Author: Kharatian Ani

CO-CHAIRS EXPECTED TO VISIT REGION SEPT. 15-17

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Sept 4 2007

OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, mediators in the solution of the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict, will visit the conflict region this month, APA
reports quoting Armenian mass media.

According to initial agreement reached at the meeting of Azerbaijan and
Armenian Foreign Ministers with presence of the co-chairs in Brussels,
the visit will take place on September 15-17, this year.

Minsk Group’s co-chairs Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia) and Bernard Fassier
(France) had negotiations with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov first, then Armenian FM Vardan Oskanian in the framework
of the international conference on European Neighborhood Policy
in Brussels.

The Foreign Ministry told the APA they have no information on the
date of the visit of the co-chairs.

Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute
RA, Yerevan 0028
Contact: Arevik Avetisyan
Tel: (374 10) 39 09 81
Fax: (374 10) 39 10 41
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: http: //

August 31, 2007

Rabbi Danny Rich visited Tsisernakaberd Memorial Complex.

The chief executive of Liberal Judaism organization Rabbi Danny Rich
and genocide educator Ruth Barnett with two representatives from
Liberal Judaism visited Tsisernakaberd Memorial Complex.

Rabbi Danny Rich planted a fir at the Memory Alley and visited the
Genocide Museum. Pray-in ceremony was made at the tree planting
site. Guest were hosted by Hayk Demoyan, the director of the Armenian
Genocide Musuem & Institute.

ROYAL ARMENIA: "NOT A SENTENCE, BUT A PUNISHMENT"

Panorama.am
20:32 29/08/2007

Today in the inspector general’s courtroom judge Surik Ghazaryan passed
decision concerning the deception case of Royal Armenia’s president,
Gagik Hakopyan. It happens, though, that Hakopyan is in Spain due to
health reasons. However, Hakopyan had presented his local address
and telephone number to the court, saying if necessary he would be
present at hearings.

The court didn’t accept this, saying it was a simple case of deception
on Hakopyan’s part. Attorney Ashot Sargsyan, on behalf of Hakopyan,
told panorama.am that this "wasn’t a sentence, but a punishment."

Hakopyan had asked the case to be delayed for one month, so he
would be able to recover from a recent surgery and participate in
the proceedings. Not taken into consideration was the fact that
a case was also started against Royal Armenia’s vice-president,
Aram Ghazaryan. Prosecutors have asked for the overturning of the
decision by the first instance court in its entirety. September 11
is the scheduled date for the case’s resumption in the inspector
general courtroom.

We remind that on July 16, in the first instance court of Nork-Marash,
it was decided that facts didn’t substantiate the case against the
defendants, acquitting the organization’s leaders and setting them
free from the courtroom.

The defendants are accused of not fulfilling the payment of their
customs taxes. Prosecutors are demanding a 12-year sentence for
Hakopyan and 11 years for Ghazaryan.

RAFFI HOVHANNISIAN PRESENTS DRAFT LAW ON OFFICIAL RECOGNITION OF NKR IN RA NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

Noyan Tapan
Aug 28 2007

YEREVAN, AUGUST 28, NOYAN TAPAN. Raffi Hovhannisian, the Head of the
Zharangutiun (Heritage) parliamentarian faction, presented a draft law
on "Recognition of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh" to the RA National
Assembly on August 28. It is mentioned in the message received from the
office of the party that after being approved, signed and enforced,
this first legislative initiative of the Zharangutiun party will
provide the application of de jure recognition, Armenia has waited
for for a long time, to the autocratic de facto state founded in
Stepanakert in 1991 in accordance with international and soviet laws.

According to the author of the bill, in case this law is adopted,
the factual status of Artsakh will, in justice, be recognized by
the Republic of Armenia, taking into consideration the fact that
the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh meets all the preconditions of the
international law for an autocratic state. The law will serve as
a basis for regulating the relations of the Republics of Armenia
and Nagorno Karabakh in connection with the official recognition
of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, for making the RA rights and
obligations certain in strengthening and providing the security of
Artsakh, defining the state policy and national interest of Armenia
for the latter’s participation in post-conflict restoration work.

