FOR THE FIRST TIME, ADL CALLS ARMENIAN SLAUGHTER ‘GENOCIDE’
By Seth Gitell
New York Sun
Aug 22 2007
NY
The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman,
is for the first time publicly referring to the murder of Armenians
at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during World War I as a "genocide."
Mr. Foxman’s decision, released in a press statement yesterday morning,
follows a week of turmoil emanating from the Massachusetts city of
Watertown – home to America’s third largest community of Armenian
Americans – as well as the Armenian Library and Museum of America.
Watertown’s city council voted last week to rescind its participation
in an ADL tolerance program, "No Place for Hate," over the group’s
reluctance to use the term. Later in the week, the ADL’s regional
director for New England, Andrew Tarsy, and the regional board broke
with the national organization over the issue. Mr. Tarsy, a popular
and highly regarded leader, was subsequently fired.
"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," Mr. Foxman’s statement said. "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."
In announcing his decision, Mr. Foxman said conversations with a Nobel
Peace Prize laureate, Elie Wiesel, and other scholars had influenced
his decision to embrace the "consensus."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
