JEWISH GROUP IN US REHIRES REGIONAL DIRECTOR AFTER DISPUTE OVER ARMENIAN MASSACRE

AP Worldstream
Published: Aug 27, 2007

The Anti-Defamation League has rehired its New England regional
director a week after he was fired for publicly saying the group
should change its national policy by recognizing the 1915 killing of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.

Andrew Tarsy got his job back Monday after talks with the Jewish
group’s national director Abraham Foxman.

Foxman, after criticism over Tarsy’s firing from Jewish and
Armenian-American groups, said last week the Armenian killings "were
indeed tantamount to genocide."

But he said his human rights group would not support a pending
Congressional resolution that calls the massacre a genocide, saying it
was "a counterproductive diversion and will not foster reconciliation
between Turks and Armenians."

Foxman said in an interview with The Boston Globe on Monday that he
and Tarsy "see eye to eye" after talks held over the last week. "And
after our conversation, I decided to take him back, to reinstate
him. And I’m delighted he’s back."

The regional board of the New York-based ADL had unanimously asked
Foxman to bring Tarsy back.

Tarsy said in a statement Monday that he is "delighted to be back on
the job."

"I am proud that ADL has made a very significant change confronting a
moral issue and acknowledging the Armenian genocide for what it was,"
Tarsy said.

"This was an act of leadership by Mr. Foxman and ADL."

The ADL’s governing body will also take up the Armenian issue when
it meets in November, he said.