The Jewish Advocate

Joining hands with the Armenians

By James R. Russell – Monday August 27 2007
James R. Russell

A Harvard professor reflects on his work in the Armenian community

Many readers of this paper will share my early memory of being told to
eat up because of the "starving Armenians."
Even in first grade, at the Walden School on 88th & Central Park West
(it’s no longer there) I learnt from my friend Maro Avakian, whose Mom
was a violinist and whose Dad was a record exec (they lived next
door), that something terrible had happened to her grandparents.
Armenians didn’t speak about the Genocide in public much then.
(Raphael Lemkin, the Jewish lawyer from Poland who coined the term,
said he invented it partly to flesh out a legal nomenclature for the
horrible, unprecedented phenomenon of the premeditated murder by a
modern state – Ottoman Turkey – of an entire people in its midst –
Armenians). Jews said little, until after the Eichmann trial, about
the Holocaust: We were immigrants making it in an America where we
were barely welcome and it was uncool to be a victim.
I learnt Armenian and, as I did ethnography and became a scholar, I
interviewed countless hospitable old ladies (Turkish coffee, homemade
dolma). The narrative always ended with the death march, the lost
relatives, the terminal point in the giant nullity of the Syrian
desert with a whole ancient, civilized nation dying. Later, I went to
eastern Anatolia, where Turks and Kurds, untutored in denial, said:
See that house? That was where such-and-such an Armenian family lived.
We leave it empty here in Efkere (near Kayseri), because Islam
condemns taking the property of a murdered man. In Havav, near
Kharpert, a Kurdish teenager takes me behind a barn, away from the
security men: Do you know the real name of this country? It’s Armenia.
They killed them all!
Were all these hardworking greenhorns, Kurdish and Turkish farmers,
secretly meeting to concoct an alibi? Writing fiction? Engaging in a
conspiracy? The Austrian Jew Franz Werfel, who wrote "The Forty Days
of Musa Dagh" about the Armenian genocide, didn’t think so, and
neither did Adolf Hitler when he banned the book, or MGM, when they
tried to make a movie of it in 1935 and the U.S. State Department,
under Turkish pressure, leaned on them to stop filming. But when
Hitler’s forces were advancing through north Africa, our Hagana in the
land of Israel (we weren’t a state yet) made plans, on the model of
Musa Dagh (it means Mount Moses) to make a last stand on Mount Carmel
if the Germans came.
There are some Armenians who are not our friends: A fascist
organization called the Armenian Revolutionary Federation ("Dashnak"
in Armenian) ran a "Racial Worship" youth group in Boston in the
1930s, raised a unit for Hitler’s Wehrmacht that fought in the North
Caucasus in World War II, and supports Arab terrorism against Israel
today. They run a traveling circus called "Armenians and the
Left"(though they were Red baiters in the 1950s) that features Fisk
and Chomsky, and promotes an anti-Israel agenda. They have no problem
with Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial.
Armenia has strong ties to Iran and Syria; Israel has a strategic
alliance with Turkey. We Jews need not apologize to anybody: Our
country is in a dangerous neighborhood. I’m glad the Anti-Defamation
League recognizes the Armenian genocide now. But I feel uneasy when
the spotlight of denial is focused on us, especially by the Dashnaks
and their ilk. It’s more appropriate to insist that the next president
of the U.S. – the leader of NATO, of which Turkey is a member –
recognize the Armenian genocide. Only then can Israel perhaps follow.
And let’s be sensible in choosing which people to talk to in the
Armenian
community: not the not-so-crypto-Nazi Dashnaks who side with Hamas,
but with folks like Maro Avakian. There are a lot of great people out
there in the Armenian community with whom we’re natural allies. Let’s
extend both of our hands to them.

Before James R. Russell was the Mashtots professor of Armenian Studies
at Harvard University, he taught at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
The picture shows him eating a pirozhok (a sort of small meat
pie) at the Zimnyaya Kanavka in St. Petersburg, where he regularly
lectures in Russian on Armenian themes.

Source: news/?content_id=3556

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Aug 25 2007

Prosecutor killed in Lori District of Armenia

[ 25 Aug 2007 14:21 ]

Unknown persons killed public prosecutor of Lori District of Armenia
while returning home at night.

He got four bullets on his back.
Four bullets of Makarov pistol were found at the site. The Criminal
Case has been initiated on the fact.
Armenian Prosecutor General has formed a tack force to investigate
the killing.
Officers of Police Service, National Security Ministry and
Prosecutor’s Office have been involved in the process. /APA/

Fresno Bee (California)
August 20, 2007 Monday
FINAL EDITION

Hollow, flashy schemes do anything but help economy

Dan Walters Bee Capitol Bureau

When John Garamendi segued from state insurance commissioner to
lieutenant governor this year he found himself in a duty-free zone.

