Under pressure, ADL head reverses stance on Armenian genocide

The mission statement for "No Place For Hate" says that it will build "bridges of understanding," but until yesterday it appeared that the bridge had collapsed. However, Abe Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which runs the program in the Boston area, yesterday tried to repair the damage.

In an effort to extricate himself from a scandal surrounding the ADL's refusal to support a bill calling on the Bush administration to recognize the 1915-17 Turkish massacre of its Armenian minority as genocide, Foxman did an abrupt about-face. After consulting with Nobel Prize-winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, Foxman referred to the Armenian massacre as a "genocide" for the first time.

Read a lot more about this controversy in What To Read: Yes to "genocide", no to bill

The uproar began two weeks ago, when Watertown, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston which has an Armenian population of several thousand, decided to stop participating in "No Place For Hate" once it realized that the ADL - which claims to oppose the discrimination of "any sect or body of citizens" - did not intend to support a bill that would force the American government to accept that the massacre was in fact a genocidal act. Several other suburbs were considering following in Watertown's footsteps, and activists in other states threatened to target the ADL program as well.

The Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives enthusiastically supports the bill, proposed by California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff. Turkey denies that it committed a massacre against its Armenian minority and cautions allies and rivals alike against recognizing it. This policy has been pretty successful, with countries such as Israel and the U.S. refusing to retroactively acknowledge that the massacre was the first genocide of the 20th century, out of fear of causing a rift in diplomatic relations. In recent years, this distortion of history has been the focus of rising criticism.

The ADL was an almost incidental victim of the disappointment and anger felt by the American Armenian community. Most other large Jewish organizations have also refrained from supporting the bill or taking a stance on the Armenian genocide. They say they are interested in maintaining warm relations between Israel and Turkey, and between the United States and Turkey, and they don't want to make the Jewish community of Turkey vulnerable to revenge attacks.

These were also Foxman's reasons. He had said the issue did not constitute an ethical stance against an unethical one, but a situation in which one must choose the lesser evil between two unattractive options. In any case, argued Foxman, his perspective did have an ethical element: While acknowledging the genocide is merely a symbolic gesture to the Armenian community, putting ties with Turkey at risk could have far-reaching consequences, including endangering the lives of Turkish Jews.

But such explanations didn't help the ADL - partly because it is the organization most identified with the legacy of another 20th-century genocide, the Holocaust, making it seem more hypocritical than other groups. Another reason is that it was the ADL that ran the program in Watertown, the heart of the Armenian community in America.

The ADL itself was split over the issue; it fired New England regional director Andrew Tarsy for telling The Boston Globe that, "I strongly disagree with the ADL's national position." And the Boston-area Jewish community had not given the national leadership of the ADL its support.

Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, said that while the local Jewish community understands the complexity of the issue, the council thinks the U.S. should recognize the genocide. Jim Rudolph, chair of the Boston ADL branch agreed to say this morning that he expects a change in ADL's position - and 2 hours later got his wish, or at least something. The ADL, taking a more acceptable moral position, still doesn't say it supports the passage of the House bill. As Foxman was trying to put an end to the scandal, for the other organizations to come under similar pressure is only a matter of time.

The full statement from ADL

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.

Read more about this controversy in What To Read: Yes to "genocide", no to bill