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Countdown to Abraham Foxman’s Resignation
By Joey Kurtzman / August 20, 2007
Abraham Foxman is finished. It’s now just a question of how much more trauma he’ll put everyone through before he surrenders to the inevitable and resigns.
Since Foxman fired Andrew Tarsy, a regional director of the ADL who described as “morally indefensible” Foxman’s refusal to call the Armenian Genocide a genocide, the scandal over the issue has exploded to new levels.
Former chairman of the Polaroid Corp., Stewart L. Cohen, and City Council member Mike Ross told the Globe yesterday they could no longer be part of an organization with national leaders who refused to acknowledge the Armenian genocide and fired regional director, Andrew H. Tarsy, on Friday for taking a position in support of Armenian-Americans.
Alan Dershowitz, a man every bit as monomaniacal about Israel's safety and strategic interests as Foxman, co-wrote a devastating op-ed in which he said,
For any organization or official to believe that there are differing sides to the Armenian Genocide is as much an outrage as it would be for Germany to say that the work of Jewish scholars, witnesses, and victim testimonies represented merely the "Jewish side" of the Holocaust. To deny genocide victims their history and suffering is tantamount to making them victims again.
And as the Globe says, “many [believe] the outcry over this issue may have only just begun.”
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445979&in_page_id=1770
CONTINUE WITH WHAT YOU ARE DOING FOXMAN, IF THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT TO HAPPEN TO THE HOLOCAUST
When you know for a fact that genocide occurred against a certain group of people but lobby so that it is not recognized.
What do you call this, if not Anti-Armenianism? What do you call this if not hatred towards Armenians to want to victimize them again when you know for certain they were victims?
If Foxman wants Arab Nations (and even Armenia) to support Holocaust denial knowing full well that Holocaust has occurred because they have friendly relations with Iran, then he should continue his bigoted campaign of opposing the Congressional Resolution.
Fifty years ago, people knew about the Armenian Genocide and talked about it openly. Who is to say that in fifty years, the Holocaust will not undergo the same transformation cast into a two-sided issue: The Jewish side, and the other side. This is what Foxman is setting up the Jewish community to endure in the upcoming years.
Why should the Holocaust of your people be recognized by countless resolutions all across the world, but when it comes to Armenians, no, they have to sit downb and talk to those that mercilessly killed them to reach a “compromise”.
THIS IS CALLED ANTI-ARMENIANISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So Foxman has come around on the Armenian genocide issue, which directly impacts Turkish-Jewish relations. (I'd call his statement courageous if he hadn't already been pressured by public condemnation.) Yet he continues to oppose the U.S. genocide bill, which, on the face of it, should have little or no impact on Turkish-Jewish relations. What to conclude? Turkey had to be blackmailing Foxman, twisting his arm to lobby against the bill and using the welfare of Turkish Jews as leverage. Some allies!
Rick Bayan
From: ADL Media
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 12:12 PM
Subject: ADL PR – ADL Statement on the Armenian Genocide
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Todd Gutnick (212) 885-7755
adlmedia@adl.org
ADL STATEMENT ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
New York, NY, August 21, 2007 … Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today issued the following statement:
In light of the heated controversy that has surrounded the Turkish-Armenian issue in recent weeks, and because of our concern for the unity of the Jewish community at a time of increased threats against the Jewish people, ADL has decided to revisit the tragedy that befell the Armenians.
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. that the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide. If the word genocide had existed then, they would have called it genocide.
I have consulted with my friend and mentor Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and other respected historians who acknowledge this consensus. I hope that Turkey will understand that it is Turkey’s friends who urge that nation to confront its past and work to reconcile with Armenians over this dark chapter in history.
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 Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
I checked out the ADL's exercise in damage control, and it was all very conciliatory except for one missing item: any attempt to explain why the ADL actively lobbied for the defeat of the genocide bill in Congress. Everyone knows by now that the ADL pressured Congress to reject the bill; this is the elephant in the room that Foxman & Co. simply won't acknowledge, because it would expose their pretension of neutrality as a sham.
This position is indefensible, and Foxman probably knows it. He did what he could to to soften his stance, but he backed himself into a corner and must now await the inevitable as public sentiment (and even Jewish sentiment) swells against him.
I have to feel Foxman's pain at this point, though I won't be sorry to see him go. This dedicated servant of Israel has unwittingly damaged the image of the Jewish community through his fanatical meddling and bullying. A few years ago, following the unfounded hysteria over "The Passion of the Christ" (if anyone should have protested, it should have been the descendants of the Romans, who were uniformly portrayed as sadistic brutes), I began to revolt against the Jewish community's penchant for using the dreaded epithet "anti-Semite" as a tool of intimidation. Then I realized that it wasn't the Jewish community, it was the ADL — and more specifically Foxman — lurking behind nearly every incident that rankled my sense of justice.
When I learned that Foxman was behind the effort to defeat the bill recognizing the Armenian genocide, that was the last straw. I jumped into the fray here at Jewcy and was heartened to discover that many Jews shared my revulsion at Foxman's tactics.
Joey, if anyone questions your loyalty to the Jewish community, you can tell them that you and your site helped at least one alienated Armenian rediscover that he can still count on his Jewish neighbors for friendship and decency. You're doing the kind of work that the ADL should have been doing all these years, and you're a mensch.
Rick Bayan
I’ve worked in Washington for 20 years and of late watched our lobby go down the road of attacking, on behalf of Ankara, more and more of the efforts of the Armenian American and Greek American lobbies. in the name of our community people are blocking the efforts at recognition of the Genocide and even harming efforts to draw attention to the persecution of Greek Christians in Turkey. This goes beyond the ADL, it also includes the SWC and AJC. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is not just about realpolitic with Turkey as an ally (and that is highly dubious), but I think our own prejudices, or to the point those of the extremes in Israel, are coming into play. The Armenian and Greek Americans have never done anything that would harm us, yet we are doing them a lot of harm and over the last couple of years — and it has become obvious. They look at us as like them. Jews, Greeks and Armenians occupy the same niche and have a similar sense of history. They both have diasporas and were persecuted, occupied and slaughtered. I think we are only looking at the very tip of the blowback, they are not going to be cowed by charges of Antisemitism when they start to counter our lobby’s harm to them.
M. Rozen
Foxman must resign
Who said ""Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
(a) Kemal Ataturk
(b) Abraham Foxman
(c) Adolf Hitler
(d) The Ottoman Empire's sultan
(e) Osama bin Laden
[answer below]
If you picked (b), Abraham Foxman, your answer is entirely understandable because of Foxman's intensive efforts to whitewash the Armenian genocide and sweep it under the rug. However, it was really (c), Adolf Hitler, in connection with his belief that he could get away with exterminating the population of Poland for "living space."
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