The lieutenant governor’s only real job, as someone sagely observed,
is to check the newspaper each morning and assure himself that the
governor is still alive. His unspoken task is to garner media
attention and thus position himself to run for governor, although
only one lieutenant governor in recent memory made that happen and
voters recalled him.

The last time a governor tried to help a lieutenant governor move
upward was when Ronald Reagan appointed Ed Reinecke to the job nearly
40 years ago and then created an " Economic Development Commission"
with Reinecke as chairman and securing the space shuttle project its
mission.

Reinecke became enmeshed in scandal and was forced to resign, but the
Economic Development Commission remained alive, embraced by his
successors as a source of patronage and a vehicle for gaining public
attention even though it has not generated any economic development
that anyone has ever catalogued.

True to time-dishonored tradition, Garamendi claims that he has
"revitalized" the Economic Development Commission and will make it
into a force for economic progress. Current cost: $651,000 a year.

If nothing else, it illustrates the hapless quality of the state’s
fitful efforts at spurring business investment. Governors and other
politicians are forever promoting schemes they say will enhance the
state’s economy and create oodles of new jobs.

They are piled one upon the other with little coordination or review,
many surviving simply because no one has enough guts to give them the
merciful deaths they deserve.

A few years ago, the state’s overseas trade offices were shuttered —
but there’s an effort in the Capitol to keep the one remaining
outpost, albeit privately financed, in Armenia, open. Why? It’s
merely a sop to Southern California’s politically influential
Armenian-American community.

The various tax breaks targeted to specific communities and/or
industries are especially egregious.

One of the costliest is the two-decade-old "enterprise zone" program
under which communities offer tax breaks for investment that
supposedly helps low-income people. Last January, the Los Angeles
Times detailed how enterprise zone "vouchers" only rarely help the
poor, more often benefit the wealthy and are sold by cities to firms
far removed from their borders.

The Franchise Tax Board is questioning the legality of some vouchers
and the Legislature has adopted some modest reforms, while extending
the life of existing zones.

Instead of a cleanup, however, the Schwarzenegger administration is
expanding use of enterprise zones and legislation to make it easier
to create them is moving. Meanwhile, the Assembly has voted to punch
more than a half-billion dollars in new loopholes into the state’s
already distorted tax laws.

They never learn.

Dan Walters writes for The Bee’s Capitol bureau. E-mail:
[email protected]; mail: P.O. Box 15779, Sacramento, CA 95852.

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Aug 23 2007

Russia to invest over half billion dollars to Armenian economy

[ 23 Aug 2007 15:30 ]

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian President Robert
Kocharyan today had meeting, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti agency.
The sides discussed huge projects to be implemented with the
participation of Russia in Armenia.

Kremlin source stated that bilateral cooperation in energy with the
participation of Gasprom occupies special place among these projects.
Over $500 million will be invested in Armenian economy in the
framework of this project. Involvement of Russian capital into the
development of Razdan Thermal Power Station, construction of refinery
near Mehri city, modernization of Armenia’s railways and other
transport infrastructures, atomic energy, gold production and other
fields are on focus.
Putin and Kocharyan also touched on several international problems
and the situation in the Caucasus. /APA/

Diplomacy: The politics of principles
——————————
Herb Keinon , THE JERUSALEM POST Aug. 23, 2007
——————————

The political work of the mainstream American Jewish Organizations is, for
the most part, seen in Jerusalem as a valued asset – often as an extra "man"
on the diplomatic playing field. These groups help open important doors and
clear high hurdles in Washington.

In fact, Jerusalem turns to some of these organizations from time to time to
deal quietly with issues that Israel doesn’t formally want to dirty its
hands with – such as protesting anti-Semitic manifestations in various
countries, or dealing with Holocaust restitution issues – due to a concern
about negatively impacting various bilateral relationships.

But every so often the extra "man on the field" not only doesn’t effectively
run interference, he just gets in the way – from an Israeli diplomatic
perspective. The flap this week over the Anti-Defamation League’s reversal
of its policy on whether to characterize Turkish actions against the
Armenians in World War I as genocide is a case in point.

It’s fascinating, actually, how a seemingly local brouhaha in a Boston
suburb called Watertown could conceivably have an impact on Israel’s
relationship with what is arguably its most important strategic ally after
the US – Turkey. The incident sheds light on the relationship between the
Jewish organizations and Israel, and illustrates how their interests
sometimes collide.

