The New Anatolian, Turkey
Aug 23 2007
Jews in US let the cat out of the bag
It is meaningless to try to push the Anti-Defamation League to
reverse its position again. What we need is do crisis management and
prevent American Jewish groups to follow the ADL line and accept the
events of 1915 as an act of genocide against the Armenians. We have
to work on Jewish lobby in the U.S. and on Israel.
Ilnur Cevik
23 August 2007
[email protected]
The decision of the Anti-Defamation League to reverse its position
and decide to acknowledge the acts against the Armenians between 1915
and 1918 by the Ottoman Turks as `genocide’ has changed the equation
dramatically and it will have serious consequences for Turkey in the
U.S. if the government cannot mobilize its resources to change the
tide.
It is no use trying to convince the Anti-Defamation League to reverse
its position again because it is clear that short of the executives
accepting they have made a terrible mistake and resigning accepting
responsibility for this mistake there is not much anyone can do to
put the cat back in the bag…
All that we can now do is to contain the damage and see to it that
the decision of the ADL does not spread to the other organizations of
the American Jewish community.
If it does then it is a foregone conclusion that the American
congressmen who are strongly influenced by the strong Jewish lobby
will support a congressional resolution to acknowledge `Armenian
genocide: as soon as September or October…
The American Jewish community should be told the fact that it is
clear that the ADL mishandled the whole issue and ended up with the
current mess. The firing of an ADL official for saying that what the
Ottoman Turks did against the Armenians boiled down to genocide put
immense pressure on the organization to rehire the fired official and
the Armenian lo9bby made good use of this. They exploited the discord
and got the ADL executives to reverse their policy position on the
genocide claims…
In a rather empty gesture the ADL said it will continue to oppose the
Armenian genocide resolution in Congress… But the reason they showed
was so bad and so misplaced. ADL said it feared if it did not take
such a stance it would jeopardize the well being of the Turkish
Jewish community.
This is what we have to tell the American Jews is very clear terms:
Any actions in the U.S. will never hurt our special relations with
Israel which serves the mutual vital interests of the Jewish state
and Turkey and the Turkish Jewish community is safe aand sound as it
has been for centuries.
The American Jews have to remember that it was the Ottoman Turks who
saved the Jewish community from the hands of the Christian zealots by
givng them sanctuary in Anatolia and it was Turkey that saved many
Jewish lives during World War 2.
Turkish Ambassador Namik Tan who was on a holiday in Turkey rushed
back to Israel for crisis management. Prime Minister Recep tayyip
Erdogan is expected to call his Israeli counterpart to seek his help.
All these are positive moves. This is a chess game that the Armenian
lobby is playing very efficiently. We have to beat them in their own
game. This requires a cool headed approach.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
