Boston Globe

Municipal group breaks with ADL over Armenian genocide issue

April 8, 2008 07:01 PM

By Keith O’Brien, Globe Staff
ws/2008/04/municipal_group.html

The Massachusetts Municipal Association severed ties today with the
Anti-Defamation League’s embattled No Place For Hate program,
reigniting a debate that had gone quiet recently over the ADL’s
position on the World War I-era Armenian genocide.
In a unanimous vote, the board of directors at the MMA, a non-profit
advocacy group for Massachusetts cities and towns, expressed `strong
disapproval’ of the ADL for failing to unequivocally acknowledge the
Armenian genocide at a national meeting last November, according to a
statement released yesterday. "Unequivocal recognition," the MMA’s
board of directors said, `is both a matter of basic justice to its
victims as well as essential to the efforts to prevent future
genocides.’
`We think this is an issue on which there can be no equivocation,’
said Jonathan Hecht, a Watertown town councilor and member of the
MMA’s board of directors. `My personal view,’ he added, `is that No
Place For Hate is not credible as long as the ADL is unable to
unequivocally recognize the genocide.’
At least 12 Massachusetts communities have pulled out of the program
since last summer, beginning with Watertown, when it became known that
the ADL did not support legislation in Washington officially
recognizing the deaths of1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman
Turks between 1915-1918 as genocide. As towns began to sever ties,
and even the ADL’s regional leaders called for unequivocal
recognition, the national ADL issued a carefully worded statement
calling the deaths of Armenians at the hands of Turks `tantamount to
genocide.’
But critics quickly called for a stronger, clearer statement. And when
it did not come, local Armenian-Americans began lobbying others
communities, as well as the MMA, to stop participating in No Place
For Hate.
The MMA’s decision to do so today will send a "clear message" to
communities that still welcome the program, said Sharistan Melkonian,
chairperson of the Armenian National Committee of Eastern
Massachusetts. And the regional ADL conceded in a statement yesterday
that the vote was a disappointment. But Robert Trestan, the ADL’s
northeastern region civil rights counsel, did not believe the vote
would lead to still more communities pulling out of the program.
`I think that towns that have stuck with the program have realized
that the ADL has a tremendous amount to offer them,’ Trestan
said. `We’re in towns all over the state, and that’s what we want to
continue to do.’