Watertown, home to a large Armenian population, withdrew last week from the
ADL’s "No Place for Hate" anti-bigotry program because of the organization’s
long-standing refusal to recognize the massacres of the Armenians as
genocide. The issue snowballed after ADL head Abe Foxman fired the
organization’s regional director, Andrew Tarsy, for saying in a *Boston
Globe* article that he strongly disagreed with the ADL’s position.

Although unpleasant, this was as yet of no great interest to Israel. But the
firing created controversy in the Boston Jewish community, with some
questioning how an organization dedicated to fighting bigotry and
anti-Semitism could refuse to recognize the massacres of Armenians as
genocide. ADL board members quit, others threatened to resign, and there
were calls for Foxman’s head. He then issued a statement reversing ADL
policy.

"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," Foxman said in his statement. "On reflection, we
have come to share the view of Henry Morgenthau, Sr. [the US ambassador to
the Ottoman Empire at the time] that the consequences of those actions were
indeed tantamount to genocide. If the word genocide had existed then, they
would have called it genocide… 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."

This is when the matter moved from being an internal ADL issue, or an issue
between ADL and Watertown, to becoming an issue with ramifications impacting
heavily on Israel.

DIPLOMATIC OFFICIALS in Jerusalem contacted Tuesday night to react to
Foxman’s reversal were stunned by the announcement.

"Unbelievable," one official said, after muttering a curse. Another senior
Foreign Ministry official, who deals daily and intimately with the
Turkish-Israeli relationship, wouldn’t respond because he couldn’t believe
it, doubting the very veracity of the statement.

Well, it was true. And the reason for the stunned response to what an
American Jewish organizational leader had to say about a historical event 90
years ago is because of its ability to cause problems in the Israel-Turkish
alliance.

This is a clear case of principles vs. politics, with the American-Jewish
community having the luxury of opting for principle, and Israel living very
much – too much, some would argue – in the world of real politics.

"I think the ADL should support the congressional bill. As much as I
understand taking into consideration relations between Israel and Turkey,
this is something you have to do even though it is politically difficult,"
Samuel Mendales, director of Hillel Council of New England, was quoted as
saying this week in the *Jerusalem Post*.

Mendales was not alone in saying that this was a clear case of principle
trumping politics. The problem with this, however, is that it is relatively
easy to say this in Massachusetts, bordered by Connecticut, Rhode Island,
New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. American Jews can take the high moral
ground on issues such as these, because there is no real consequence; they
don’t have to pay any tangible cost.

Not so in Israel, where taking the high moral ground often comes with paying
a real political price. And in the cost-benefit analysis on this issue,
Israel’s position – and that of the key Jewish organizations active in
Washington up until this point – has been that the profit of a close
strategic relationship with Turkey outweighed the benefit of taking what
some argue is the right and principled stand on the issue.

This is why the Knesset, like the US Congress, consistently shoots down
attempts to pass a Congressional resolution on this matter, something that
is a red flag for the Turks.

But just as the American Jews don’t see things through Israel’s realpolitik
prism, Israelis might not fully understand the position of American Jews,
for whom taking the high moral ground is key to their sense of identity – a
deeply ingrained sense that because of Jewish history, they have a
responsibility to take ethical stands on these types of issues.

Someone looking on from the outside could reasonably ask, "Who cares what
Jewish organizations say about this? Why does it matter?"

Which brings us back to the idea of Jewish organizations as an additional
player on Israel’s diplomatic field. It matters because, in the
constellation of Israel’s diplomatic relations with Turkey – as well as in
its relations with some other countries, such as India – the mythical power
of the "Jewish lobby" in Washington is central. This perceived power is not
only fodder for Israel-bashers and anti-Semites, but also an asset in
dealing with foreign governments.

Since the 1990s, Turkey has turned into a key strategic ally. What Israel
gets from Turkey is clear: a friendly Muslim face in a sea of hostility; a
geographical asset; a huge market for military wares and other products; a
nice place to vacation. We are a country that longs for acceptance by our
neighbors, and have found it in Turkey.

And what do the Turks get? Firstly, they benefit from our geography, just as
we do from theirs. Both countries box in Syria for the other, and
Syrian-Turkish relations, put mildly, have known their ups and downs.

