and the ADL with it. It has long since stopped advocating against intolerance, bigotry, and hatred and instead has been a major promoter of Jewish ethnocentrism and exceptionalism. The result has been to give credence to those who espouse some of the worst forms of racism and chauvinism. Really, it's time to go. 

I feel ashamed after reading that. I have Armenian friends, I feel like I should apoligize to them or forward them this piece. As for Foxman, Jewcy should start a campaign to retrire Abe and his bad hairdye.

but not on this:

" (ADL) It has long since stopped advocating against intolerance, bigotry, and hatred and instead has been a major promoter of Jewish ethnocentrism and exceptionalism. The result has been to give credence to those who espouse some of the worst forms of racism and chauvinism."

There is nothign wrong with ethnocentrism if it doesn't blind us to the ethnocentric claims of other ethnos.

As for exceptionalism, if the Jewish people are not an exception in this world then the word has no meaning.

However, neither ethnocentrism nor exceptionalism should in itself he held responsible for "some of the worst forms of racism and chauvinism."

Most groups are ethnocentric including the Armenians yet they are not held responsible for racism.

Considering that this conference between ADL and Turkish minister took place early this year. Just curious--what are your sources for this info?

"The result has been to give credence to those who espouse some of the worst forms of racism and chauvinism."

Can you give some examples of the worst kind of racism that Foxman gave credence to?

Here ya go kiddos - sorry the La Times doesn't make their archives more accessable, so you'll have to tolerate a cut-and-paste job from the front page story:

“I don’t think a bill in Congress will help reconcile this issue. The resolution takes a position. It comes to a judgment,” said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “The Turks and Armenians need to revisit their past. The Jewish community shouldn’t be the arbiter of that history,” he said. “And I don’t think the U.S. Congress should be the arbiter either.”

Note that here Foxman claims to speak for the "Jewish community." Not for me Abe.

Zbird, the meeting was reported in a number of places, though not nearly as widely as it should have been. It's cited here at The Forward, here by the LA Times (that's a Nexis link...I can't find it at the moment on the Times site itself, but here's the text), here in the New York Sun. I also had an off-the-record conversation with a Jewish-American leader with intimate knowledge of the meeting and the players involved.

Apter, I didn't actually write that quote, it's from the first comment in this thread, by Moshe Pipik.

BTW, Asaf Shtull-Trauring has asked me to note that he doesn't actually support divestment.

very troubling indeed. I always thought foxman was paranoid crude and tasteless but never imagined he'd stoop to such base immorality.

The one caveat I'd make to your otherwise well-taken points is that anti-semitism is alive and well outside the U.S., even if it barely registers here. Still, that's no excuse for the ADL's behavior. By succumbing to paranoia and baseless accusations here, the ADL, like the boy who cried wolf, loses credibility when antisemitism really raises its ugly head.

Zbird, agree with your caveat. There are genuine issues to be addressed outside the US. If a post-Foxman ADL can learn to respond sanely and productively to them (rather than Foxman-style freakouts on trivia like the Tridentine mass), perhaps the org can actually have a worthwhile future.

This is a great piece and you state very succinctly what I've been saying for years when you talk about the paradox that if we're still under this terrible anti-Semitic threat, what has the ADL been doing all of this time?

Meanwhile, the much bigger threat is that so many Jews are simply not interested in being involved in the Jewish community, in part because so many of our institutions (like the ADL) have calcified and are inept at conveying meaning or providing a warm and embracing space.

One thing I wish you had included is the actual annual budget of the ADL, or the part of it that is Foxman's salary. I think it's an outrageous sum (I won't speculate without knowing but I remember hearing it once and was amazed). Contrast that to the small trickle going to fund innovative youth programs or outreach efforts to engage more Jewish families in the community. Our communal priorities are screwed.

