turkish Ottoman Empire in 1915, wrote in his book, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story:
“When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact . . . I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this…and with them the one motive was cold-blooded, calculating state policy.”
Notice that Morgenthau speaks of Turkish “motive” and “calculating” policy, which are the equivalent of intent. In contrast, the ADL speaks of “consequences,” as if the mass murders were not intentional or calculated.
Even Turkey admits that many Armenians died during this period. Turkey claims, however, that these deaths were not intentional, but simply the “consequence” of wartime conditions.
The ADL’s August 21, 2007, press release was dishonest and a demonstration of bad faith. In effect, with this statement, the positions of the ADL and Turkey are still identical: denial of the Armenian Genocide.
As a leading human rights organization that has done such commendable work to combat Holocaust denial, the ADL is expected to speak with absolute moral clarity about the Armenian genocide.
After pressure from the New England Region ADL and other Jewish-Americans, ADL National Director Abraham Foxman issued a highly disingenuous press release on August 21, 2007 that some claimed was an acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide. It read, in part: “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 . . . the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide.”
This carefully worded statement is not an acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide.
First, aside from the fact that the Armenian Genocide began in 1915 and lasted until 1923 (not 1918), the statement uses the qualifier “tantamount.” The Armenian Genocide was not “tantamount to genocide.” It was genocide.
Second, and most critical, is that by employing the word “consequences,” the statement circumvents the international legal definition of genocide by avoiding any language that would imply intent, a crucial part of the 1948 UN Genocide treaty.
Article II of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide states:
“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such . . .”
Legal scholars have long regarded the word “intent” in that definition to be key. That is, to be termed genocide, the deaths cannot simply be an accident or the “consequence” of conditions beyond the responsible party’s control. The actions must have been planned and deliberate.
Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to the Turkish Ottoman Empire in 1915, wrote in his book, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story:
“When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact . . . I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this…and with them the one motive was cold-blooded, calculating state policy.”
Notice that Morgenthau speaks of Turkish “motive” and “calculating” policy, which are the equivalent of intent. In contrast, the ADL speaks of “consequences,” as if the mass murders were not intentional or calculated.
Even Turkey admits that many Armenians died during this period. Turkey claims, however, that these deaths were not intentional, but simply the “consequence” of wartime conditions.
The ADL’s August 21, 2007, press release was dishonest and a demonstration of bad faith. In effect, with this statement, the positions of the ADL and Turkey are still identical: denial of the Armenian Genocide.
As a leading human rights organization that has done such commendable work to combat Holocaust denial, the ADL is expected to speak with absolute moral clarity about the Armenian genocide.
What about Turkey and the ADL’s calls for a historical commission to study the events of 1915-1923?
ADL National Director Abraham Foxman has been quoted numerous times endorsing Turkey’s call for a historical commission to examine the events of 1915. In an August 23, 2007, press release, ADL National Chair Glen S. Lewy and Mr. Foxman encouraged Armenians to “respond favorably to the several recent overtures of Turkey to convene a joint commission,” adding that “there is room for further dispassionate scholarly examination of the details of those dark and terrible days.”
On September 27, 2007, after a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, Mr. Foxman reiterated that Armenians should respond to calls from Turkey to set up a joint commission "to investigate what happened in the past."
According to the ADL’s own web page, this type of proposition is genocide denial in its most insidious form: “On the surface, Holocaust deniers portray themselves as individuals and groups engaged in a legitimate, dispassionate quest for historical knowledge and ‘truth’ [yet] seek to plant seeds of questioning and doubt.”
The IAGS labeled Turkish calls for a joint historical commission of Turkish and Armenian scholars “propaganda,” not scholarship. In an October 5, 2007, letter to Congress, the IAGS further described this proposal as a “red herring [that] would only serve the interests of Turkish genocide deniers.”
Please refer to Appendix 2 for a full text of the IAGS letter to the US Congress.
In their June 13, 2005, letter, the IAGS told Turkey’s prime minister that “scholars who advise your government and who are affiliated in other ways with your state-controlled institutions are not impartial [and] such so-called ‘scholars’ work to serve the agenda of historical and moral obfuscation when they advise you and the Turkish parliament on how to deny the Armenian Genocide.”
Further, independent Turkish writers, scholars, and historians, including Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk and Professor Taner Akcam, who write about the Armenian Genocide are charged with “insulting Turkishness” under the notorious Article 301 of the penal code and face trial and death threats.
Finally, these proposed commissions to examine the Armenian Genocide are no different from last year’s Holocaust conference in Iran that the ADL rightly condemned. Mr. Foxman was quoted as saying, “We believe this type of Holocaust denial has no place in the family of nations, and that it is essential for European and world leaders to condemn this conference and everything it stands for.”
On September 27, 2007, after a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, Mr. Foxman reiterated that Armenians should respond to calls from Turkey to set up a joint commission "to investigate what happened in the past."
According to the ADL’s own web page, this type of proposition is genocide denial in its most insidious form: “On the surface, Holocaust deniers portray themselves as individuals and groups engaged in a legitimate, dispassionate quest for historical knowledge and ‘truth’ [yet] seek to plant seeds of questioning and doubt.”
The IAGS labeled Turkish calls for a joint historical commission of Turkish and Armenian scholars “propaganda,” not scholarship. In an October 5, 2007, letter to Congress, the IAGS further described this proposal as a “red herring [that] would only serve the interests of Turkish genocide deniers.”
Please refer to Appendix 2 for a full text of the IAGS letter to the US Congress.
In their June 13, 2005, letter, the IAGS told Turkey’s prime minister that “scholars who advise your government and who are affiliated in other ways with your state-controlled institutions are not impartial [and] such so-called ‘scholars’ work to serve the agenda of historical and moral obfuscation when they advise you and the Turkish parliament on how to deny the Armenian Genocide.”
Further, independent Turkish writers, scholars, and historians, including Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk and Professor Taner Akcam, who write about the Armenian Genocide are charged with “insulting Turkishness” under the notorious Article 301 of the penal code and face trial and death threats.
Finally, these proposed commissions to examine the Armenian Genocide are no different from last year’s Holocaust conference in Iran that the ADL rightly condemned. Mr. Foxman was quoted as saying, “We believe this type of Holocaust denial has no place in the family of nations, and that it is essential for European and world leaders to condemn this conference and everything it stands for.”
Has the ADL apologized to the Armenian community for having practiced genocide denial?
No.
Three days after issuing his highly duplicitous statement on the Armenian genocide, Mr. Foxman, in a letter addressed to the prime minister of Turkey, apologized for having put his government “in a difficult position,” and expressed his “sorrow over what we have caused for the leadership and people of Turkey.”
The prime minister subsequently said of the ADL: “The wrong step that has been taken is corrected . . . They said they shared our sensitivity and expressed the mistake they made [and] will continue to give us all the support they have given so far.”
Yet to date, the ADL has not issued an apology to the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and their heirs for its years of working to deny the Armenian genocide.
Moreover, Mr. Foxman has since stressed repeatedly that he shares the Turkish government’s opposition to having the U.S. Congress even discuss the Armenian Genocide, much less vote on a non-binding Congressional resolution affirming the historical record.
Please refer to Appendix 6 for press clippings reporting Mr. Foxman’s continuing opposition to U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide immediately following the ADL's Aug. 21 statement.
Three days after issuing his highly duplicitous statement on the Armenian genocide, Mr. Foxman, in a letter addressed to the prime minister of Turkey, apologized for having put his government “in a difficult position,” and expressed his “sorrow over what we have caused for the leadership and people of Turkey.”
The prime minister subsequently said of the ADL: “The wrong step that has been taken is corrected . . . They said they shared our sensitivity and expressed the mistake they made [and] will continue to give us all the support they have given so far.”
Yet to date, the ADL has not issued an apology to the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and their heirs for its years of working to deny the Armenian genocide.
Moreover, Mr. Foxman has since stressed repeatedly that he shares the Turkish government’s opposition to having the U.S. Congress even discuss the Armenian Genocide, much less vote on a non-binding Congressional resolution affirming the historical record.
Please refer to Appendix 6 for press clippings reporting Mr. Foxman’s continuing opposition to U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide immediately following the ADL's Aug. 21 statement.
Why is it important to acknowledge an act of genocide?
Genocide scholars have labeled genocide denial the final stage of genocide.
Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel has called genocide denial a “double killing.”
In “The Eight Stages of Genocide,” Holocaust scholar Gregory H. Stanton writes, “The black hole of forgetting is the negative force that results in future genocides.”
Leading comparative genocide studies expert Israel Charny describes denial as “first the physical deed, followed by the destruction of remembrance of the deed.”
Dr. Charny explains that the harm of denial is profound. It is a renewed attack on the victim group, mocking its suffering. It celebrates the success of the genocide, emphasizing perpetrators’ impunity and victims’ powerlessness even to tell what happened. It is a veiled threat, that deniers in the perpetrator group see nothing wrong with the past genocide and are ready to commit genocide again.
Noted documentary filmmaker Andrew Goldberg has stated: “What happened to the Armenians is one of the most inhumane acts in the history of the human race. The victims of that event and their children have never been acknowledged and affirmed, and it is important that we, as non-Armenians and Armenians, affirm and acknowledge this tragedy, and send a clear message to those attempting to deny this tragedy that we will not allow their position to make progress into this international conversation.”
Reacting to Mr. Foxman’s statement that the recognition of the Armenian Genocide should be left to historians not politicians, Liora Harari, a member of the Needham, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission, said: “I come from a family of Holocaust survivors and I know that for them, the recognition of the Holocaust by the world and the recognition of Germany as being responsible for it was very important for them in the process of healing and moving forward.”
Please refer to Appendix 4 for more statements by human rights advocates and town officials supporting the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and criticizing the ADL’s opposition to it.
Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel has called genocide denial a “double killing.”
In “The Eight Stages of Genocide,” Holocaust scholar Gregory H. Stanton writes, “The black hole of forgetting is the negative force that results in future genocides.”
Leading comparative genocide studies expert Israel Charny describes denial as “first the physical deed, followed by the destruction of remembrance of the deed.”
