Jewish Exponent, PA
Aug 23 2007
Silence on Armenian Genocide Does Neither ADL Nor Israel Any Good
August 23, 2007
Leonard Fein
On the surface, the question of how Jews should regard the genocide
of Armenians should be an easy call.
Here, for example, is the text of a cable that Henry Morgenthau, Sr.,
then America’s ambassador to Turkey, sent to the State Department on
July 10, 1915:
"Persecution of Armenians assuming unprecedented proportions. Reports
from widely scattered districts indicate systematic attempt to uproot
peaceful Armenian population and through arbitrary arrests, terrible
tortures, whole-sale expulsions, and deportations from one end of the
Empire to the other accompanied by frequent instances of rape,
pillage and murder, turning into massacre, to bring destruction and
destitution on them. These measures are not in response to popular or
fanatical demand but are purely arbitrary and directed from
Constantinople in the name of military necessity, often in districts
where no military operations are likely to take place."
And then, on August 11, his cable back home referred to "this effort
to exterminate a race."
Morgenthau couldn’t use the word "genocide"; it wasn’t invented until
1944. But today, the overwhelming majority of scholars around the
world are in agreement: The first genocide of the 20th century was
committed by Turkey, and the Armenians were its victims. But Turkey
labors mightily to impeach the scholarship and to claim that
Armenians were mere casualties of war.
Unlike the many nations that have established commissions of truth
and reconciliation, that have looked fearlessly into their own past
crimes against humanity (most notably, Germany itself), Turkey hires
K Street lobbyists to persuade the American public and the U.S.
Congress that its hands are clean, its heart is pure.
It is doubtful that many people are persuaded by the Turks and their
lobbyists. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum recognizes the Armenian
Genocide, as does the Reform Jewish movement, as, one assumes, do
most Jewish leaders — even the leaders of the Anti-Defamation
League, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Institute for
National Security Affairs and B’nai Brith International. Yet the
leaders of these organizations have steadfastly refused to endorse a
bill currently before Congress that would formally acknowledge the
fact of the Armenian genocide.
How can that be? Why do they shy away from using the word "genocide"
to describe the tragedy of the Armenians at the hands of Ottoman
Empire Turkey?
The answer is unsettling. It has nothing to do with history or truth;
it has everything to do with the strategic interests of Israel, as
also, to a lesser degree, of the United States. Turkey is a Moslem
country which maintains cordial and strategically important relations
with both Israel and America. That is presumably why in 2001, Shimon
Peres, then Israel’s foreign minister, could say, "We reject attempts
to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian
allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. What the
Armenians went through is a tragedy, but not genocide."
The matter has suddenly become an issue in Watertown, Mass. a suburb
of Boston that is home to some 8,000 Armenians. There, a challenge
has been mounted against ADL’s "No Place For Hate" program, a popular
anti-bigotry campaign in which hundreds of communities around the
nation participate. Cyberspace is now filled with criticism of Abe
Foxman, ADL’s executive, who recently said, "This [the genocide] is
not an issue where we take a position one way or the other."
It is not possible to believe that he is unaware of the relevant
history. And that raises a number of pressing questions: At what
point do we allow Israel’s raisons d’etat to override the sober and
sobering truth? There’s a long record on this one, going back to
Israel’s efforts to impose silence on American Jews regarding the
plight of Soviet Jewry, regarding our views of the junta in
Argentina, even regarding the war in Vietnam.
Does not the outrageous stubbornness of Turkey require that Turkey’s
friends and allies seek to persuade the Turkish government that would
be a mature and cleansing act for Turkey at long last to lay open the
record and deal frankly with its past, as so many other have done and
are doing? Would not such candor raise Turkey’s reputation in the
family of nations?
Leonard Fein is a Boston-based columnist
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