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Foxman’s Crime: Ignorance Not the Issue
By Joey Kurtzman / August 15, 2007
The Forward just published a piece by Leonard Fein on the ADL and the Armenian Genocide. Fein, like too many others throughout this whole affair, fumbles the very basic distinction between (1) being uninformed on a topic, and (2) Telling everyone else that they ought not have an opinion on that topic. Why are so many people having trouble grasping the difference between these two? Stop it!
Fein says
"[C]yberspace is filled with criticism of Abe Foxman, the ADL’s chief, who recently said, “This [the genocide] is not an issue where we take a position one way or the other. This is an issue that needs to be resolved by the parties, not by us. We are neither historians nor arbiters.”
It is true that Foxman is neither a historian nor an arbiter. But it is not possible to believe that he is unaware of the relevant history.
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Its well known that the Young Turks were partly comprised of Jews. Its even in a widely recognized Encyclopedia. So what are you getting at? Do you even know the Young Turks role in carrying out the extermination of Armenians?
Let's keep our cool. I said this elsewhere on this page. We should withhold our support of Armenian-Americans. Simply because some of us have Armenian friends, does not make their position right. It turns out that this summer Armenian community in Glendale, CA hosted a well known anti-Semite Bjerknes that argued in 4 interviews on California's Armenian TV channel that Jews were behind the massacres in the Ottoman Empire. Bjerknes' idea that Armenians were Jew's sacrificial lamb were met quite enthusiastically by Armenians. He further personally presented his "work" and was warmly received by Armenians at the town meeting organized specifically for him.
Glendale, CA is one of the principal U.S. centers for Armenian-Americans, so what happened there gives pretty representative picture of the popular Armenian view — it is something most of our educated Armenian friends will not say in our face. Below is the link to the website where audio and video materials from Armenian TV (hosted by Reverend [yes, reverend] Hojian) and town meeting are posted:
http://www.jewishracism.com/JewishGenocide.htm
It pains me that while some of us spend time and effort to support Armenian cause in Watertown, we're subjected to blood libel by Armenians in Glendale, CA. If the claim of genocide by Jews is applauded to by Armenians in Glendale who surely know that it is ridiculous and false, I wonder about the truth behind the claim of genocide by Turks. The Turkish view could be found here
http://www.ataa.org
Btw, it has a video of the interview with Bernard Lewis. Although the information here is a bit one sided, at least at gives an alternative view. In all, I think We should be careful before jumping on someone's bandwagon simply because they say "justice", "holocaust" or "denial" to trigger our emotional responses. Let's be cool.
Z.
Perhaps you misread me. I'm taking a harder line than you on this, not a softer one. You say ignorance is not a crime. I say, when it comes to genocide denial, it most certaintly is. Â
I agree with you that the misdemeanor charges of "disgracing the Jewish people" and "offending the descendants of a genocide" are the easier ones to prosecute. But any good prosecutor charges the highest crime that the facts can fit. And here, Foxman has clearly flirted with the felony of genocide denial. Not knowing whether there was an Armenian genocide is not a defense. Certainly, someone in Foxman's position is reckless is not knowing that the WWI-era massacres of the Armenians constituted a genocide. Recklessness is enough to convict here.Â
If Foxman is willing to cop a plea to the lesser charges, then we can let him off the hook for the greater crime.  Â
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Joey would make a wonderful President of the Universe! Such a mensch…
Joey, are you for real? Would you mind running for president of the Universe? I will vote for you!
Would I bet even money that Foxman knows plenty more about the Armenian Genocide than I do? Absolutely. But: First of all, I don't think you ought to assume that a Jewish leader cannot be am ha'aretz (if the term is still useful). The Jewish-American community is very capable of producing communal leaders who are pig-ignorant of Judaic issues. Were Herzl or Zev Jabotinsky am ha'aretz? If they weren't, then everyone's a scholah'. Likewise, I've learned not to underestimate the capacity of some full-time Jews to maintain party-trick-level ignorance of non-Jewish issues. And for that matter, one of the scary delights of reading narrative accounts of past political crises is seeing how ignorant powerful people can be about very basic issues fundamental to the crisis. So even before this whole affair I would have been disinclined to make assumptions about what Foxman knows or doesn't know. And now that we know that Foxman is in fact not fit to run the ADL's Topeka office (since disgracing the Jewish community in a most pathetic and public way runs rather contrary to the supposed mission of his organization), I'm hesitant to make any assumptions whatsoever about what goes on in the man's head. What are the odds that Abe Foxman has read the Wikipedia entry for Armenian Genocide in the past two weeks? Probably not high. That's as far all go.
But the case against Foxman does not depend on any of this. We can debate the various forms of ignorance when we talk about David Irving. Foxman's level of knowledge is a better public relations topic for his supporters than for his critics, the former of which will use it again and again to communicate in different ways that "oh, it's complicated, a tragic convoluted topic that's emotionally explosive for the Turks and Armenians. Do YOU feel comfortable getting involved and telling them what's what? No? Then you agree with him!"
Readers' level of knowledge and Foxman's level of knowledge are irrelevant to the case against Foxman. You should want him gone, or demand he make penance, if you answer yes to either of the following two (related but distinct) questions:
(1) "Do you think it's acceptable for a Jewish organization that regularly and publicly denounces Holocaust-deniers to suddenly claim in front of the world that it's inappropriate to acknowledge a genocide unless your community is directly party to it? Or do you think this disgraces the Jewish community by making us look like a bunch of ridiculous jackass hypocrites who use lofty, moralistic language when our own rights are at issue, but shit on others when theirs are at issue? "
(2) "Do you think that the Armenian Genocide–which is recognized as such by a broad consensus of historians–and the descendants of the victims ought to be treated by the ADL with the same respect and considerations we ask for the Jewish lost, and for the Jewish descendants? Do you believe egregious, public, repeated acts of disrespect are absolutely unacceptable?"
Fein is most certaintly not letting Foxman off the hook. He is calling Foxman's claim not to know whether there was an Armenian genocide dishonest and crassly political. Foxman is not am ha'aretz, he's the long-serving head of one of the American Jewich community's foremost institution designed to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination. Of course Foxman knows the history of the most infamous genocide in modern times prior to the Holocaust. If he didn't, he shouldn't be fit to run the ADL's Topeka branch office, let alone the national office.Â
Similarly, Ahmadinejad and friends would not be off the hook if they merely took the position that they could not be sure whether or not the Holocaust happened. If they are uninformed, they are deliberately uninformed, by choosing to discount all mainstream historians and rely solely on politically motivated fringe voices who "question" the event. Â
The gap between feigned ignorance, deliberate ignorance and denial is a distinction without a difference. They are all forms of denial, and all dangerous.
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