Dr. Charny explains that the harm of denial is profound. It is a renewed attack on the victim group, mocking its suffering. It celebrates the success of the genocide, emphasizing perpetrators’ impunity and victims’ powerlessness even to tell what happened. It is a veiled threat, that deniers in the perpetrator group see nothing wrong with the past genocide and are ready to commit genocide again.
Noted documentary filmmaker Andrew Goldberg has stated: “What happened to the Armenians is one of the most inhumane acts in the history of the human race. The victims of that event and their children have never been acknowledged and affirmed, and it is important that we, as non-Armenians and Armenians, affirm and acknowledge this tragedy, and send a clear message to those attempting to deny this tragedy that we will not allow their position to make progress into this international conversation.”
Reacting to Mr. Foxman’s statement that the recognition of the Armenian Genocide should be left to historians not politicians, Liora Harari, a member of the Needham, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission, said: “I come from a family of Holocaust survivors and I know that for them, the recognition of the Holocaust by the world and the recognition of Germany as being responsible for it was very important for them in the process of healing and moving forward.”
Please refer to Appendix 4 for more statements by human rights advocates and town officials supporting the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and criticizing the ADL’s opposition to it.
Has the U.S. Congress gone on record before to condemn such acts of hatred against an ethnic group?
Yes, numerous times.
Two recent examples are:
Japan Resolution 121:
On July 30, 2007, the House passed H.R. 121 recognizing crimes committed by Japan:
Whereas the Government of Japan, during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II, officially commissioned the acquisition of young women for the sole purpose of sexual servitude to its Imperial Armed Forces, who became known to the world as ianfu or “comfort women;”
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of Japan –
(1) should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces' coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as “comfort women,” during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II.
Holocaust Resolution 226:
On June 11, 2007, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 226:
Whereas some 6,000,000 Jews were slaughtered pursuant to Adolf Hitler's diabolical plan for the total extermination of the Jews during the Third Reich, and even more would have perished had it not been for the efforts of a number of United States Government officials who spoke out forcefully against American policy and persuaded President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the need for extraordinary measures to save Jewish lives;
Resolved, That the House of Representatives –
(1) honors the efforts and contributions of those who worked for the establishment of the War Refugee Board and for a more active United States policy to rescue Jews and other victims of Nazi repression who were in imminent danger of death and to provide these persecuted minorities with relief and assistance during World War II; and
(2) commends in particular the actions of Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Josiah DuBois, Jr., and John Pehle for their dedication and devotion to helping rescue Jews and other persecuted minorities in the Holocaust.
Two recent examples are:
Japan Resolution 121:
On July 30, 2007, the House passed H.R. 121 recognizing crimes committed by Japan:
Whereas the Government of Japan, during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II, officially commissioned the acquisition of young women for the sole purpose of sexual servitude to its Imperial Armed Forces, who became known to the world as ianfu or “comfort women;”
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of Japan –
(1) should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces' coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as “comfort women,” during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II.
Holocaust Resolution 226:
On June 11, 2007, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 226:
Whereas some 6,000,000 Jews were slaughtered pursuant to Adolf Hitler's diabolical plan for the total extermination of the Jews during the Third Reich, and even more would have perished had it not been for the efforts of a number of United States Government officials who spoke out forcefully against American policy and persuaded President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the need for extraordinary measures to save Jewish lives;
Resolved, That the House of Representatives –
(1) honors the efforts and contributions of those who worked for the establishment of the War Refugee Board and for a more active United States policy to rescue Jews and other victims of Nazi repression who were in imminent danger of death and to provide these persecuted minorities with relief and assistance during World War II; and
(2) commends in particular the actions of Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Josiah DuBois, Jr., and John Pehle for their dedication and devotion to helping rescue Jews and other persecuted minorities in the Holocaust.
Has the ADL supported resolutions acknowledging acts of genocide and resolutions condemning genocide denial before?
Yes. A partial list of U.S. Congressional and international resolutions that the ADL has supported includes:
July 22, 2004
Concurrent House Resolution 467 and Senate Resolution 133:
“Congress declares that the atrocities unfolding in Darfur, Sudan, are genocide, and urges the Administration to refer to such atrocities as genocide.”
July 23, 2004
ADL Press statement regarding Resolutions 467/133:
The ADL commended Congress for condemning the atrocities being committed in the Darfur region of Sudan as "genocide."
"We applaud Congress for this bipartisan effort to marshal support for a more robust U.S. response to the genocidal atrocities in Darfur," said Barbara B. Balser, ADL National Chair, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "As Jews, we are acutely aware of the lesson of the Holocaust, to never again remain silent in the face of such acts. We are confronting a crisis which challenges us to action while there is still time, and not to delay as in the case of Rwanda. Time is running out, but American pressure can still make a difference and reduce the death toll in Darfur."
January, 26 2007
United Nations General Assembly Resolution denouncing denial of the Holocaust (UNGA Resolution 60/7)
January 23, 2007
In a letter addressed to countries that had not endorsed the resolution (China, Egypt, Jordan, India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Brazil and Japan), the ADL wrote:
"We urge you to support this important declaration by the international community reinforcing that it will never forget the Holocaust and rejecting those who seek to deny it. Furthermore, such a declaration is critical to ensuring that the world does not ignore current and future acts of genocide."
Given the universal truth of the last statement – that by denying any genocide, we risk future genocides – the ADL’s stand on the Armenian Genocide is unconscionable.
July 22, 2004
Concurrent House Resolution 467 and Senate Resolution 133:
“Congress declares that the atrocities unfolding in Darfur, Sudan, are genocide, and urges the Administration to refer to such atrocities as genocide.”
July 23, 2004
ADL Press statement regarding Resolutions 467/133:
The ADL commended Congress for condemning the atrocities being committed in the Darfur region of Sudan as "genocide."
"We applaud Congress for this bipartisan effort to marshal support for a more robust U.S. response to the genocidal atrocities in Darfur," said Barbara B. Balser, ADL National Chair, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "As Jews, we are acutely aware of the lesson of the Holocaust, to never again remain silent in the face of such acts. We are confronting a crisis which challenges us to action while there is still time, and not to delay as in the case of Rwanda. Time is running out, but American pressure can still make a difference and reduce the death toll in Darfur."
January, 26 2007
United Nations General Assembly Resolution denouncing denial of the Holocaust (UNGA Resolution 60/7)
January 23, 2007
In a letter addressed to countries that had not endorsed the resolution (China, Egypt, Jordan, India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Brazil and Japan), the ADL wrote:
"We urge you to support this important declaration by the international community reinforcing that it will never forget the Holocaust and rejecting those who seek to deny it. Furthermore, such a declaration is critical to ensuring that the world does not ignore current and future acts of genocide."
Given the universal truth of the last statement – that by denying any genocide, we risk future genocides – the ADL’s stand on the Armenian Genocide is unconscionable.
Is this just an Armenian issue?
Absolutely not.
This is a human rights issue. Acknowledgment is the right of all people who have suffered genocide.
Genocide resolutions help to bring awareness of genocide and its prevention to the public and international community.
Writing in Haaretz, Israeli columnist and former education minister Yossi Sarid declared, “Denying another nation’s Holocaust is no less ugly than denying ours. It is also dangerous. Today’s denial is tomorrow’s Holocaust … If the world had risen up in protest against the genocide of the … Armenians, the Holocaust of the Jews might also have been averted. This is not a mere assumption … A week before invading Poland, Hitler addressed his officers (August 24, 1939): ‘I have ordered my Death-Head Formation to kill mercilessly and without compassion men, women and children of Polish derivation and language. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’”
On September 11, 2007, in a statement on Newton’s decision to stop participating in the ADL’s No Place for Hate program, Mayor David B. Cohen wrote:
“The recognition of the Armenian Genocide is an important step along the path of freedom and justice, and crucial in combating other genocides now and in the future.”
Please refer to Appendix 3 for more statements by Jewish-Americans and Appendix 4 for statements by human rights advocates and town officials supporting the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and criticizing the ADL’s opposition to it.
This is a human rights issue. Acknowledgment is the right of all people who have suffered genocide.
Genocide resolutions help to bring awareness of genocide and its prevention to the public and international community.
Writing in Haaretz, Israeli columnist and former education minister Yossi Sarid declared, “Denying another nation’s Holocaust is no less ugly than denying ours. It is also dangerous. Today’s denial is tomorrow’s Holocaust … If the world had risen up in protest against the genocide of the … Armenians, the Holocaust of the Jews might also have been averted. This is not a mere assumption … A week before invading Poland, Hitler addressed his officers (August 24, 1939): ‘I have ordered my Death-Head Formation to kill mercilessly and without compassion men, women and children of Polish derivation and language. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’”
On September 11, 2007, in a statement on Newton’s decision to stop participating in the ADL’s No Place for Hate program, Mayor David B. Cohen wrote:
“The recognition of the Armenian Genocide is an important step along the path of freedom and justice, and crucial in combating other genocides now and in the future.”
Please refer to Appendix 3 for more statements by Jewish-Americans and Appendix 4 for statements by human rights advocates and town officials supporting the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and criticizing the ADL’s opposition to it.
Are there other groups or persons besides the ADL who actively oppose Armenian genocide resolutions?
Certainly.
First and foremost, the Turkish government has spent millions of dollars on public relations firms to fight U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide, hiring high-priced lobbyists, including former congressmen, to advance their denialist agenda.
Also, various Turkish organizations, the U.S. State Department, some corporate lobbies, and other organizations have long worked against acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide. Armenian-Americans and others have criticized those groups and persons for some time.
First and foremost, the Turkish government has spent millions of dollars on public relations firms to fight U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide, hiring high-priced lobbyists, including former congressmen, to advance their denialist agenda.
Also, various Turkish organizations, the U.S. State Department, some corporate lobbies, and other organizations have long worked against acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide. Armenian-Americans and others have criticized those groups and persons for some time.
Why focus, then, on the ADL?
Of all the institutions opposing the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, the ADL is the only group endorsed by our elected officials to work in our communities and our schools as an anti-hate, anti-bias group.
Unlike other groups, the ADL is identified as a human rights organization whose “purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike.” Human rights are universal and must never be subordinated to political interests. In order to be true to its mission, the ADL must work to secure justice and fair treatment for all victims of genocide, including Armenians.
