AMERICAN JEWISH OFFICIAL RETIRES AFTER LONG ANTI-ARMENIAN CAMPAIGN
By Harut Sassounian
AZG Armenian Daily
01/11/2008
Armenian Genocide
Barry Jacobs, Director of Strategic Studies at the American Jewish
Committee (AJC), is retiring from his organization at the end of
October. The "good news" was confirmed by an AJC official. The reason
I characterize Jacobs’ departure as "good news" is that he has been
at the forefront of AJC’s attempts over the years to undermine the
adoption of various congressional resolutions on the Armenian Genocide.
Several months ago, I wrote a column calling for Jacobs’ dismissal from
AJC because of his long-standing anti-Armenian efforts. Although I am
sure that my column had no bearing on his departure, I am pleased that
he will not be around any longer to carry out the Turkish government’s
denialist directives
I had called for Jacobs’ dismissal after his infamous public
confrontation with Aram Hamparian, the Executive Director of the
Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), on February 21,
in Washington, D.C. On that occasion, Jacobs had declared: "We are
not historians, which is a polite, bullshit way of saying we’re not
going to take responsibility, we are not going to make a decision
on 1915. …The bilateral relationship between the United States and
Turkey will suffer greatly if this [Armenian Genocide] resolution is
passed. The Jewish community believed that also, and that’s been our
position. And the world is not made up of choices between good and bad,
at least not in the Foreign Service when I was in it; it’s made up
between choices between bad and worse. So we take practical positions,
and the position of all the Jewish organizations, including ADL, was
not to have a position on the facts of what happened, or not taking
a public position on what happened in 1915, we did not think, do not
think, that the United States Congress is the place to settle this. And
that’s all I can tell you. And that’s the real world and that’s the
position of United States Government and of the Government of Israel."
For over 10 years, with the full blessing of his bosses, Jacobs
aggressively campaigned to subvert all efforts to bring about the
acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide by the U.S. Congress. In
an interview published by the Turkish Daily News on July 29, 1999,
he pledged that Jewish organizations would "take an active and
vigorous role in being friends of Turkey in the United States…. We
will champion to the best of our ability Turkish interests in the
U.S. Congress. We will be Turkey’s friends officially in Congress"
and work to help get favorable legislation passed, he said.
Speaking more like a paid lobbyist than the representative of a human
rights organization, Jacobs shamelessly declared: "We want to work with
your [Turkish] Embassy in Washington, the Turkish-American community
and Turkey’s many friends and win our battles on Capitol Hill. We
want the American people and our leaders to understand what Turkey
and its citizens have accomplished. We want our media to accurately
reflect Turkey’s importance and achievements. We don’t want those
who are not friends of Turkey to have the means to use human rights
or other issues against your interests."
Jacobs acknowledged that AJC’s extensive support for Turkey "brought
us [Jewish organizations] into open conflict with Greek-Americans and
Armenian-Americans. It has been welcomed by the Turkish government,
but we have paid a price. The price has been that we have the Greek
and Armenian-Americans very angry at us."
Jacobs admitted that his excessively pro-Turkish position had even
elicited complaints from many Jewish members of his own organization
who asked: "Why are we supporting Turkey, which has a terrible human
rights record?"
I have no illusion that Jacobs’ retirement would alter his
organization’s pro-Turkish agenda. Nevertheless, the departure of an
official, who cultivated extensive contacts with Turkish denialists
for more than a decade, would hopefully diminish the effectiveness of
AJC’s activities against Armenian issues. A similar situation would
occur should Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation
League (ADL), leave his influential position at the ADL.
While it is clear that the departure of a particular AJC or ADL
official is not going to change the long-standing pro-Turkish policies
of these organizations, it is equally important to recognize that in
recent years closer contacts have been established between Armenian and
Jewish American leaders and members of their respective communities.
One would hope that those who replace Jacobs and Foxman would reassess
their organizations’ questionable stand on the Armenian Genocide
and join the growing ranks of Jewish leaders who sympathize with the
tragic history of the Armenian nation and resent being used as a tool
to carry out Turkey’s denialist policies.