Secondly, they buy our arms. Because of Turkey’s conflict with Greece, and
its image in the West as a tentative democracy with the military lurching
menacingly in the background, Ankara has not always been able to find
vendors for state-of-the-art military equipment. While US arms sales to its
NATO ally has often been bogged down in congressional riders and amendments,
Israel could provide the goods with fewer hurdles. Over the last few years
Turkey has undergone an enormous military modernization program, with
Israeli arms playing a substantial role.

Another component of the military relationship is intelligence cooperation.
It is widely believed, for instance, that Israeli intelligence helped lead
to the capture in 1999 of Abdullah Ocalan, head of the Kurdistan Workers’
Party, who led a terror campaign against Turkey in the 1980s and ’90s And
the final thing the Turks "get" from Israel is access to the Jewish lobby in
Washington. Talk candidly to Turkish academics, politicians and journalists
and they will say that one of the reasons Israel is valuable to Turkey is
because of the ADL, the American Jewish Congress, B’nai Brith and similar
organizations. Without a strong lobby of its own in Washington, Turkey looks
to these organizations to put in a good word in Congress or with the
administration when issues of importance to Ankara – such as issues
regarding the Armenians or Cyprus – make their way to those bodies.

The relationship has even grown in importance recently, since Turkish-US
relations have become strained as a result of the war in Iraq.

In addition, the issue is playing itself out at a less than fortuitous time
from Israel’s point of view. The ADL reversal, which played prominently in
the Turkish press, comes as Israel’s best friends in Turkey – the army and
the secular foreign policy bureaucracy – are largely in retreat.

The Islamic-based AKP party is very much on the rise, and its foreign
minister, Abdullah Gul, whose wife wears the traditional Islamic headscarf,
is poised to become Turkey’s president next week – something of huge
symbolic importance in a country that has zealously guarded public trappings
of secularism. An impression that the Jews have reversed course on the
Armenian issue could give ammunition to those voices in Turkey already
calling for a reassessment of ties with Jerusalem, even as Israel’s
staunchest friends there are losing some of their clout.

WHICH EXPLAINS why there is concern in Israel following Foxman’s statement.
Granted, the Jewish groups are just one of the pillars supporting strong
Israeli-Turkish ties, but even when one pillar of a building weakens, action
is taken to strengthen it. In the coming days and weeks, therefore, the aim
will be to reinforce this pillar.

Turkey’s ambassador to Israel, Namik Tan, rushed back here on Thursday,
cutting his vacation short by two weeks, to deal with the matter. He will
speak to Foreign Ministry officials and seek clarifications, and – most
likely – also seek Israel’s help in ensuring that Foxman’s statement remains
just that: a statement, and not one that is used by other Jewish
organizations to change their opposition to a US congressional resolution on
the matter.

Foxman himself said that the ADL would continue to oppose as
"counterproductive" efforts to bring this to Congress. The diplomatic moves
in the coming weeks will likely be aimed at enshrining that as the policy of
all the main US Jewish organizations.

For the Turks, however, this commitment is little consolation. Ilnur Cevik,
a columnist for the English-language *New Anatolian* newspaper, wrote, "The
fact that the ADL said it will continue to oppose the congressional bill
accepting the ‘Armenian genocide’ is little comfort. Because the ADL said it
took the decision to reverse its former position because it consulted
historians and experts and came to the conclusion that what happened was
actually genocide. Now many people in the US Congress who had doubts will
start thinking in a different manner. This is bad news for Turkey."

Israel’s efforts in the coming days will be to ensure that what is "bad
news" for Turkey is not necessarily deleterious to the Israeli-Turkish
relationship.

Source: 145994&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

FOXMAN BLINKS ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Ben Harris – JTA

New York Jewish Week
.php3?artid=14436
Aug 23 2007

Under Fire, ADL Reverses Course And Now Calls Armenian Killings
A genocide.

In a dramatic reversal, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director
has issued a statement describing the massacres perpetrated by the
Ottoman Empire against the Armenians as "tantamount to genocide."

The ADL and its national director, Abraham Foxman, have faced mounting
criticism in recent weeks for refusing to use the genocide label and
for firing Andrew Tarsy, the head of the organization’s Boston office,
who publicly challenged that policy.

Tarsy’s dismissal sparked a furious backlash from local community
leaders-including critical statements from prominent Boston Jews,
a "community statement" calling for the ADL to change its position,
and the resignation of two members of the ADL’s regional board.