The ADL is the only human and civil rights group we know of that has opposed Armenian genocide recognition.
As a leading human rights organization that has done such commendable work to combat Holocaust denial, the ADL is expected be at the forefront of condemning the denial of the Armenian genocide.
Unlike other groups, the ADL is identified as a human rights organization whose “purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike.” Human rights are universal and must never be subordinated to political interests. In order to be true to its mission, the ADL must work to secure justice and fair treatment for all victims of genocide, including Armenians.
The ADL is the only human and civil rights group we know of that has opposed Armenian genocide recognition.
As a leading human rights organization that has done such commendable work to combat Holocaust denial, the ADL is expected be at the forefront of condemning the denial of the Armenian genocide.
Why do we want the ADL to support the Congressional affirmation of the Armenian Genocide?
The ADL has worked to defeat Congressional resolutions affirming the Armenian Genocide for many years.
Mr. Foxman has repeatedly called the Armenian genocide resolution a “counterproductive diversion,” and has reassured the Turkish government on several occasions that the ADL will continue to work against U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide.
On August 25, 2007, following a conversation with Mr. Foxman, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan told reporters: "They said they shared our sensitivity and expressed the mistake they made . . . They said they will continue to give us all the support they have given so far."
In late August, Mr. Foxman told the Jewish Daily Forward: “We want to make sure the Turkish government understands that the use of the word ‘genocide’ doesn’t change our position on what Congress needs to do.”
Further, speaking to reporters in New York after meeting with the Turkish prime minister in late September, Mr. Foxman stated, “US Congressmen are not historians. Therefore, they cannot judge what happened in history.”
This position appears to be extremely hypocritical given the ADL’s support for numerous resolutions passed by the U.S. Congress on other genocides such as the Holocaust and the genocide in Darfur.
The ADL should begin to undo the damage its opposition to Armenian Genocide affirmation has done, not only to the Armenian-American community, but also to the pursuit of human rights in general, and specifically to genocide awareness and prevention.
The ADL must demonstrate good faith through clear and forthright support of U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide, including Congressional affirmation.
Please refer to Appendix 5 and Appendix 6 for press clippings on the ADL’s active opposition to Armenian Genocide recognition.
Mr. Foxman has repeatedly called the Armenian genocide resolution a “counterproductive diversion,” and has reassured the Turkish government on several occasions that the ADL will continue to work against U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide.
On August 25, 2007, following a conversation with Mr. Foxman, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan told reporters: "They said they shared our sensitivity and expressed the mistake they made . . . They said they will continue to give us all the support they have given so far."
In late August, Mr. Foxman told the Jewish Daily Forward: “We want to make sure the Turkish government understands that the use of the word ‘genocide’ doesn’t change our position on what Congress needs to do.”
Further, speaking to reporters in New York after meeting with the Turkish prime minister in late September, Mr. Foxman stated, “US Congressmen are not historians. Therefore, they cannot judge what happened in history.”
This position appears to be extremely hypocritical given the ADL’s support for numerous resolutions passed by the U.S. Congress on other genocides such as the Holocaust and the genocide in Darfur.
The ADL should begin to undo the damage its opposition to Armenian Genocide affirmation has done, not only to the Armenian-American community, but also to the pursuit of human rights in general, and specifically to genocide awareness and prevention.
The ADL must demonstrate good faith through clear and forthright support of U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide, including Congressional affirmation.
Please refer to Appendix 5 and Appendix 6 for press clippings on the ADL’s active opposition to Armenian Genocide recognition.
Have Jewish-Americans in general been supportive of efforts seeking recognition of the Armenian Genocide?
Yes, overwhelmingly.
In the past months, the response from Jewish-Americans has been overwhelmingly positive. In particular, members of the New England ADL have recently spoken out in support of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Jewish historians, elected officials, rabbis, and individual Jews, as well as a number of Jewish organizations, such as the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and the Zionist Organization of America, have long been supportive of acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide and Congressional resolutions on that genocide. On October 10, seven out of eight Jewish-American Congressmen on the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted in favor of H.Res.106.
Helen Epstein, author of Children of the Holocaust, made the following statement to the Lexington, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen on October 15, 2007:
“As the daughter of Czech Jews whose families were murdered during the Holocaust, [I understand] not only the facts of destruction of life, culture and community, but the long-term psychological ramifications of genocide and the healing power of validation.
. . . ‘ It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator,’ writes Judith Lewis Herman. The perpetrator asks nothing of us but to be silent. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement and remembering.
The head of the ADL has chosen not to do this. As a Jew who understands what this means, [I urge] that No Place for Hate sever ties with the ADL.”
Please refer to Appendix 3 for more statements by Jewish-Americans supporting the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and criticizing the ADL’s opposition to it.
In the past months, the response from Jewish-Americans has been overwhelmingly positive. In particular, members of the New England ADL have recently spoken out in support of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Jewish historians, elected officials, rabbis, and individual Jews, as well as a number of Jewish organizations, such as the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and the Zionist Organization of America, have long been supportive of acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide and Congressional resolutions on that genocide. On October 10, seven out of eight Jewish-American Congressmen on the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted in favor of H.Res.106.
Helen Epstein, author of Children of the Holocaust, made the following statement to the Lexington, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen on October 15, 2007:
“As the daughter of Czech Jews whose families were murdered during the Holocaust, [I understand] not only the facts of destruction of life, culture and community, but the long-term psychological ramifications of genocide and the healing power of validation.
. . . ‘ It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator,’ writes Judith Lewis Herman. The perpetrator asks nothing of us but to be silent. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement and remembering.
The head of the ADL has chosen not to do this. As a Jew who understands what this means, [I urge] that No Place for Hate sever ties with the ADL.”
Please refer to Appendix 3 for more statements by Jewish-Americans supporting the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and criticizing the ADL’s opposition to it.
The following Jewish organizations support Congressional affirmation of the Armenian Genocide:
American Federation of Jews from Central Europe (New York, NY)
American Jewish World Service (New York, NY)
Americans for Peace Now (Washington, DC)
Center for Russian Jewry with Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (New York, NY)
Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC)
Jewish Social Policy Action Network (Philadelphia, PA)
Jewish War Veterans of the USA (Washington, DC)
Jewish World Watch (Encino, CA)
Progressive Jewish Alliance (Los Angeles, CA)
Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (Wyncote, PA)
Jewish Voice for Peace (Oakland, CA)
Union for Reform Judaism (Washington, DC)
Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring (New York, NY)
Zionist Organization of America (New York, NY)
American Jewish World Service (New York, NY)
Americans for Peace Now (Washington, DC)
Center for Russian Jewry with Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (New York, NY)
Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC)
Jewish Social Policy Action Network (Philadelphia, PA)
Jewish War Veterans of the USA (Washington, DC)
Jewish World Watch (Encino, CA)
Progressive Jewish Alliance (Los Angeles, CA)
Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (Wyncote, PA)
Jewish Voice for Peace (Oakland, CA)
Union for Reform Judaism (Washington, DC)
Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring (New York, NY)
Zionist Organization of America (New York, NY)
Who else supports Congressional affirmation of the Armenian genocide?
A diverse coalition of over one hundred ethnic, religious, civil and human rights organizations – including American Values, National Organization of Women, Sons of Italy, National Council of Churches, NAACP, Union of Orthodox Rabbis, and the National Council of La Raza – as well as over two hundred members of the House of Representatives and over 30 US Senators from both sides of the aisle have endorsed the Armenian genocide resolution.
Have other countries or states acknowledged the Armenian Genocide?
Yes, many.
Countries and governmental bodies that have officially recognized the Armenian Genocide include:
Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, Vatican City, Venezuela, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, and the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
Additionally, forty U.S. states have acknowledged the Armenian Genocide.
Countries and governmental bodies that have officially recognized the Armenian Genocide include:
Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, Vatican City, Venezuela, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, and the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
Additionally, forty U.S. states have acknowledged the Armenian Genocide.
What is the issue with ADL and No Place For Hate?
Because the ADL has yet to acknowledge unambiguously the Armenian Genocide, and moreover, has actively advocated against Congressional affirmation of the Armenian Genocide for several years on behalf of the Turkish government, the organization has simply disqualified itself from teaching tolerance and combating hate in our communities.
Thus, Armenian-Americans and other human rights advocates have asked cities and towns who participate in the No Place for Hate program to end their ties with the ADL. In Massachusetts, seven communities have already disassociated from the ADL. A number of municipalities in New York and Pennsylvania have also received requests for severance. In addition, several Massachusetts towns as well as the Massachusetts Municipal Association will re-evaluate their association with the ADL based on whether or not the ADL, at its national convention in November, decides to recognize unequivocally the Armenian Genocide and to support Congressional affirmation thereof.
In a September 12, 2007, letter to Massachusetts town officials, the Massachusetts Municipal Association Board of Directors wrote:
“The MMA has issued a strong and unequivocal statement on the importance of recognizing the Armenian Genocide and supporting passage of the Congressional Resolution. We applaud the Executive Committee of the New England Region of the ADL for taking this position, and the MMA has called on the national ADL organization to do the same. We will continue to review and monitor this matter, recognizing that while progress has been made, we will subsequently re-evaluate our official sponsorship of NPFH after the national ADL determines whether to adopt this position.”
No Place for Hate’s human rights mission clearly conflicts with the ADL’s policies of genocide denial. It is contradictory for NPFH to be responsible for combating hate in our communities while its creator and sponsor is actively engaged in genocide denial, which is the highest form of hate speech and the final stage of genocide.
Please refer to Appendix 4 for more statements by human rights advocates and town officials supporting the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and criticizing the ADL’s opposition to it.
Thus, Armenian-Americans and other human rights advocates have asked cities and towns who participate in the No Place for Hate program to end their ties with the ADL. In Massachusetts, seven communities have already disassociated from the ADL. A number of municipalities in New York and Pennsylvania have also received requests for severance. In addition, several Massachusetts towns as well as the Massachusetts Municipal Association will re-evaluate their association with the ADL based on whether or not the ADL, at its national convention in November, decides to recognize unequivocally the Armenian Genocide and to support Congressional affirmation thereof.
