A rep from the Armenian National Committee's East Coast branch asked how Saturday's demonstration went. Here's what I told him:

It was an extremely chilly night by LA standards, but about 25 of us convened in front of the Beverly Wilshire hotel where we were visible to many of the people arriving for the Anti-Defamation League's awards dinner. Demonstrators were asked to dress nicely so as to discourage the Beverly Hills police from getting too aggressive with us (for that reason we also had to keep the number of demonstrators under 30), and I am pleased to report that we were indeed the best-dressed group of demonstrators I've ever seen. We could have gone toe-to-toe on a catwalk with the people attending the ADL gala itself.

We held up placards that said "Shame on Foxman" and got shouts and questions and supportive comments from people passing by in cars and on foot.

Ghazaros Kademian, a 100 year-old survivor who was a small boy when his father was murdered protecting his family during the Genocide, was out there in the cold with the rest of us, and his statement was delivered in English by his visibly emotional son, who said that Mr. Kademian hopes he will live to see this country acknowledge the murder of his father, the suffering of his family, and the destruction of his community for what they were.

I spoke about how the ADL's effort to deny survivors such as Mr. Kademian even a simple acknowledgment from the U.S. government may be the most morally pathetic thing a Jewish-American organization has ever done, considering that the federal government has helped us preserve the memory of our own community's genocide with a federally-funded Holocaust Museum, annual commemorations in the Capitol, and so forth.

Arek Santikian from the Armenian Youth Federation spoke about the founding principles of the ADL, and how he hoped that Abraham Foxman would choose to live out those principles rather than making himself a model for future generation of genocide-deniers.

Horizon Television filmed the three speeches. CBS and NBS, who said they were coming, didn't make it. That's pretty unusual, if they say they're coming, they usually do.

We all then tried to march through the area where the ADL event was being held, but we were stopped by hotel security who then called the police. The police arrived, asked us a number of questions, and told us to stay off the hotel's property. We then went back to holding up our signs outside the hotel, then after a short time the police left. We disbanded around eight o'clock, about two hours after I first got there.