In the Diaspora, the ADL has done a warrior's job protecting Jewish interests, lives and property for nearly a century. While the modern nation of Israel exercises a foreign policy, American Jewry also has global interests, and the ADL and other large Jewish organizations exercise de facto and sometimes contradictory "foreign policies" in our behalf. One such vital policy is twofold: protecting & enhancing the excellent and unique diplomatic relationship between "moderate" Secular/Muslim Turkey and Israel; and supporting & protecting the 25,000 remaining Turkish Jews. There is absolutely no doubt that an over thirty year holocaust against the Armenians was perpetrated by various Turkish govenrments 1890-1923, with the assistance by Muslim Kurds and some elements of the German Kaisers' governments' complicity, by the way. However, if, in the interest of today's American Jews being "moral" and "a light to the nations" Joey demands of the ADL that they abandon support for Israel's diplomatic policy toward Turkey & also jeopardize the Turkish Jews, just to make legitimate the Armenians claims, then Joey is torally wrong. In fact, the historical argument is soley between the Turks and Armenians and Jews and the ADL have every right to stay neutral. Are Jews compelled to rescind our self-interest to become the world's human rights policemen? First, especially in times of great threat, we take care of our OWN interests, then we cure the world. Joey, if you are an "internationalist" and not a Jewish nationalist first, then you should fire yourself from your mis-titled blog and just call ir CY, but not JEWCY.

Turkey is one of three countries with moslem majorities to recognize Israel.It is the only country which hosts an Israeli military airbase.After the Holocaust the hope of Jews depends on Israel and its strength. We need ADL more than ever. Foxman is fearless spokesman for this very sacred cause. This attack is immoral an an expresion of Jewish self hatred. May G-d bless Abe Foxman.

There's a difference between being a self-interested community (and perhaps one that fails to see that our self-interest in the long term lies in the permanence of norms against genocide - the apex of ADL's purpose) and being "the world's human rights policeman."  In an ideal world, the ADL woudl take a stand against all past, present, and future genocides in a manner similar to the U.S. Holocaust Memorials admirable campaign against the current atrocities in Darfur.  But at a bare minimum, we should never be so bankrupt as to make an affirmative statement against acknowledgment of past genocide.  Unless Foxman was explicitly told that the lives of the Jewish community in Turkey were on the line unless he made such an affirmative statement, it's flatly unconscionable to throw away one's core principles in that manner.  The ADL must stand for something broader than self-interest.  It once did (Stuart Svokin's quite good "Jews Against Prejudice" details these glory days of the ADL, American Jewish Congress, etc), and we should demand that it do so again.  Million dollar donors be damned.  If the ADL claims to speak for our community then we as the community must demand that it act justly in our name.

The last time I was at this site, I read a lame defense of Norman Finkelstein that the author virtually rewrote after admitting that his "facts" were wrong. Now, we have yet another attack on Abe Foxman filled with topics and themes that have been beaten to death endlessly on blogs and in other publications (witness James Traub's piece in the NYTimes this winter), plus the usual hyperbolic implications that Foxman is squelching debate (jihad? Isn't that more appropriate for CAIR? And what's wrong with noting that the singling out of Israel for divestment is anti-Semitic? Thomas Friedman has said so in two editorials) and creating anti-Semitism by speaking out.

You guys can't even come up with a fresh photo, instead pulling one that any shlub on the internet can find with a Google search.

When are you going to come up with something fresh and insightful to say, here? You sound like a bunch of college kids blowing off steam.

No way you can say the ADL remained neutral here. They collaborated like little Vichy's. I think there are really two issues here: 1) what should Jews have done, and 2) what should the ADL have done.

1. Jews should obviously respond to genocide the same way any moral human being should respond--with condemnation, sorrow and any possible act that will reduce or eliminate the evil. Rafael and HH would be well-advised to remember that famous line attributed to Edmund Burke:
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

2. The ADL as an organization has even less of an excuse to kow-tow to Turkey than individual Jews. Read its charter. It's not just against defamation of the Jewish people, but "Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to ALL citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of ANY sect or body of citizens."

FYI: according to the ADL's form 990 2005, he pulled in about $390K including benefits and perks. ADL pulled in about 56 million in revenue that year.

You all can just for yourselves whether that's excessive.