But in a statement issued Tuesday, the ADL said, "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," the statement said.

When asked in a Boston Globe interview last month if he believed what
happened to the Armenians was genocide, Foxman was quoted as saying:
"I don’t know." Critics argued that Foxman’s remark portrayed the
issue as open to debate, with some calling it genocide denial.

ADL insists the change stems from its concern for Jewish unity at a
moment of great peril for communities around the world.

"I was just disheartened by how the Jewish community was being torn
apart," Foxman told JTA Tuesday as he traveled to Boston to meet
with community leaders. "We were being criticized by other Jewish
organizations. And out of a tremendous concern to keep that unity,
because the Jewish community is under increased attack in Europe,
Latin America and even in this country, the imperative is to try to
find unity."

The turnaround comes just weeks before the release of Foxman’s new
book, "The Most Dangerous Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of
Jewish Control." Foxman, whose book attempts to debunk claims that
Jewish groups stifle debate on Israel and control U.S. foreign policy,
said that some advocates of these views were emboldened by the attacks
on the ADL.

In recent days, ADL has faced a budding rebellion on the part of the
organization’s Boston leadership, which adopted two resolutions on
the issue last week, one expressing confidence in Tarsy and the other
supporting legislation in Congress acknowledging the Armenian genocide.

Two prominent members of the ADL’s regional board-former chairman
of the Polaroid Corp., Stewart Cohen, and Boston City Council member
Mike Ross-reportedly resigned in protest over the issue.

The ADL has been under fire since the Armenian community in Watertown,
Mass., one of the country’s largest, began agitating to have the
town rescind its participation in "No Place for Hate," a popular
anti-bigotry program the ADL sponsors.

On Aug. 14, the Town Council unanimously voted to end its relationship
with the program, and other Massachusetts communities were reported
to be considering similar moves.

Watertown’s Armenian community was piqued by the ADL’s longtime refusal
to support the congressional legislation, which is vigorously opposed
by Turkey, Israel’s closest Muslim ally.

Despite the shift on the genocide question, Foxman says he still does
not support the legislative measure, which he described in his Tuesday
statement as "a counterproductive diversion" that could threaten the
Turkish Jewish community and "the important multilateral position
between Turkey, Israel and the United States."

That position is exceedingly unpopular in Boston, where a large
Armenian population has developed close ties with the Jewish
community. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston,
the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the David Project, and eight other
groups signed on to a "community statement" Monday urging the ADL to
reconsider its position.

"We must never forget the Armenian genocide and maintain our guard
against those who deny its occurrence," that statement said. "We
stand with them and in support of the local Armenian community,
who like the Jews, have suffered greatly at the hands of others."

An early version of the statement had also called for Tarsy’s
reinstatement, but that clause was later dropped.

"Abe Foxman had every right in the world to fire Andy Tarsy," said
Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Boston JCRC. Tarsy "knew
what he was doing."

Along with other major Jewish groups, the ADL has said the genocide
question should be resolved by historians rather than by Congress.

Their position is motivated in part by concern for Israel’s close
military alliance with Turkey and for the country’s Jews, who have
warned that congressional action could create problems for them.

Earlier this year, the ADL-along with the American Jewish Committee,
B’nai Brith International, and the Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs-transmitted a letter from Turkish Jews to
congressional leaders opposing the legislation.

While Foxman has previously acknowledged that Turkish Jewry is a
factor in his thinking, the letter to the Boston board provided the
clearest glimpse yet of the difficulties inherent in balancing the
ADL’s universal commitment to human rights and the particular needs
of the Jewish community.

We recognize that "we are a Jewish agency whose mission is to work for
the community while paying attention to the more universal goals we
share with others," the letter stated. "And when those two elements
of our mission come into direct conflict, we do not abandon the
Jewish community."

U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is the lead sponsor of
the congressional resolution, rejected any attempt to connect the
controversy to the Israeli-Turkish alliance. "There is no connection
between what the U.S. Congress does on this resolution and Israel,
unless ADL makes one," Schiff said. The ADL "may end up hurting Israel
by bringing Israel into the fight."

Schiff acknowledged that Turkey might be sending such a message to
Jewish organizations. But, he added, Jewish groups "should have told
Turkey from the beginning, ‘We’re not involved in this fight, and if
we get involved it will be on the side of recognition.’ They didn’t
do that, and now I think they are suffering the repercussions."