Did Abraham Foxman Acknowledge the Armenian Genocide?
Joey Kurtzman <;,
A ugust 22, 2007
TAGS: Abraham Foxman <; anti-defamation
league < ue> Armenian
Genocide< enian_genocide>

Did Abraham Foxman acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, or reword his denial?

Yesterday I noted my puzzlement
< braham_foxman_meets_with_elie_wiesel_sees_error_of _his_ways_sort_of>
at the convoluted ways that the ADL statement
< 5114_00.htm> seemed to affirm the
genocide without ever explicitly stating that, yes, this was a
genocide.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one that found it odd.

FresnoZionism, "a pro-Israel voice from California’s Central Valley,"
supports the ADL and criticized
< 88> my Fire Foxman
< /fire_foxman> article, but
he’s flabbergasted <; by this
"truly remarkable" excerpt from the ADL statement:

…On reflection, we have come to share the view of Henry Morgenthau,
Sr. that the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to
genocide. If the word genocide had existed then, they would have
called it genocide. [FresnoZionism’s emphasis]

He then asks,

Does Mr. Foxman think he is writing some kind of international treaty
whose language must be creatively ambiguous?

What he should be saying is that the ADL was wrong in not applying the
word ‘genocide’ to the aforesaid events, which in fact were a
genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire. It would have been much
easier to write than the tortured prose above, which is not going to
win him a lot of friends among either Turks, Armenians, or Jews who
understand the importance of calling genocide by its name.

Hrag Vartanian, too, wonders
< l-take-first-step-to-full-armenian-genocide-recogn ition/>,
" why say "tantamount to genocide" and not just say it was genocide?"

And Chris Helms, editor of the Watertown TAB & Press,
says< wn/?p=3D4451>,

Forgive me, but the latest turn in the Anti-Defamation League story has me
thoroughly confused=85[I]f you read the actual statement
< _00.htm> of the ADL’s director, it only
says the "consequences" of the Ottoman Turks’ actions were "tantamount to
genocide."

I’m still holding out for Abe Foxman to say "the deaths of 1.5 million
Armenians under the Ottoman Empire were genocide."

Someone from the ADL then wrote to Helms and said "’genocide" is "genocide"
and that Helms is "trying to make much too much out of syntax that simply is
meant to provide historical context=85"

Yesterday I assumed the "tortured prose" of the statement was just typical
committee-crafted garble. But phrases such as "the consequences of [Turkish]
actions were indeed tantamount to genocide" now look depressingly fishy and
deliberate to me. Not only do we not get "It was a genocide," or even "the
consequences of Turkish actions amounted to genocide," but only that the
"consequences" of [Turkish] actions were "tantamount" to genocide.

Hasn’t it been a consistent position of deniers that the vast number of
Armenian deaths were an unplanned outcome of war? And that though Turkish
military actions may have led to a large number of Armenian deaths, there
was no genocide because there was no intention or centralized plan to
destroy the Armenian people? So to say that the Turkish actions during the
war had "consequences" that were "tantamount" to genocide reads=85well,
doesn’t it read rather like an elaborate restatement of the position that
the Turks’ military campaigns had the consequence of devastating the
Armenians in Ottoman territory–a catastrophe, but not an intentional one
and not actually a genocide?

Interested to hear others’ take on this. Two activists from Watertown tell
me they think I got it right. Regardless, I’m with FresnoZionism.
Yesterday’s statement was "truly remarkable." I can’t imagine a more
Byzantine way to say,

In light of the recent controversy, I have revisited my position on the the
tragedy that befell the Armenians from 1915-1923. I have consulted with my
friend and mentor Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and other respected historians,
and I now acknowledge that the deaths of over a million Armenians under the
Ottoman Empire constituted genocide.

UPDATES ON THIS ISSUE:
The Newton TAB, local newspaper of Massachussussetts town considering
breaking with ADL’s No Place for Hate program, publishes
editorial< ewton/opinions/x875775732>denying
that Foxman has acknowledged Armenian Genocide. "Foxman is playing
political games."
As of morning of Thursday, August 23, most media (including
this< l/articles/2007/08/23/genocide_debate_has_local_fa llout/>Globe
article) seem to have addressed the issue by just quoting the words
"tantamount to genocide," rather than asserting that he acknowledged the
genocide.

Source: _strange_letter