Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?
Adolf Hitler argued that, because the world did not remember or care what the Turks did to the Armenians, it would not remember or care what the Nazis did to the Poles either--and, by implication, to Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and everyone else they wanted to exterminate. The world's amnesia regarding the Armenian genocide was among the root causes of the Holocaust. The Anti-Defamation League's recent attempt to downplay or cover up any genocide, let alone the Armenian genocide, is therefore so reprehensible as to defy belief. This action has also provided convenient ammunition for Israel-haters and outright white nationalist anti-Semites.
Let's begin by showing exactly how the massacre of the Armenians paved the way for the Nazis to kill more than ten million Jews, Polish Catholics, Gypsies, disabled people, gay people, Jehovah's Witnesses, and non-Polish Slavs whom the Nazis also regarded as racially inferior to their so-called Master Race. Here is Adolf Hitler's statement on the Armenian Genocide in its original context. He is speaking very explicitly of exterminating entire populations, and he is citing the world's ignorance of the Armenian genocide to support his belief that he can get away with it.
Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to slaughter — with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him solely the founder of a state. It's a matter of indifference to me what a weak western European civilization will say about me.
...Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness — for the present only in the East — with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?
It is also a well-known adage that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, and encouraging the world to forget a genocide sets the stage for future genocides. Denial of historically-proven atrocities are therefore unacceptable, no matter who they come from. The issue here is the Anti-Defamation League, under the leadership of Abraham Foxman, stepping in to derail Congressional action to recognize the Armenian genocide that began in 1915.
History Consists of Facts, Even Unpleasant Ones
Foxman's reasoning is apparently that recognizing the genocide would anger Turkey, which does not like to discuss this part of its history. This is no excuse. It is actually illegal in Germany to deny the Holocaust, even though there are living Germans who participated, whether willingly or not. (It is doubtful that any living Turks participated in the events of 1915.) Slavery, segregation, broken treaties with Native Americans, and the internment of Japanese-American citizens during the Second World War are taught in our own history classes. Japan is still reluctant to acknowledge what it did during and before the Second World War, but the fact that we discuss it over here does not affect Japanese-American relations significantly.
We see no reason why Turkey should be an exception. Common sense says that we should not shove this unsavory piece of Turkish history in Turkish faces. However, the atrocity did happen, and those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Denial is Not a River in Egypt
9/11 Denial is the same thing as Holocaust Denial, except it writes off, excuses, or blames on someone other than the actual perpetrators, four missing airplanes and two missing skyscrapers instead of six million missing Jews and three million missing Polish Catholics. The magnitude of the crime (3000 versus more than ten million victims) is not the issue. The attempt to dismiss, downplay, or excuse it, or blame it on someone else, is. The Jeff Rense Show is well known for 9/11 conspiracy theories that blame the collapsing buildings on everything but Al Qaida terrorists.
The Katyn Forest Massacre was another example of Holocaust-type denial. The Soviet Union could not deny that several thousand Poles were massacred at this site, because Westerners saw the bodies. The Soviet Union therefore blamed the atrocity on the Germans. It is hard to feel much sympathy for the Nazis, who were falsely accused in this particular case, given their racial policies toward Poles. The Nazis would doubtlessly have killed the Poles had they been there, but it turned out that the Soviets had done this themselves. This is an example of "blame it on someone else" denial as opposed to "it didn't happen" denial.
The ADL Did Have a Dog in the Fight
We can understand the Anti-Defamation League's unwillingness to go out of its way to anger modern Turkey, which is reasonably friendly to the United States, Israel, and many NATO countries. On the other hand, Abraham Foxman needs to understand the difference between neutrality and becoming a party to a conflict or controversy. As described in The Armenian Weekly,
Foxman, again, in reference to Armenian genocide recognition efforts, stated "We’re not party to this, and I don’t understand why we need to be made party." In response to a direct question by reporter Keith O’Brien whether "what happened to Armenians under the Ottoman Empire was genocide," Foxman replied, "I don’t know." He continued, "I’m not going to be the arbiter of someone else’s history"—nor, he added, should Congress.
Foxman begins by saying, "We’re not party to this, and I don’t understand why we need to be made party" but then goes on to say that Congress should not pass legislation, which Armenian-Americans want, to recognize the genocide. He can't say "I don't have a dog in this fight" after siccing his pit bull, in this case the ADL's considerable prestige and credibility, on someone else's pet.
