Genocide issue still in flux for ADL National panel will weigh policy shift
By Keith O’Brien, Globe Staff | August 23, 2007
Under pressure from local board members, the national Anti-Defamation League
will reconsider its refusal to support a congressional resolution on the
Armenian genocide, the organization’s national director said yesterday.
The decision to reexamine this issue was made a day after the director,
Abraham H. Foxman, issued a statement saying that the ADL believed the
congressional resolution to be "a counterproductive diversion."
But the ADL regional board forced the issue to the forefront yesterday when
it met at a synagogue in Chestnut Hill and voted in favor of bringing back
its fired regional leader, Andrew H. Tarsy, as well as placing the
congressional resolution on the national policy-making agenda.
Foxman declined to say yesterday if he would rehire Tarsy or if he even met
with him during his daylong visit to Boston. But he said the ADL’s national
policy-making body would take up the issue of the congressional resolution
at its next meeting, beginning Nov. 1 in New York City, as the regional
board requested.
"All they had to do was ask," Foxman told the Globe. "That’s our procedure."
The* *panel has about 300 members, including many from the ADL’s New England
regional board and the regional board chairman, James Rudolph.
Rudolph, a partner in a Boston law firm, and Foxman have been at odds since
the regional board and Tarsy publicly broke from the national office on the
Armenian genocide issue last week. But after meeting with Rudolph yesterday,
Foxman said he felt the two sides were a bit closer than they had previously
been.
"I felt people listened, were willing to listen, were willing to discuss,"
he said. "There was very little anger, very little heat, a great deal of
sensitivity and exchange."
This dispute began weeks ago in Watertown, home to more than 8,000
Armenian-Americans. Some residents there became upset when they learned that
the ADL, which had long refused to acknowledge the genocide, was the sponsor
of the town’s antibigotry program, No Place For Hate.
Last week, the Watertown Town Council voted to pull out of the program. And
with other towns considering doing so as well, the regional ADL board
publicly broke ranks with the national office, saying the national ADL
should acknowledge the genocide and support the legislation in the US
Congress. Tarsy, making similar statements in The Boston Globe, was promptly
fired.
"The reason that Andy was terminated was not his position; it was the
process," said George Regan of Boston-based Regan Communications, who said
yesterday he was hired to be a* *spokesman for the national ADL. "It’s a
little bit like the closer of the Red Sox publicly disagreeing with Larry
Lucchino and John Henry."
Many Armenian-Americans, Jewish leaders, and members of the ADL regional
board, praise Tarsy for taking a stand.
>From 1915 to 1923, Ottoman Turks slaughtered as many as 1.5 million
Armenians in what is now modern-day Turkey. Armenians, historians, and
nations including France, Canada, and Britain have called the killings
genocide.
But the Turkish government has refused to accept the genocide label, and
until Tuesday, the national ADL refused to use it, as well. As an
organization founded in 1913 to fight anti-Semitism, the ADL has long
expressed concern that acknowledging the genocide would have a negative
impact on Jews living in Turkey, a rare Muslim ally of Israel, and on
Israeli-Turkish relations.
Foxman reiterated those concerns recently. But in a statement Tuesday, he
acknowledged that the Armenian massacres were "tantamount to genocide." In
Boston yesterday, Foxman said he was told that this policy shift "would go a
long way to healing some wounds and uniting the community."
Armenian-Americans feel differently. They are calling on the national ADL to
follow the regional ADL’s lead and take a stand supporting the resolution.
Just saying the word genocide is not enough, explained Bryan Ardouny,
executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America in Washington, D.C.
"The ADL’s acknowledgement is a positive step forward, and their
reconsideration of this policy is a positive step forward," Ardouny said.
"The next logical step in the face of the ongoing denial of the Armenian
genocide is to support the legislation."
(c) Copyright < right> 2007 The
New York Times Company
Source:
articles/2007/08/23/genocide_issue_still_in_flux_f or_adl/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
