AFTER MEETINGS IN TURKEY, FOXMAN SAYS FALLOUT OVER ‘GENOCIDE’ FLAP IS ‘BEHIND US’
Herb Keinon
THE JERUSALEM POST
Jul. 7, 2008
The controversy and fallout over the Anti-Defamation League’s statement
last year that Turkish actions toward Armenians during World War I was
"tantamount to genocide" is "behind us," ADL National Director Abe
Foxman said Monday in Jerusalem, where he arrived from Ankara and a
series of meetings with Turkey’s leadership.
Last August, Foxman – who was in a dispute in the Boston area over the
ADL’s position on the Turkey-Armenia issue – infuriated Turkish leaders
by issuing the following statement: "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. (the US ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time) that the
consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide.
If the word ‘genocide’ had existed then, they would have called
it genocide…
"Having said that, we continue to firmly believe that a congressional
resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion and will
not foster reconciliation between Turks and Armenians and may put
at risk the Turkish Jewish community and the important multilateral
relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States."
The Turks viewed this as a reversal of the organized Jewish community’s
position on the issue, and warned that Turkish-Israeli ties could be
harmed if the American Jewish organizations did not work – as they
had done in the past – to ensure that the US Congress did not pass
a resolution characterizing the massacre of Armenians during World
War I as genocide.
The legislation was eventually removed from the table after US
President George W. Bush, and numerous former secretaries of state
and defense, wrote letters saying that passing the legislation would
harm American interests.
"They were angry," Foxman said of the Turkish response to the ADL’s
statement last year. "But I think today there is an understanding of
where we were, and that we were opposed to Congressional legislation,
and that we stood very firm that that was not the way to resolve
the issue, and that there is nothing cataclysmic about using the
‘genocide’ word."
Foxman, who met with President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and other key government
figures, said his message was that the Turks should be "proactive"
and try to help today’s Armenia as part of an effort to resolve the
historic affair.
"In the conversations I had with all of them I said there is a
need to be proactive, that they need to deal with live Armenians,
and strengthen the relationship between Turkey and Armenia, and by
strengthening the relations today – frontier issues, opening borders
– it will place the historical issue in the background and be much
easier to deal with," Foxman said.
By the same token, Foxman said that the Armenian community in the US
should understand that pressure to use "certain words they want us
to use is not going to help one Armenian."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
