Jerusalem Post
Jul 7, 2008 23:04 | Updated Jul 7, 2008 23:11
After meetings in Turkey, Foxman says fallout over ‘genocide’ flap is
‘behind us’
By HERB KEINON
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.
Abe Foxman, national director of the Anti Defamation League.
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski
Slideshow: Pictures of the week 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."
Rather, Foxman said, one of the ways the American Jewish community can help
the Armenians it to "help convince the Turkish government to normalize
relations" with Armenia.