In a September 12, 2007, letter to Massachusetts town officials, the Massachusetts Municipal Association Board of Directors wrote:
“The MMA has issued a strong and unequivocal statement on the importance of recognizing the Armenian Genocide and supporting passage of the Congressional Resolution. We applaud the Executive Committee of the New England Region of the ADL for taking this position, and the MMA has called on the national ADL organization to do the same. We will continue to review and monitor this matter, recognizing that while progress has been made, we will subsequently re-evaluate our official sponsorship of NPFH after the national ADL determines whether to adopt this position.”
No Place for Hate’s human rights mission clearly conflicts with the ADL’s policies of genocide denial. It is contradictory for NPFH to be responsible for combating hate in our communities while its creator and sponsor is actively engaged in genocide denial, which is the highest form of hate speech and the final stage of genocide.
Please refer to Appendix 4 for more statements by human rights advocates and town officials supporting the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and criticizing the ADL’s opposition to it.
What are Armenian-Americans and others asking of the ADL?
Armenian-Americans and others are asking that the Anti-Defamation League forthrightly and unambiguously acknowledge the Armenian Genocide and publicly and unequivocally support Congressional affirmation of the genocide.
These requests are consistent with the New England ADL’s position as reported in the Boston Globe on August 19, 2007:
“The executive committee of the regional [ADL] board broke with the national office, calling on the national ADL to recognize the genocide and, according to a source, resolving to support the legislation in Congress.”
Armenian-Americans expect an apology from the ADL through its national director, Abraham Foxman, for having denied the Armenian Genocide for so many years and for actively working against recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the United States.
These requests are consistent with the New England ADL’s position as reported in the Boston Globe on August 19, 2007:
“The executive committee of the regional [ADL] board broke with the national office, calling on the national ADL to recognize the genocide and, according to a source, resolving to support the legislation in Congress.”
Armenian-Americans expect an apology from the ADL through its national director, Abraham Foxman, for having denied the Armenian Genocide for so many years and for actively working against recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the United States.
Appendix 1: IAGS Letter to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS
President
Israel Charny (Israel)
First Vice-President
Gregory H. Stanton (USA)
Second Vice-President
Linda Melvern (UK)
Secretary-Treasurer
Steven Jacobs (USA)
June 13, 2005
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
TC Easbakanlik
Bakanlikir
Ankara, Turkey
Dear Prime Minister Erdogan:
We are writing you this open letter in response to your call for an “impartial study by historians” concerning the fate of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
We represent the major body of scholars who study genocide in North America and Europe. We are concerned that in calling for an impartial study of the Armenian Genocide you may not be fully aware of the extent of the scholarly and intellectual record on the Armenian Genocide and how this event conforms to the definition of the United Nations Genocide Convention. We want to underscore that it is not just Armenians who are affirming the Armenian Genocide but it is the overwhelming opinion of scholars who study genocide: hundreds of independent scholars, who have no affiliations with governments, and whose work spans many countries and nationalities and the course of decades. The scholarly evidence reveals the following:
On April 24, 1915, under cover of World War I, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens – an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches. The rest of the Armenian population fled into permanent exile. Thus an ancient civilization was expunged from its homeland of 2,500 years.
The Armenian Genocide was the most well-known human rights issue of its time and was reported regularly in newspapers across the United States and Europe. The Armenian Genocide is abundantly documented by thousands of official records of the United States and nations around the world including Turkey’s wartime allies Germany, Austria and Hungary, by Ottoman court-martial records, by eyewitness accounts of missionaries and diplomats, by the testimony of survivors, and by decades of historical scholarship.
The Armenian Genocide is corroborated by the international scholarly, legal, and human rights community:
1) Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, when he coined the term genocide in 1944, cited the Turkish extermination of the Armenians and the Nazi extermination of the Jews as defining examples of what he meant by genocide.
2) The killings of the Armenians are genocide as defined by the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
3) In 1997 the International Association of Genocide Scholars, an organization of the world’s foremost experts on genocide, unanimously passed a formal resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide.
4) 126 leading scholars of the Holocaust including Elie Wiesel and Yehuda Bauer placed a statement in the New York Times in June 2000 declaring the “incontestable fact of the Armenian Genocide” and urging western democracies to acknowledge it.
5) The Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide (Jerusalem), and the Institute for the Study of Genocide (NYC) have affirmed the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide.
6) Leading texts in the international law of genocide such as William A. Schabas’s Genocide in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2000) cite the Armenian Genocide as a precursor to the Holocaust and as a precedent for the law on crimes against humanity.
We note that there may be differing interpretations of genocide—how and why the Armenian Genocide happened, but to deny its factual and moral reality as genocide is not to engage in scholarship but in propaganda and efforts to absolve the perpetrator, blame the victims, and erase the ethical meaning of this history.
We would also note that scholars who advise your government and who are affiliated in other ways with your state-controlled institutions are not impartial. Such so-called “scholars” work to serve the agenda of historical and moral obfuscation when they advise you and the Turkish Parliament on how to deny the Armenian Genocide. In preventing a conference on the Armenian Genocide from taking place at Bogacizi University in Istanbul on May 25, your government revealed its aversion to academic and intellectual freedom—a fundamental condition of democratic society.
We believe that it is clearly in the interest of the Turkish people and their future as a proud and equal participants in international, democratic discourse to acknowledge the responsibility of a previous government for the genocide of the Armenian people, just as the German government and people have done in the case of the Holocaust.
Approved unanimously at the Sixth biennial meeting of
THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS (IAGS)
June 7, 2005, Boca Raton, Florida
President
Israel Charny (Israel)
First Vice-President
Gregory H. Stanton (USA)
Second Vice-President
Linda Melvern (UK)
Secretary-Treasurer
Steven Jacobs (USA)
June 13, 2005
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
TC Easbakanlik
Bakanlikir
Ankara, Turkey
Dear Prime Minister Erdogan:
We are writing you this open letter in response to your call for an “impartial study by historians” concerning the fate of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
We represent the major body of scholars who study genocide in North America and Europe. We are concerned that in calling for an impartial study of the Armenian Genocide you may not be fully aware of the extent of the scholarly and intellectual record on the Armenian Genocide and how this event conforms to the definition of the United Nations Genocide Convention. We want to underscore that it is not just Armenians who are affirming the Armenian Genocide but it is the overwhelming opinion of scholars who study genocide: hundreds of independent scholars, who have no affiliations with governments, and whose work spans many countries and nationalities and the course of decades. The scholarly evidence reveals the following:
On April 24, 1915, under cover of World War I, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens – an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches. The rest of the Armenian population fled into permanent exile. Thus an ancient civilization was expunged from its homeland of 2,500 years.
The Armenian Genocide was the most well-known human rights issue of its time and was reported regularly in newspapers across the United States and Europe. The Armenian Genocide is abundantly documented by thousands of official records of the United States and nations around the world including Turkey’s wartime allies Germany, Austria and Hungary, by Ottoman court-martial records, by eyewitness accounts of missionaries and diplomats, by the testimony of survivors, and by decades of historical scholarship.
The Armenian Genocide is corroborated by the international scholarly, legal, and human rights community:
1) Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, when he coined the term genocide in 1944, cited the Turkish extermination of the Armenians and the Nazi extermination of the Jews as defining examples of what he meant by genocide.
2) The killings of the Armenians are genocide as defined by the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
3) In 1997 the International Association of Genocide Scholars, an organization of the world’s foremost experts on genocide, unanimously passed a formal resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide.
4) 126 leading scholars of the Holocaust including Elie Wiesel and Yehuda Bauer placed a statement in the New York Times in June 2000 declaring the “incontestable fact of the Armenian Genocide” and urging western democracies to acknowledge it.
5) The Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide (Jerusalem), and the Institute for the Study of Genocide (NYC) have affirmed the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide.
6) Leading texts in the international law of genocide such as William A. Schabas’s Genocide in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2000) cite the Armenian Genocide as a precursor to the Holocaust and as a precedent for the law on crimes against humanity.
We note that there may be differing interpretations of genocide—how and why the Armenian Genocide happened, but to deny its factual and moral reality as genocide is not to engage in scholarship but in propaganda and efforts to absolve the perpetrator, blame the victims, and erase the ethical meaning of this history.
We would also note that scholars who advise your government and who are affiliated in other ways with your state-controlled institutions are not impartial. Such so-called “scholars” work to serve the agenda of historical and moral obfuscation when they advise you and the Turkish Parliament on how to deny the Armenian Genocide. In preventing a conference on the Armenian Genocide from taking place at Bogacizi University in Istanbul on May 25, your government revealed its aversion to academic and intellectual freedom—a fundamental condition of democratic society.
We believe that it is clearly in the interest of the Turkish people and their future as a proud and equal participants in international, democratic discourse to acknowledge the responsibility of a previous government for the genocide of the Armenian people, just as the German government and people have done in the case of the Holocaust.
Approved unanimously at the Sixth biennial meeting of
THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS (IAGS)
June 7, 2005, Boca Raton, Florida
Appendix 2: IAGS Letter to U.S. Congress on Armenian Genocide Resolution
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS
October 5, 2007
The Honorable Tom Lantos, Chairman
The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member
House Foreign Affairs Committee
US House of Representatives
Dear Chairman Lantos and Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen:
We write to you as the leading international organization of scholars who study genocide. We strongly urge you to pass H. Res. 106.
In passing this resolution the US Congress would not be adjudicating history but instead would be affirming the truth about a genocide that has been overwhelmingly established by decades of documentation and scholarship.
Truth of the Scholarly Record
It is disingenuous of the government of Turkey to use the red herring of a “historians’ commission,” half of whose members would be appointed by the Turkish government, to “study” the facts of what occurred in 1915. As we have made clear in our Open Letters to Prime Minister Erdogan (6/13/05 and 6/12/06), the historical record on the Armenian Genocide is unambiguous. It is proven by foreign office records of the United States, France, Great Britain, Russia, and perhaps most importantly, of Turkey’s World War I allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, as well as by the records of the Ottoman Courts-Martial of 1918-1920, and by decades of scholarship. A “commission of historians” would only serve the interests of Turkish genocide deniers.
