WHO REMEMBERS NOW THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ARMENIANS?
David Weigel
Reason Online, CA
Aug 28 2007
Jamie Kirchick is making sense about the Anti-Defamation League’s
stonewalling on a Congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian
genocide:
For pragmatic reasons, a sense of the Congress resolution acknowledging
the Armenian genocide may not be such a great idea.
Turkey is an important ally in the Muslim world. Would it really be
worth hurting that relationship over a resolution that, however morally
just, bears no force? A few weeks ago, however, a legislator told me
that if such a resolution really did offend the Turks to the point
that they would hamper American military maneuvers out of Incirlik Air
Base or by fooling around in Kurdistan, then maybe our relationship
with Turkey is not all it’s cracked up to be in the first place.
But at the end of the day, these realpolitik considerations should have
no bearing on a civic organization committed to humanitarian goals,
which is what the ADL claims to be. Yes, it is part of the ADL’s
mission to defend Israel (and, it bears noting, to debunk Holocaust
deniers)–but the ADL is not a mere extension of the Israeli Foreign
Ministry. Pussyfooting on the existence of the Armenian genocide
works against everything for which the ADL claims to stand.
Incredibly ironic, too, as the title of this post is a much-repeated
paraphrase of Hitler’s August 22, 1939 speech. Hitler’s point was that
founders of great empires are remembered for the kingdoms they build
and not the people they slaughter. He was, unsurprisingly, wrong as
all hell, evidenced by the other example he gave: "history sees in
[Genghis Khan] solely the founder of a state." (The Reich didn’t last
long enough for him to witness John Kerry’s Senate testimony or Bill
and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.) How the ADL expects people to remain
concerned about genocide while forgetting or blowing off a fairly
recent genocide, I have no clue.
I’ve got nothing else to add to Kirchick: Either the ADL is an
organization that dogpiles people who minimize genocides or Nazism
or it’s an extension of Ehud Olmert’s press shop.
And yes, I realize I just quoted Hitler to make a point. If Abe Foxman
wants to sue me, the subpoena should be sent to reason’s Washington,
D.C. office between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. any day this week.