OBAMA’S HYPOCRISY ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Algemeiner
April 14 2015
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
Last week, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times interviewed
President Obama about the Obama Doctrine. After two weeks of watching
the President appease the Iranians and then publicly legitimize
dictator Raúl Castro – all while continuing to assail Israel’s
democratically-elected leader Binyamin Netanyahu – we might define
the Obama Doctrine thus: a steadfast refusal to be repulsed by evil.
There seems to be almost no dictator on earth whom the President will
punish for their cruelty to their own people, no autocrat to whom
he will not reach out in the naïve belief that his recognition will
change their behavior. A powerful case in point of the President’s
refusal to identify evil is his broken promise to recognize the
Armenian genocide, the 100th anniversary of which is this month.
Last Sunday, Pope Francis showed moral courage in openly calling for
recognition of “the first genocide of the twentieth century.” Turkey,
run by the increasingly brutal dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
immediately recalled its Ambassador, as befits a bully. Why won’t
President Obama recognize the genocide, especially since he promised
as a presidential candidate that he would do so?
CNN’s Chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper captured the
President’s failure succinctly: “For the sixth year in a row President
Barack Obama has broken his promise to the Armenian community, made
when seeking their votes as a senator and a presidential candidate,
to use the word “genocide” to describe the massacre of an estimated
1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire a century
ago. He did this in deference to the government of Turkey, which –
historical revisionism aside – the Obama administration regards as
a more crucial ally.”
President Obama won’t recognize the genocide of the Armenian people
for fear of provoking the Turkish tyrant.
It was back in January of 2008 that then-Senator Barack Obama said:
“Two years ago, I criticized the Secretary of State for the firing
of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used
the term ‘genocide’ to describe Turkey’s slaughter of thousands of
Armenians starting in 1915. I shared with Secretary Rice my firmly
held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a
personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented
fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The
facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to
distort the historical facts is an untenable policy. As a senator,
I strongly support passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution
(H.Res.106 and S.Res.106), and as President I will recognize the
Armenian Genocide”
It doesn’t get much clearer than that. The President’s emphatic
promise that he would recognize the Armenian genocide was followed
by six years of broken promises and obfuscation.
But, the best part is this: President Obama won’t even acknowledge
having broken his commitment. On the contrary, he does verbal
summersaults to show that he has honored it, as he did in April of
2009: “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915,
and my view of that history has not changed. My interest remains the
achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts.”
And yet, all it would take to acknowledge those “facts” is to simply
use the word “genocide” to describe the Armenian slaughter. Just one
Presidential speech with the word genocide would do it. But Obama
steadfastly refuses to do so.
President Obama later said: “On this solemn day of remembrance, we
pause to recall that ninety-five years ago one of the worst atrocities
of the 20th century began. In that dark moment of history, 1.5 million
Armenians were massacred or marched to their death in the final days
of the Ottoman Empire.”
We hear the word “massacre.” We hear the words “marched to their
death.” But still, he won’t call it what it was and what he promised
to acknowledge: genocide.
“It’s a sad spectacle to see our President,” said Armenian National
Committee of America executive director Aram Hamparian, “who came into
office having promised to recognize the Armenian Genocide, reduced to
enforcing a foreign government’s gag-rule on what our country can say
about a genocide so very thoroughly documented in our own nation’s
archives. We remain profoundly disappointed that he has, once again,
retreated from his own promises and fallen short of the principled
stand taken by previous presidents.”
But Hamparian should not be surprised. An inability to call out evil
has been the hallmark of this presidency. From the President’s recent
visit to Saudi Arabia where he made no mention of the kingdom’s
vast human-rights abuses, to his reconciliation with Cuba without
any demands that they stop the grotesque persecution of political
dissidents, to turning a blind eye to Erdogan’s destruction of Turkish
democracy, to refusing to enforce his red line against Syria when
Assad gassed Arab children –President Obama is the quintessential
leader who hears no evil and sees no evil.
The bigger question about Obama’s refusal to recognize the Armenian
genocide is how this sits with American Ambassador to the United
Nations Samantha Power. I offered significant public support to
Samantha for the position of Ambassador when she was being assailed
by American Jewish leaders for being anti-Israel, and I did it because
of my reverence for her as one of the world’s strongest voices against
genocide. Samantha won the Pulitzer Prize for her 2002 book A Problem
from Hell where she condemned successive American presidents for
doing next to nothing when it came to calling out genocide.
Now that she is an actual part of an Administration that refuses
to acknowledge a genocide, will she speak out? Has she challenged
President Obama about his broken promises on Armenia? Will she pressure
the Administration to do the right thing, or risk becoming part of
the same “problem from hell” for not confronting genocide?
The next few weeks, as the centenary is commemorated, will be telling.
In the final analysis, it was President Obama himself who said in
2008 that “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about
the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I
intend to be that president.” Intentions are meaningless. Action
is everything. Keep your word, Mr. President. More than 1.5 million
victims are waiting.
Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi” whom the Washington Post calls “the
most famous Rabbi in America,” is the international best-selling author
of 30 books, including The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging God in
the Face of Tragedy and Suffering. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.