The abundance of scholarly evidence led to the unanimous resolution of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Turkish massacres of over one million Armenians from 1915 to 1918 was a crime of genocide.
America’s Own Record
The Joint Congressional Resolution recognizing and commemorating the Armenian Genocide will honor America’s extraordinary Foreign Service Officers (among them Leslie A. Davis, Jesse B. Jackson, and Oscar Heizer) who often risked their lives rescuing Armenian citizens in 1915. They and others left behind some forty thousand pages of reports, now in the National Archives, that document that what happened to the Armenian people was government-planned, systematic extermination—what Raphael Lemkin (the man who coined the word genocide) used in creating the definition.
By passing this resolution, the U.S. Congress would also pay tribute to America’s first international human rights movement. The Foreign Service Officers and prominent individuals such as Theodore Roosevelt, Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, and Cleveland Dodge, who did so much to help the Armenians, exemplify America’s legacy of moral leadership.
The parliaments of many countries have affirmed the fact of the Armenian Genocide in unequivocal terms, yet H. Res. 106, a commemorative, non-binding resolution, has faced opposition from those who fear it would undermine US relations with Turkey. It is worth noting that, notwithstanding France’s Armenian Genocide legislation, France and Turkey are engaged in more bilateral trade than ever before. We would not expect the US government to be intimidated by an unreliable ally with a deeply disturbing human rights record, graphically documented in the State Department’s 2007 International Religious Freedom Report on Turkey. We would expect the United States to express its moral and intellectual views, not to compromise its own principles.
The Armenian Genocide is not a controversial issue outside of Turkey. Just as it would be unethical for Germany to interfere with the historical memory of the Holocaust, we feel it is equally unethical for Turkey to interfere with the memory of the Armenian Genocide. Elie Wiesel has repeatedly called Turkey’s denial a double killing, as it strives to kill the memory of the event. We believe the US government should not be party to efforts to kill the memory of a historical fact as profound and important as the genocide of the Armenians, which Hitler used as an example in his plan to exterminate the Jews.
We also believe that security and historical truth are not in conflict, and it is in the interest of the United States to support the principles of human rights that are at the core of American democracy.
Sincerely,
Dr. Gregory H. Stanton
President
International Association of Genocide Scholars
Immediate Past President:
Israel W. Charny
Institute on Holocaust & Genocide, Jerusalem, Israel
October 5, 2007
The Honorable Tom Lantos, Chairman
The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member
House Foreign Affairs Committee
US House of Representatives
Dear Chairman Lantos and Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen:
We write to you as the leading international organization of scholars who study genocide. We strongly urge you to pass H. Res. 106.
In passing this resolution the US Congress would not be adjudicating history but instead would be affirming the truth about a genocide that has been overwhelmingly established by decades of documentation and scholarship.
Truth of the Scholarly Record
It is disingenuous of the government of Turkey to use the red herring of a “historians’ commission,” half of whose members would be appointed by the Turkish government, to “study” the facts of what occurred in 1915. As we have made clear in our Open Letters to Prime Minister Erdogan (6/13/05 and 6/12/06), the historical record on the Armenian Genocide is unambiguous. It is proven by foreign office records of the United States, France, Great Britain, Russia, and perhaps most importantly, of Turkey’s World War I allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, as well as by the records of the Ottoman Courts-Martial of 1918-1920, and by decades of scholarship. A “commission of historians” would only serve the interests of Turkish genocide deniers.
The abundance of scholarly evidence led to the unanimous resolution of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Turkish massacres of over one million Armenians from 1915 to 1918 was a crime of genocide.
America’s Own Record
The Joint Congressional Resolution recognizing and commemorating the Armenian Genocide will honor America’s extraordinary Foreign Service Officers (among them Leslie A. Davis, Jesse B. Jackson, and Oscar Heizer) who often risked their lives rescuing Armenian citizens in 1915. They and others left behind some forty thousand pages of reports, now in the National Archives, that document that what happened to the Armenian people was government-planned, systematic extermination—what Raphael Lemkin (the man who coined the word genocide) used in creating the definition.
By passing this resolution, the U.S. Congress would also pay tribute to America’s first international human rights movement. The Foreign Service Officers and prominent individuals such as Theodore Roosevelt, Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, and Cleveland Dodge, who did so much to help the Armenians, exemplify America’s legacy of moral leadership.
The parliaments of many countries have affirmed the fact of the Armenian Genocide in unequivocal terms, yet H. Res. 106, a commemorative, non-binding resolution, has faced opposition from those who fear it would undermine US relations with Turkey. It is worth noting that, notwithstanding France’s Armenian Genocide legislation, France and Turkey are engaged in more bilateral trade than ever before. We would not expect the US government to be intimidated by an unreliable ally with a deeply disturbing human rights record, graphically documented in the State Department’s 2007 International Religious Freedom Report on Turkey. We would expect the United States to express its moral and intellectual views, not to compromise its own principles.
The Armenian Genocide is not a controversial issue outside of Turkey. Just as it would be unethical for Germany to interfere with the historical memory of the Holocaust, we feel it is equally unethical for Turkey to interfere with the memory of the Armenian Genocide. Elie Wiesel has repeatedly called Turkey’s denial a double killing, as it strives to kill the memory of the event. We believe the US government should not be party to efforts to kill the memory of a historical fact as profound and important as the genocide of the Armenians, which Hitler used as an example in his plan to exterminate the Jews.
We also believe that security and historical truth are not in conflict, and it is in the interest of the United States to support the principles of human rights that are at the core of American democracy.
Sincerely,
Dr. Gregory H. Stanton
President
International Association of Genocide Scholars
Immediate Past President:
Israel W. Charny
Institute on Holocaust & Genocide, Jerusalem, Israel
Appendix 3: Statements by Jewish Americans supporting the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and criticizing the ADL’s opposition to it
“The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and B'nai B'rith International recently conveyed a letter from the Turkish Jewish community opposing a resolution recognizing the genocide.
The ADL and the JINSA also added their own statements of opposition, suggesting that the massacre of Armenians was a matter for historians, not legislators, to decide.
The American Jewish community has insisted, and rightly so, that the U.S. Congress, the United Nations and other governmental bodies formally commemorate the Holocaust. Why should Jews not insist on the same in this case, especially given the widespread scholarly consensus that what happened to the Armenians from 1915 to 1923 was genocide? After all, the man who coined the term "genocide" to refer to the Holocaust — the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin — cited the Armenian massacres as a precedent.”
Daniel Sokatch, Executive Director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance
David N. Myers, Professor and Director, UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
The Los Angeles Times
May 1, 2007
“For a non-profit like the ADL, which in fact has done important work to combat not just anti-Semitism but other forms of ethnocentrism and racism, to shill for Holocaust-deniers (yes, the Armenian genocide can fairly be called a Holocaust) is inexcusable.”
Mark Oppenheimer
Huffington Post
July 10, 2007
“Yes, Turkey is Israel's best friend in the Muslim world. But apart from the improbability of that country severing its relations with either Israel or the United States, we must ask whether supporting those who falsify and distort the historical record is ever in our or their interests.
. . . Foxman should follow the logic of his own statement and take the essential next step of supporting HR 106 . . . In parallel, our local Anti-Defamation League board should either announce its support for HR 106 . . . or renounce the organization's declared mission ‘to secure justice and fair treatment to all.’”
David N. Myers, Professor and Director, UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
The Jewish Journal
August 31, 2007
“There is legislation in Congress to declare the truth about this genocide. I’ve heard the argument that an American declaration would be counterproductive because the point is to quietly encourage Turkey to come to terms with her past – on her own.
That would be good, but it is surely not the point. The point is – for the victims, for their families and for history – to say the truth.
Jews cannot be therapists here. But we can be Jews. And the Jews of America, especially now, need to do what Henry Morgenthau and Absolom Feinberg knew to do.
We need to reverse our missteps, to lobby Congress, and to strike a blow against Armenian genocide denial.”
Charles Jacobs
President, The David Project Center for Jewish Leadership
The Jewish Advocate
August 31, 2007
“In fact, an American resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide protects Jews, including the 26,000 Jews in Turkey as well as all ethnic, religious and other minorities, as it places the world’s sole superpower firmly against such atrocities. It frankly boggles the mind that any Jewish group could possibly justify any sort of minimization of atrocities committed against another group.”
Mitchell Plitnick
Director of Education and Policy,
Jewish Voice for Peace
September 27, 2007
“It may be politically expedient to deny the Armenian genocide but it's morally wrong.
As the daughter of Czech Jews whose families were murdered during the Holocaust, [I understand] not only the facts of destruction of life, culture and community, but the long-term psychological ramifications of genocide and the healing power of validation.
. . . ‘It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator,’ writes Judith Lewis Herman. The perpetrator asks nothing of us but to be silent. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement and remembering.
The head of the ADL has chosen not to do this. As a Jew who understands what this means, [I urge] that No Place for Hate sever ties with the ADL.”
Helen Epstein, Author of “Children of the Holocaust”
Lexington, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen Meeting
October 15, 2007
The ADL and the JINSA also added their own statements of opposition, suggesting that the massacre of Armenians was a matter for historians, not legislators, to decide.
The American Jewish community has insisted, and rightly so, that the U.S. Congress, the United Nations and other governmental bodies formally commemorate the Holocaust. Why should Jews not insist on the same in this case, especially given the widespread scholarly consensus that what happened to the Armenians from 1915 to 1923 was genocide? After all, the man who coined the term "genocide" to refer to the Holocaust — the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin — cited the Armenian massacres as a precedent.”
Daniel Sokatch, Executive Director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance
David N. Myers, Professor and Director, UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
The Los Angeles Times
May 1, 2007
“For a non-profit like the ADL, which in fact has done important work to combat not just anti-Semitism but other forms of ethnocentrism and racism, to shill for Holocaust-deniers (yes, the Armenian genocide can fairly be called a Holocaust) is inexcusable.”