Its not about the "million dollar donors", which sounds like a self-hating encoded canard. The ADL was wrong in making, or being perceived as making an affirmative statement denying the Armenian holocaust. The point is that our Jewish people are always the losers in these eternal, foreign debates. Maybe we should take sides in the Shiite vs Sunni split that has lasted only 1300 years. Or get dragged again into the Lutheran vs. Catholic wars? To wit: if the ADL, in getting involved in this issue, on behalf of Israel's current pro-Turk position and the frail Turkish Jewish community, is "bankrupt", then where is the currency in "acting justly in our name" but not in our Jewish interest? Should we act on behalf of the Turks? Or the Armenians? the Sunnis? The Lutherans? ADL's mission is unashamedly in name & deed Bnai Brith. JEWISH, not Amnesty International. We act justly in our name ONLY when we stand up for ourselves FIRST. Jews should stand up for the victims of the Arab Janjaweed genocide in Sudan because it is real and it is happening now and it is OUR INTEREST to do so. We are an ancient and viable civiliztion and we have INTERESTS. But to get involved in a debate over the past historicity of atrocities, which whatever side we are on may harm even ONE JEW dictates that we remain neutral. Don't go negative after Foxman. Go positive for Jewish self-interests. Yes, even we have them. There is justice in being a self-interested Jew.

The problem with Joey's post is that it conflates two entirely different problems one can have with Foxman's leadership of the ADL. The first is that the ADL over-hypes and over-reacts to anti-semitism in order to keep its coffers full. (The Passion campaign being Exhibit A.) The second is the ADL is sublimating its anti-defamation agenda in order to lobby on behalf of Israeli foreign policy objectives.

The difference between the two is that in the first case, Foxman is being overzealous in pursuing the core mission of his organization. Criticizing the head of the ADL for being paranoid and alarmist is like criticizing the ACLU for being free speech absolutists. The ADL is supposed to be paranoid and alarmist - that's its niche in the American Jewish ecosystem. The real problem is that the other organs of the American Jewish community have not been nearly as effective in relaying the counterbalancing upbeat message about American Jewish life.

Foxman's intervention in the Armenian genocide issue, on the other hand, is indefensible. Clearly the ADL has a role to play in unmasking anti-Semitism cloaked in anti-Zionist rhetoric. Policing that line is fraught with peril, and there are going to be times where the ADL could step over that line into the mess of Middle East politics. But it is not the job of the ADL to secure Israel's strategic alliances and lobby on its allies behalf in Congress. There are pro-Israel organizations, Jewish and interfaith that have this task well in hand. Moreover, given that the ADL has a mandate to combat not only anti-semitism, but also other forms of discrimination, intervention against recognition of a genocide is a fundamental betrayal of the organization's principles.

As a former employee of ADL, I can honestly say the organization doesn't speak for me!! Mr Foxman is out of touch with the Jewish community.

I've said more than my fair share here, and I'm excited to see people trying to address this issue and - more importantly - address eachother.  But I have to ask - Why does questioning the status quo and the establishment currently governing jewish communal institutionals make me "self-hating"?  I love being Jewish; I love the history, the tradition, the ideals.  Probably the ideals most of all - or at least the ideals that I was raised to beleive were the key element of judaism.  I am a Jew whose expectations for my people are high.  In that vision is a love for the Jewish people far greater than those who think we can do no better than self-interest and the collapse of empathy.

And if you're insinuating that the "million dollar" part of million dollar donors was a reference to Jewish wealth or some other absurdity then you're even farther off track than I was giving you credit for.  I simply don't beleive that concentrated wealth gives you a license to speak for a community or to govern its ideals.

Those of you who think that antisemitism is a thing of the past and that the Jews have it too good today, think again.

In many parts of Europe Jews are less safe today than they were at anytime since the Shoah:

Watch this short documentary on the subject if you dare:

The War on Britain's Jews:

The War on Britain's Jews

It's troubling to see some justifying Foxman's denial of the Armenian holocaust as a pro-Israeli act. What right to we have to blame Ahmadenijad's denial of the Jewish holocaust if we justify the denial of the Armenian holocaust? Unless we universalize our own standards we cannot achieve a better world. Should Armenia deny the Jewish holocaust because it has good ties with Iran?

If we love Israel so much, why do we think it is so weak it has to deny the Armenian holocaust in order to be friends with Turkey? And do we really want a friend who doesn't admit its misdeeds? What if instead of "Turkey" was "Germany" and instead of "Armenian" was "Jew"? Have our right-wing brothers and sisters ever asked this question to themselves?

FIRE FOXMAN!