Foxman then proceeded to make matters worse by firing the ADL's regional director, Andrew Tarsy. A letter signed by Foxman and , the ADL's national chairman Glen S. Lewy said, "No organization can or should tolerate such an act of open defiance," with regard to Tarsy's acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide.
There is no way that any reasonable person can back Foxman and Lewy on this statement. If Foxman and Lewy want to assert (like Big Brother from 1984) that two and two make five, they will soon learn the hard way through the natural consequences to their own credibility that they cannot drag Tarsy to the Ministry of Love's Room 101 for saying that two and two make four. They can indeed fire him, but that simply turns the ADL from a once-respected organization into a despicable pariah.
ADL: Stooge for Israel-Haters and Antisemites
The Anti-Defamation League has indeed become a pariah, and a stooge for Israel-haters and outright anti-Semites. Let's begin with the lesser of the evils: organizations that downplay Palestinian atrocities and terrorism (an action no less deplorable than ADL's efforts to downplay the Armenian genocide) while focusing on everything Israel does wrong, whether real or imaginary. As reported by A Jewish Voice for Peace's Muzzlewatch:
Armenian genocide denial is a product of ADL’s contradictory missions - to fight bigotry and protect Israel. Turkey does not want the genocide recognized. Israel does not recognize the genocide, which helps maintain their close relationship with Turkey, their only Muslim ally. ADL is acting in a sense on behalf of Israel.
However, sadly, Armenians are not the only victims of denial. The ADL is an active apologist for the government of Israel’s worst human rights abuses. Palestinians are victims of an insidious form of denial that is not just about memory and recognition, but flesh and blood and life itself.
Note how Jewish Voice for Peace begins with a premise with which no decent person can or should try to defend: the ADL downplayed the Armenian genocide, and tried to sweep it under the rug. Contrary to the above statement, ADL did not actually deny that Armenians had been massacred, but JVP wasted no opportunity to exploit the opening. Then JVP goes on to say, "The ADL is an active apologist for the government of Israel’s worst human rights abuses." Whatever abuses Israel has committed pale in comparison to the Palestinians' long litany of deliberate violence not only toward Israeli civilians (Ma'alot school shooting, Munich Massacre, bombs with poisoned nails as shrapnel, Leon Klinghoffer murder, using unwitting Palestinian children as human bombs, shooting a pregnant woman in her uterus to kill her unborn child are but a few examples) but also toward women (so-called honor killings), and gay people. This is something JVP finds it convenient to omit as a matter of policy, thus making it guilty of exactly the conduct it ascribes to the ADL with regard to Israel, but this is not the point. The point is that the ADL's reprehensible position on the Armenians gave an organization like JVP ammunition with which to attack Israel.
Matters become even worse when one Googles on site:stormfront.org and "foxman" and "armenians." There are 47 matches to date. The first, posted by "Aryan Diplomat," is entitled "Abraham Foxman the Genocide Denier." This white nationalist, white supremacist, or whatever one wants to call him cites Foxman's loathsome action (he did not actually deny the genocide the way Stormfront types deny that Hitler killed any Jews, but merely tried to downplay it and sweep it under the rug), and then goes on to argue that ADL is a Jewish supremacist hate group. The rest of this particular thread then devolves into the usual anti-Semitic tirades one expects from those people, but this time fueled by the material that the ADL was kind enough to provide.
The problem is that the ADL carries an enormous amount of prestige and credibility from all the good work it has done in the past. Therefore, Israel-haters and genuine anti-Semites can reap enormous benefits from ADL's recent actions. It is therefore necessary to point out that very few Jewish people or Israel supporters stand with ADL on this matter. In fact, there is considerable division in the ADL itself, noting that two prominent members resigned after Tarsy's dismissal.
Unless the Anti-Defamation League wants its donors and even its employees (as soon as they can find work elsewhere) to leave ADL the way rats leave a sinking ship, it will do the following:
(1) Reinstate Andrew Tarsy with an apology.
(2) Apologize to the Armenian-American community, and recognize that the massacre of the Armenians helped pave the way for the Holocaust. The ADL has in fact finally applied the term "genocide" to this massacre, but it has yet to take the next step.
(3) Immediately discontinue its opposition to legislation to recognize the Armenian genocide. ADL has failed to do this, noting that "The ADL leader said the organization still believes "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." Abraham Foxman is still taking a side, and he is taking the wrong side.