Mark Oppenheimer
Huffington Post
July 10, 2007
“Yes, Turkey is Israel's best friend in the Muslim world. But apart from the improbability of that country severing its relations with either Israel or the United States, we must ask whether supporting those who falsify and distort the historical record is ever in our or their interests.
. . . Foxman should follow the logic of his own statement and take the essential next step of supporting HR 106 . . . In parallel, our local Anti-Defamation League board should either announce its support for HR 106 . . . or renounce the organization's declared mission ‘to secure justice and fair treatment to all.’”
David N. Myers, Professor and Director, UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
The Jewish Journal
August 31, 2007
“There is legislation in Congress to declare the truth about this genocide. I’ve heard the argument that an American declaration would be counterproductive because the point is to quietly encourage Turkey to come to terms with her past – on her own.
That would be good, but it is surely not the point. The point is – for the victims, for their families and for history – to say the truth.
Jews cannot be therapists here. But we can be Jews. And the Jews of America, especially now, need to do what Henry Morgenthau and Absolom Feinberg knew to do.
We need to reverse our missteps, to lobby Congress, and to strike a blow against Armenian genocide denial.”
Charles Jacobs
President, The David Project Center for Jewish Leadership
The Jewish Advocate
August 31, 2007
“In fact, an American resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide protects Jews, including the 26,000 Jews in Turkey as well as all ethnic, religious and other minorities, as it places the world’s sole superpower firmly against such atrocities. It frankly boggles the mind that any Jewish group could possibly justify any sort of minimization of atrocities committed against another group.”
Mitchell Plitnick
Director of Education and Policy,
Jewish Voice for Peace
September 27, 2007
“It may be politically expedient to deny the Armenian genocide but it's morally wrong.
As the daughter of Czech Jews whose families were murdered during the Holocaust, [I understand] not only the facts of destruction of life, culture and community, but the long-term psychological ramifications of genocide and the healing power of validation.
. . . ‘It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator,’ writes Judith Lewis Herman. The perpetrator asks nothing of us but to be silent. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement and remembering.
The head of the ADL has chosen not to do this. As a Jew who understands what this means, [I urge] that No Place for Hate sever ties with the ADL.”
Helen Epstein, Author of “Children of the Holocaust”
Lexington, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen Meeting
October 15, 2007
Appendix 4: Statements by human rights advocates & town officials supporting recognition of the Armenian Genocide & criticizing ADL's opposition to it
“We find the ADL’s position unacceptable.
By not fully recognizing the slaughter of the Armenian people as genocide, and by not working to influence all nations of the world to set the historical record straight, the ADL is ignoring a clear moral imperative.”
Will Twombly
Co-chair, Watertown, Massachusetts No Place for Hate Committee
August 14, 2007
“Whenever I saw the word Armenian [in the ADL’s August 21 statement on the Armenian Genocide], in my mind I substituted the word Jewish. And whenever I saw the word genocide, I substituted the word Holocaust. And I said, would I be satisfied if this were the response of my leaders? And the answer was no!
[We] want to see justice for the Armenian people, [we] want to see a full and complete recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the ADL and the ADL becoming one of the active supporters of legislation to have the U.S. recognize the historic fact of the Armenian Genocide. We are all prepared to go as far as we need to make sure that those things are realized.”
Newton, Massachusetts Mayor David B. Cohen
August 21, 2007
“The Newton Human Rights Commission agreed that the following must happen:
• National ADL must follow ADL New England, and fully and unequivocally recognize the Armenian Genocide
• National ADL must actively support Congressional resolution HR106
• National ADL must immediately reinstate Andrew Tarsy as Director of ADL New England
While the NPFH program parallels the ideals and values of our community, and while we have been involved from the beginning, we shall reassess our participation with ADL and this program based on what actions, or lack of actions, are taken by the national ADL.”
Newton, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
Excerpts from letter to the ADL
August 21, 2007
“The members of Newburyport’s Commission for Diversity and Tolerance are distraught and dismayed by Mr. Foxman’s and the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) stance on the Armenian Genocide. Not only has the ADL failed to support the Armenian people by advocating for congressional recognition with HR 106, but also, in fact, it has lobbied against the legislation.
We find that the ADL’s logic that led to the statement that a “Congressional resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion … and may put at risk the Turkish Jewish community and the important multilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States” fatally flawed, and contrary to the spirit of ‘Never Again.’”
Newburyport, Massachusetts Commission for Diversity and Tolerance
Excerpts from open letter to the ADL and Abraham Foxman
August 31, 2007
“Many people who partnered with the ADL . . . including many people in the Jewish community itself, have been profoundly disturbed to discover two things: a placement of politics above principle; a reality of genocide denial. I think the organization has to answer to these two very pointed questions. I am disappointed.”
Rev. John Buehrens
Needham, Massachusetts Human Rights Commissioner
September 5, 2007
“I come from a family of Holocaust survivors and I know that for them, the recognition of the Holocaust by the world and the recognition of Germany as being responsible for it was very important for them in the process of healing and moving forward.”
Liora Harari
Needham, Massachusetts Human Rights Commissioner
September 5, 2007
“ADL and the No Place for Hate® program emphasize that the “tip of the pyramid of hatred” is genocide. How can we, in good faith, ask our community to work at the base of this same pyramid while the No Place for Hate® sponsor is actively working against congressional, international recognition of the Armenian genocide?”
Belmont, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
Excerpt from letter to ADL
September 6, 2007
“Hearing the voices of the Armenian community and my own Jewish conscience, I cannot say that we are able to be in the same boat with [the ADL]. To associate a human rights campaign with one that is so awry is the problem, and I feel that would damage what we’re trying to do too much.”
David Fisher
Student Advisory Council, Newton, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
September 11, 2007
“The recognition of the Armenian Genocide is an important step along the path of freedom and justice, and crucial in combating other genocides now and in the future.
The City of Newton recognizes all that the New England chapter of the ADL has done to bring about a change in national ADL policy on the Armenian Genocide, and we stand behind their efforts to change their policy at the national ADL meeting in November.”
Newton, Massachusetts Mayor David B. Cohen
September 11, 2007
“The MMA has issued a strong and unequivocal statement on the importance of recognizing the Armenian Genocide and supporting passage of the Congressional Resolution. We applaud the Executive Committee of the New England Region of the ADL for taking this position, and the MMA has called on the national ADL organization to do the same. We will continue to review and monitor this matter, recognizing that while progress has been made, we will subsequently re-evaluate our official sponsorship of NPFH after the national ADL determines whether to adopt this position.”
Board of Directors, Massachusetts Municipal Association
Letter to Massachusetts Town Officials
September 12, 2007
“We, like you in your mission statement, believe it is our responsibility "to secure justice and fair treatment for all." We are surprised and disappointed therefore that the national board of the ADL has not stood with the Armenians as they seek justice and fair treatment.
The national board's unwillingness to fully support recognition of the Armenian genocide is in our view undermining the excellent work of our regional ADL board and our community efforts to be "No Place for Hate."
We strongly support the positions of the New England regional ADL board and therefore call on the national board of the ADL to:
•acknowledge the Armenian genocide as a genocide, not “tantamount to genocide;”
•support the resolution before Congress which officially recognizes the Armenian genocide;
•make these policy changes promptly.
In our opinion, the longer the national board waits, the more credibility the organization loses, and the more difficult it is for us as a committee for human rights to carry on our work in partnership with the ADL.”
Needham, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
Excerpts from letter to ADL
September 12, 2007
“It was impossible to continue our committee’s work, and to regain our credibility in the community, while affiliated with the ADL under these circumstances . . . We cannot fully believe the sincerity of the ADL’s stated goals – to work for the fair and equal treatment of all – until you have completely and wholeheartedly supported the Armenian people in their quest to have their history acknowledged by all nations of the world.”
Will Twombly and Sargeant David Sampson
Former co-chairs of Watertown’s No Place for Hate
Letter to ADL
September 27, 2007
“Many Jews were outraged by the hypocrisy of ADL for choosing to place political expediency above their commitment to human justice, knowing that if any group played that game with the Holocaust, the ADL would be the first to call them for what they were, genocide deniers.”
Cambridge, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
Excerpt from letter to Lexington, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen
October 2007
“WHEREAS the national Anti-Defamation League has failed to recognize unambiguously the Armenian Genocide and has opposed efforts in Congress to do so;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the full recognition and honest discussion of past atrocities – such as the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust – are requisite to understanding and responding to contemporary genocidal crimes against humanity – such as the atrocities in Darfur -- and that legislative measures such as H. Res. 106 constitute an important part of this process.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Arlington Human Rights Commission [supports] the decision to suspend Arlington's involvement in the No Place for Hate® program.”
Arlington, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
Excerpts from Arlington HRC Resolution Rescinding Endorsement of ADL
October 15, 2007
“As commissioners, we appreciate the difficulty of living with a genocide and how much harder it is living with denial.”
David Harris
Chair, Medford, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
October 2007
“At its October 15, 2007 meeting, the Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to rescind its endorsement of the Town’s formal relationship with the ADL’s No Place for Hate Program . . . We have several concerns, but the most important is the failure of the National ADL to quickly resolve the debate surrounding the recognition of the Armenian genocide.”
Lexington, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen
Letter to the ADL
October 17, 2007
“The town of Westwood has concluded that our ability to carry out the founding principles of the No Place for Hate program is seriously compromised by the ADL’s position on the Armenian genocide and the House and Senate resolution.”
Westwood, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen
Excerpt from Letter to the ADL
October 2007
By not fully recognizing the slaughter of the Armenian people as genocide, and by not working to influence all nations of the world to set the historical record straight, the ADL is ignoring a clear moral imperative.”
Will Twombly
Co-chair, Watertown, Massachusetts No Place for Hate Committee
August 14, 2007
“Whenever I saw the word Armenian [in the ADL’s August 21 statement on the Armenian Genocide], in my mind I substituted the word Jewish. And whenever I saw the word genocide, I substituted the word Holocaust. And I said, would I be satisfied if this were the response of my leaders? And the answer was no!
[We] want to see justice for the Armenian people, [we] want to see a full and complete recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the ADL and the ADL becoming one of the active supporters of legislation to have the U.S. recognize the historic fact of the Armenian Genocide. We are all prepared to go as far as we need to make sure that those things are realized.”
