Jewish Exponent, PA
Aug 23 2007
Under Fire, ADL Flips on Armenian Genocide
August 23, 2007
Andrew Tarsy
Ben Harris
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
New York
In a dramatic reversal, the Anti-Defamation League’s national
director has issued a statement describing the massacres perpetrated
by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians as "tantamount to
genocide."
The ADL and its national director, Abraham Foxman, have faced
mounting criticism in recent weeks for refusing to use the genocide
label and for firing Andrew Tarsy, the head of the organization’s
Boston office, who publicly challenged that policy.
Tarsy’s dismissal sparked a furious backlash from local community
leaders — including critical statements from prominent Boston Jews,
a "community statement" calling for the ADL to change its position,
and the resignation of two members of the ADL’s regional board.
But in a statement issued Tuesday, the ADL said, "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. 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," the statement said.
When asked in a Boston Globe interview last month if he believed what
happened to the Armenians was genocide, Foxman was quoted as saying:
"I don’t know." Critics argued that Foxman’s remark portrayed the
issue as open to debate, with some calling it genocide denial.
ADL insists the change stems from its concern for Jewish unity at a
moment of great peril for communities around the world.
"I was just disheartened by how the Jewish community was being torn
apart," Foxman said Tuesday as he traveled to Boston to meet with
community leaders.
In recent days, ADL has faced a budding rebellion on the part of the
organization’s Boston leadership, which adopted two resolutions on
the issue last week, one expressing confidence in Tarsy and the other
supporting legislation in Congress acknowledging the Armenian
genocide.
Two prominent members of the ADL’s regional board — former chairman
of the Polaroid Corp., Stewart Cohen, and Boston City Council member
Mike Ross — reportedly resigned in protest over the issue.
The ADL has been under fire since the Armenian community in
Watertown, Mass., one of the country’s largest, began agitating to
have the town rescind its participation in "No Place for Hate," a
popular anti-bigotry program the ADL sponsors. On Aug. 14, the Town
Council unanimously voted to end its relationship with the program,
and other Massachusetts communities were reported to be considering
similar moves.
Watertown’s Armenian community was piqued by the ADL’s longtime
refusal to support the congressional legislation, which is vigorously
opposed by Turkey, Israel’s closest Muslim ally.
Despite the shift on the genocide question, Foxman says he still does
not support the legislative measure, which he described in his
Tuesday statement as "a counterproductive diversion" that could
threaten the Turkish Jewish community and "the important multilateral
position between Turkey, Israel and the United States."
That position is exceedingly unpopular in Boston, where a large
Armenian population has developed close ties with the Jewish
community. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston,
the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the David Project and eight other
groups signed on to a "community statement" Monday urging the ADL to
reconsider its position.
"I think what Andy Tarsy did was to express the morally correct
position, speaking not only as a leader of the ADL but as a Jew whose
history in the last century was formed by a Holocaust," Steven
Grossman, a former chairman of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee and the Democratic National Committee, said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