Newton, Massachusetts Mayor David B. Cohen
August 21, 2007
“The Newton Human Rights Commission agreed that the following must happen:
• National ADL must follow ADL New England, and fully and unequivocally recognize the Armenian Genocide
• National ADL must actively support Congressional resolution HR106
• National ADL must immediately reinstate Andrew Tarsy as Director of ADL New England
While the NPFH program parallels the ideals and values of our community, and while we have been involved from the beginning, we shall reassess our participation with ADL and this program based on what actions, or lack of actions, are taken by the national ADL.”
Newton, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
Excerpts from letter to the ADL
August 21, 2007
“The members of Newburyport’s Commission for Diversity and Tolerance are distraught and dismayed by Mr. Foxman’s and the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) stance on the Armenian Genocide. Not only has the ADL failed to support the Armenian people by advocating for congressional recognition with HR 106, but also, in fact, it has lobbied against the legislation.
We find that the ADL’s logic that led to the statement that a “Congressional resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion … and may put at risk the Turkish Jewish community and the important multilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States” fatally flawed, and contrary to the spirit of ‘Never Again.’”
Newburyport, Massachusetts Commission for Diversity and Tolerance
Excerpts from open letter to the ADL and Abraham Foxman
August 31, 2007
“Many people who partnered with the ADL . . . including many people in the Jewish community itself, have been profoundly disturbed to discover two things: a placement of politics above principle; a reality of genocide denial. I think the organization has to answer to these two very pointed questions. I am disappointed.”
Rev. John Buehrens
Needham, Massachusetts Human Rights Commissioner
September 5, 2007
“I come from a family of Holocaust survivors and I know that for them, the recognition of the Holocaust by the world and the recognition of Germany as being responsible for it was very important for them in the process of healing and moving forward.”
Liora Harari
Needham, Massachusetts Human Rights Commissioner
September 5, 2007
“ADL and the No Place for Hate® program emphasize that the “tip of the pyramid of hatred” is genocide. How can we, in good faith, ask our community to work at the base of this same pyramid while the No Place for Hate® sponsor is actively working against congressional, international recognition of the Armenian genocide?”
Belmont, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
Excerpt from letter to ADL
September 6, 2007
“Hearing the voices of the Armenian community and my own Jewish conscience, I cannot say that we are able to be in the same boat with [the ADL]. To associate a human rights campaign with one that is so awry is the problem, and I feel that would damage what we’re trying to do too much.”
David Fisher
Student Advisory Council, Newton, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
September 11, 2007
“The recognition of the Armenian Genocide is an important step along the path of freedom and justice, and crucial in combating other genocides now and in the future.
The City of Newton recognizes all that the New England chapter of the ADL has done to bring about a change in national ADL policy on the Armenian Genocide, and we stand behind their efforts to change their policy at the national ADL meeting in November.”
Newton, Massachusetts Mayor David B. Cohen
September 11, 2007
“The MMA has issued a strong and unequivocal statement on the importance of recognizing the Armenian Genocide and supporting passage of the Congressional Resolution. We applaud the Executive Committee of the New England Region of the ADL for taking this position, and the MMA has called on the national ADL organization to do the same. We will continue to review and monitor this matter, recognizing that while progress has been made, we will subsequently re-evaluate our official sponsorship of NPFH after the national ADL determines whether to adopt this position.”
Board of Directors, Massachusetts Municipal Association
Letter to Massachusetts Town Officials
September 12, 2007
“We, like you in your mission statement, believe it is our responsibility "to secure justice and fair treatment for all." We are surprised and disappointed therefore that the national board of the ADL has not stood with the Armenians as they seek justice and fair treatment.
The national board's unwillingness to fully support recognition of the Armenian genocide is in our view undermining the excellent work of our regional ADL board and our community efforts to be "No Place for Hate."
We strongly support the positions of the New England regional ADL board and therefore call on the national board of the ADL to:
•acknowledge the Armenian genocide as a genocide, not “tantamount to genocide;”
•support the resolution before Congress which officially recognizes the Armenian genocide;
•make these policy changes promptly.
In our opinion, the longer the national board waits, the more credibility the organization loses, and the more difficult it is for us as a committee for human rights to carry on our work in partnership with the ADL.”
Needham, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
Excerpts from letter to ADL
September 12, 2007
“It was impossible to continue our committee’s work, and to regain our credibility in the community, while affiliated with the ADL under these circumstances . . . We cannot fully believe the sincerity of the ADL’s stated goals – to work for the fair and equal treatment of all – until you have completely and wholeheartedly supported the Armenian people in their quest to have their history acknowledged by all nations of the world.”
Will Twombly and Sargeant David Sampson
Former co-chairs of Watertown’s No Place for Hate
Letter to ADL
September 27, 2007
“Many Jews were outraged by the hypocrisy of ADL for choosing to place political expediency above their commitment to human justice, knowing that if any group played that game with the Holocaust, the ADL would be the first to call them for what they were, genocide deniers.”
Cambridge, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
Excerpt from letter to Lexington, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen
October 2007
“WHEREAS the national Anti-Defamation League has failed to recognize unambiguously the Armenian Genocide and has opposed efforts in Congress to do so;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the full recognition and honest discussion of past atrocities – such as the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust – are requisite to understanding and responding to contemporary genocidal crimes against humanity – such as the atrocities in Darfur -- and that legislative measures such as H. Res. 106 constitute an important part of this process.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Arlington Human Rights Commission [supports] the decision to suspend Arlington's involvement in the No Place for Hate® program.”
Arlington, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
Excerpts from Arlington HRC Resolution Rescinding Endorsement of ADL
October 15, 2007
“As commissioners, we appreciate the difficulty of living with a genocide and how much harder it is living with denial.”
David Harris
Chair, Medford, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission
October 2007
“At its October 15, 2007 meeting, the Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to rescind its endorsement of the Town’s formal relationship with the ADL’s No Place for Hate Program . . . We have several concerns, but the most important is the failure of the National ADL to quickly resolve the debate surrounding the recognition of the Armenian genocide.”
Lexington, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen
Letter to the ADL
October 17, 2007
“The town of Westwood has concluded that our ability to carry out the founding principles of the No Place for Hate program is seriously compromised by the ADL’s position on the Armenian genocide and the House and Senate resolution.”
Westwood, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen
Excerpt from Letter to the ADL
October 2007
Appendix 5: Press clippings: a history of opposing recognition of the Armenian Genocide
The following are unedited excerpts from the American, Israeli and Turkish press.
The New York Sun
Turkey Up in Arms over House Resolution against Armenian “Genocide”
Turkey was so alarmed by a proposed House resolution calling the mass slaughter of Armenians by Turks during World War I a "genocide" that it dispatched its foreign minister to persuade American Jewish leaders to lobby against it.
At a suite at the Willard Hotel in Washington on February 5, Abdullah Gül met with representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Friends of Lubavitch, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and United Jewish Communities. According to one participant in the meeting, the Turkish foreign minister "made a hard sell," against House resolution 106, whose short title is "Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution."
Eli Lake
February 22, 2007
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
U.S. Jews enter debate on Armenian/Turkish history
The Turkish lobbying has had some effect. B'nai B'rith International, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) are set to convey a letter from Turkish Jews who oppose the resolution to U.S. congressional leaders. The ADL and JINSA have added their own statements opposing the bill. "I don't think congressional action will help reconcile the issue," said ADL National Director Abraham Foxman. "The resolution takes a position; it comes to a judgment. "The Turks and Armenians need to revisit their past. The Jewish community shouldn't be the arbiter of that history, nor should the U.S. Congress."
Ron Kampeas
April 27, 2007
Turkish Daily News
Four Jewish groups back Turkey on Armenian genocide
Four large U.S. Jewish groups have lent support to Turkey's position in opposing the passage of two resolutions pending in Congress that call for official recognition of World War I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. B'nai B'rith International, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) have recently conveyed a letter from Turkish Jews who oppose the resolution to U.S. congressional leaders, officials from the groups told the Turkish Daily News.
In their letter, leading Turkish Jews have urged congressional leaders to postpone considering the genocide measures. In conveying the letter to Congress officials, the four U.S. Jewish groups tacitly agreed to its contents. Going further, the ADL and JINSA have also added their own statements opposing the bill.
April 26, 2007
Jewish Journal
The Armenian Genocide Debate Pits Moral Values Against Realpolitik
Jewish support for the Armenian grievances has not been unanimous. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who represents a large Armenian constituency and has introduced House Resolution 106 calling for U.S. recognition of the 1915 genocide, has sent letters to four Jewish organizations criticizing their positions. The Jewish legislator admonished the American Jewish Committee (AJ Committee), B'nai B'rith International, the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which had jointly transmitted to House leaders a letter from the organized Jewish Community of Turkey.
In his written response, Schiff took the action of the American Jewish organizations as "tantamount to an implicit and inappropriate endorsement of the position of the letter's authors." He added, "I cannot see how major Jewish American organizations can in good conscience and in any way support efforts to deny the undeniable." In a phone interview, Schiff reaffirmed his criticism of the Jewish organizations and surmised that their opposition was influenced by Israel, worried about harming its good relationship with Turkey. "It would be a terrible mistake if the Israeli government became involved in this matter," he said.
Tom Tugend
May 4, 2007
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Under fire, ADL recognizes Armenian killings as genocide
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is the lead sponsor of the congressional resolution, rejected any attempt to connect the controversy to the Israeli-Turkish alliance. "There is no connection between what the U.S. Congress does on this resolution and Israel, unless ADL makes one," Schiff said. The ADL "may end up hurting Israel by bringing Israel into the fight."
Schiff acknowledged that Turkey might be sending such a message to Jewish organizations. But, he added, Jewish groups "should have told Turkey from the beginning, 'We're not involved in this fight, and if we get involved it will be on the side of recognition.' They didn't do that, and now I think they are suffering the repercussions."
[David] Harris, of AJC, dismissed concerns that congressional actions could adversely impact Turkey's Jews or the country's ties to Israel.
Ben Harris
August 21, 2007
Jerusalem Post
Diplomacy: The politics of principles
And the final thing the Turks "get" from Israel is access to the Jewish lobby in Washington. Talk candidly to Turkish academics, politicians and journalists and they will say that one of the reasons Israel is valuable to Turkey is because of the ADL, the American Jewish Congress, B'nai Brith and similar organizations. Without a strong lobby of its own in Washington, Turkey looks to these organizations to put in a good word in Congress or with the administration when issues of importance to Ankara - such as issues regarding the Armenians or Cyprus - make their way to those bodies.
Herb Keinon
August 23, 2007
The Jewish Daily Forward
Showdown Set in “Genocide” Debate
Every year on April 24, the day that Armenians commemorate the killings, a resolution calling for the use of the controversial term is proposed in Congress and then beaten back. Some Jewish groups claim credit for ensuring that such a resolution never passes.
Jewish advocacy groups, including the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, B’nai Brith and American Jewish Committee “have been working with the Turks on this issue” for more than 15 years, said Yola Habif Johnston, director for foundations and community outreach at Jinsa. “The Jewish lobby has quite actively supported Turkey in their efforts to prevent the so-called Armenian genocide resolution from passing,” she said.
Rebecca Spence,
Sep 02, 2006
The Jerusalem Post
Rattling the Cage: Playing politics with genocide
What does the State of Israel and many of its American Jewish lobbyists have to say about it [the Armenian genocide], about this first genocide of the 20th century? If they were merely standing silent, that would be an improvement. Instead, on the subject of the Armenian genocide, Israel and some US Jewish organizations, notably the American Jewish Committee, have for many years acted aggressively as silencers. In Israel, attempts to broadcast documentaries about the genocide on state-run television have been aborted. A program to teach the genocide in public schools was watered down to the point that history teachers refused to teach it.
In the US Congress, resolutions to recognize the genocide and the Ottoman Turks' responsibility for it have been snuffed out by Turkey and its right-hand man on this issue, the Israel lobby.
Larry Derfner
April 21, 2005
The New York Sun
Turkey Up in Arms over House Resolution against Armenian “Genocide”
Turkey was so alarmed by a proposed House resolution calling the mass slaughter of Armenians by Turks during World War I a "genocide" that it dispatched its foreign minister to persuade American Jewish leaders to lobby against it.
At a suite at the Willard Hotel in Washington on February 5, Abdullah Gül met with representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Friends of Lubavitch, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and United Jewish Communities. According to one participant in the meeting, the Turkish foreign minister "made a hard sell," against House resolution 106, whose short title is "Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution."
Eli Lake
February 22, 2007
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
U.S. Jews enter debate on Armenian/Turkish history
The Turkish lobbying has had some effect. B'nai B'rith International, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) are set to convey a letter from Turkish Jews who oppose the resolution to U.S. congressional leaders. The ADL and JINSA have added their own statements opposing the bill. "I don't think congressional action will help reconcile the issue," said ADL National Director Abraham Foxman. "The resolution takes a position; it comes to a judgment. "The Turks and Armenians need to revisit their past. The Jewish community shouldn't be the arbiter of that history, nor should the U.S. Congress."
Ron Kampeas
April 27, 2007
Turkish Daily News
Four Jewish groups back Turkey on Armenian genocide
Four large U.S. Jewish groups have lent support to Turkey's position in opposing the passage of two resolutions pending in Congress that call for official recognition of World War I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. B'nai B'rith International, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) have recently conveyed a letter from Turkish Jews who oppose the resolution to U.S. congressional leaders, officials from the groups told the Turkish Daily News.
In their letter, leading Turkish Jews have urged congressional leaders to postpone considering the genocide measures. In conveying the letter to Congress officials, the four U.S. Jewish groups tacitly agreed to its contents. Going further, the ADL and JINSA have also added their own statements opposing the bill.
April 26, 2007
Jewish Journal
The Armenian Genocide Debate Pits Moral Values Against Realpolitik
Jewish support for the Armenian grievances has not been unanimous. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who represents a large Armenian constituency and has introduced House Resolution 106 calling for U.S. recognition of the 1915 genocide, has sent letters to four Jewish organizations criticizing their positions. The Jewish legislator admonished the American Jewish Committee (AJ Committee), B'nai B'rith International, the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which had jointly transmitted to House leaders a letter from the organized Jewish Community of Turkey.
In his written response, Schiff took the action of the American Jewish organizations as "tantamount to an implicit and inappropriate endorsement of the position of the letter's authors." He added, "I cannot see how major Jewish American organizations can in good conscience and in any way support efforts to deny the undeniable." In a phone interview, Schiff reaffirmed his criticism of the Jewish organizations and surmised that their opposition was influenced by Israel, worried about harming its good relationship with Turkey. "It would be a terrible mistake if the Israeli government became involved in this matter," he said.
Tom Tugend
May 4, 2007
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Under fire, ADL recognizes Armenian killings as genocide
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is the lead sponsor of the congressional resolution, rejected any attempt to connect the controversy to the Israeli-Turkish alliance. "There is no connection between what the U.S. Congress does on this resolution and Israel, unless ADL makes one," Schiff said. The ADL "may end up hurting Israel by bringing Israel into the fight."
Schiff acknowledged that Turkey might be sending such a message to Jewish organizations. But, he added, Jewish groups "should have told Turkey from the beginning, 'We're not involved in this fight, and if we get involved it will be on the side of recognition.' They didn't do that, and now I think they are suffering the repercussions."
[David] Harris, of AJC, dismissed concerns that congressional actions could adversely impact Turkey's Jews or the country's ties to Israel.
Ben Harris
August 21, 2007
Jerusalem Post
Diplomacy: The politics of principles
And the final thing the Turks "get" from Israel is access to the Jewish lobby in Washington. Talk candidly to Turkish academics, politicians and journalists and they will say that one of the reasons Israel is valuable to Turkey is because of the ADL, the American Jewish Congress, B'nai Brith and similar organizations. Without a strong lobby of its own in Washington, Turkey looks to these organizations to put in a good word in Congress or with the administration when issues of importance to Ankara - such as issues regarding the Armenians or Cyprus - make their way to those bodies.
Herb Keinon
August 23, 2007
The Jewish Daily Forward
Showdown Set in “Genocide” Debate
Every year on April 24, the day that Armenians commemorate the killings, a resolution calling for the use of the controversial term is proposed in Congress and then beaten back. Some Jewish groups claim credit for ensuring that such a resolution never passes.
Jewish advocacy groups, including the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, B’nai Brith and American Jewish Committee “have been working with the Turks on this issue” for more than 15 years, said Yola Habif Johnston, director for foundations and community outreach at Jinsa. “The Jewish lobby has quite actively supported Turkey in their efforts to prevent the so-called Armenian genocide resolution from passing,” she said.
Rebecca Spence,
Sep 02, 2006
The Jerusalem Post
Rattling the Cage: Playing politics with genocide
What does the State of Israel and many of its American Jewish lobbyists have to say about it [the Armenian genocide], about this first genocide of the 20th century? If they were merely standing silent, that would be an improvement. Instead, on the subject of the Armenian genocide, Israel and some US Jewish organizations, notably the American Jewish Committee, have for many years acted aggressively as silencers. In Israel, attempts to broadcast documentaries about the genocide on state-run television have been aborted. A program to teach the genocide in public schools was watered down to the point that history teachers refused to teach it.
In the US Congress, resolutions to recognize the genocide and the Ottoman Turks' responsibility for it have been snuffed out by Turkey and its right-hand man on this issue, the Israel lobby.
Larry Derfner
April 21, 2005
Appendix 6: Press clippings: Mr. Foxman reiterating his opposition to U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide following ADL's 08/21 statement
The following are unedited excerpts from the American and Turkish press.
The Jewish Daily Forward: Armenian Genocide Crisis Tests Tight Ties Between Turkey and Israel, ADL to Ankara “Deep Regret”
August 29, 2007
Sensoy [Turkey's ambassador to the U.S.] told the Forward that Turkey was “very disappointed” by the ADL’s statement “because it changed the premise of everything we had achieved with the U.S. Jewish community.”
Foxman told the Forward that he has had numerous conversations about the issue in recent days and stressed that the ADL had not changed its position on the congressional resolution . . . “We want to make sure the Turkish government understands that the use of the word ‘genocide’ doesn’t change our position on what Congress needs to do,” Foxman told the Forward. “Some people don’t understand it. Some people understand it, and the Turkish prime minister is among them.”
Today's Zaman: ADL Corrects “Genocide” Mistake in Letter, Erdogan Says
August 25, 2007
Foxman said in his letter that the ADL had huge respect for the Turkish people and has never desired to put the Turkish people and their leaders into a difficult situation, expressing deep regret over what the Turkish people had to go through in the past few days . . .
"The wrong step that has been taken is corrected," said Erdogan in subsequent comments to reporters. "They [The ADL] said they shared our sensitivity and expressed the mistake they made . . . They said they will continue to give us all the support they have given so far," he added.
The Jewish Daily Forward: Armenian Genocide Crisis Tests Tight Ties Between Turkey and Israel, ADL to Ankara “Deep Regret”
August 29, 2007
Sensoy [Turkey's ambassador to the U.S.] told the Forward that Turkey was “very disappointed” by the ADL’s statement “because it changed the premise of everything we had achieved with the U.S. Jewish community.”
Foxman told the Forward that he has had numerous conversations about the issue in recent days and stressed that the ADL had not changed its position on the congressional resolution . . . “We want to make sure the Turkish government understands that the use of the word ‘genocide’ doesn’t change our position on what Congress needs to do,” Foxman told the Forward. “Some people don’t understand it. Some people understand it, and the Turkish prime minister is among them.”
Today's Zaman: ADL Corrects “Genocide” Mistake in Letter, Erdogan Says
August 25, 2007
Foxman said in his letter that the ADL had huge respect for the Turkish people and has never desired to put the Turkish people and their leaders into a difficult situation, expressing deep regret over what the Turkish people had to go through in the past few days . . .
"The wrong step that has been taken is corrected," said Erdogan in subsequent comments to reporters. "They [The ADL] said they shared our sensitivity and expressed the mistake they made . . . They said they will continue to give us all the support they have given so far," he added.
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