This is just plain silly:

"The ADL’s jihad against Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ was typical of the organization’s destructive, self-interested efforts. Foxman, as you might remember, fanned fears it would inspire Chmielniki-style pogroms. Yet not a single documented act of violence against Jews resulted from the film, nor even a single verbal assault. A study conducted by Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles indicated some anger among Christians toward Jews—but because of the reaction to the film, rather than its contents. Thanks to the ADL, our strong and self-confident community was made to appear silly and paranoid before the world"

Jihad, what Jihad? Alerting people about an antisemitic film isn't exactly the same as calling for a Jihad.

You make some good points but your exaggerations tend to diminish the force of your arguments.

Remember to that it's possible that the ADL campaign had a lot to do with making Christians self conscious about their reaction to the film. Besides reactions are not spontaneous but will build over time.

Does the Christian world need another Christian antisemitic work of art?

Also there is this:

"Other Christian churches are ‘wounded,’ Vatican says"

Phil Stewart, Reuters
Published: Tuesday, July 10, 2007

"VATICAN CITY • The Vatican said yesterday Christian denominations outside Roman Catholicism were not full churches of Jesus Christ.

Protestant leaders said this was offensive and would hurt inter-denominational dialogue.

A 16-page document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict once headed, described Christian Orthodox churches as true churches, but suffering from a "wound" since they do not recognize the primacy of the Pope."

Vatican's view of Protestants

If they go after Protestants don't you think that it will also affect Jews?

A war between Catholics and Protestans just as a war between Muslims and Christians will not be without its side effects. "When wood is chopped, chips fly," as someone used to say.

It's my view that while Foxman may get a lot of little issues wrong he does get the larger picture right.

yes, siree.

I couldn't agree more. I was on the board of ADL for Norcal for several years and believe that ADL serves no purpose. The Wiesenthal Center does everything ADL does except they do a much, much better job. There are too many Jewish organizations in the US, which have essentially the same mission.

I think this is an issue of extreme hypocrisy. Iran's President is considered a blatant anti-semite because of his conference on the Holocaust, while Abe Foxman can go around essentially denying the Armenian Genocide with no problems because doing otherwise could negatively influence Israel's foreign policy.

As an Armenian (whether he is the only leader not downright hostile to Armenia in the entire region or not) I am as embarassed for those of you rationalizing this, as I am for Ahmadinejad and others who aimlessly play around with the most sensitive issue of your people for marginal gain.

foxman claims that the jewish community can and should stay neutral in this dispute, the dispute being wether 1.5 million deaths of armenian civilians was an "unfortunate incident in which a some turks died too" or a genocide.

I recognise that Israel has interests, interests that involve good relations with turkey, but i have to ask how far are the YOU willing to go to trade principle for self interest?

The evidence that this was a genocide is out there, look within yourselves and I know that you will see how fundamentally amoral the ADL stance is.

Another Armenian poster here. First off, I want to thank Joey Kurtzman for a great article.

As much as I don't like it, I also undestand Israel's strategic relationship with Turkey. The Middle East is a tough neighborhood where the bulies that surround Israel play a zero-sum game and you need all the friends you can get. But what I don't understand is why the ADL cannot at least remain neutral on the issue instead of promoting historical revisionism on behalf of Turkey. Saying nothing would be much better than what Abraham Foxman does on a regular basis. That being said, there are many Jewish and other ethnic and religious organizations that speak up for us on our and for that I am extremely grateful.

It worries me when Turkey/Turks makes casual reference to the fact that the 30,000 Jews that reside in Turkey could be in danger should the worldwide Jewish Diaspora and Israel not take up their unjust cause and I can understand how this would make Jews very nervous. The fact that Turkey/Turks would resort to such scare tactics just goes to show the mentality of those that the ADL regularly defend.

Be forwarned, the denialists will probably begin cutting and pasting their tripe very soon and you'll witness for yourselves those that rival Ahmadenijad's exuberance.

While I have often cringed at the actions of Abe Foxman and the ADL's national office, it is important to realize that the ADL's regional offices have very different goals and methods. Here in Boston, ADL's New England office spearheads programs like No Place For Hate which coordinates with local community leaders to empower them to fight against discrimination and respond to hate crimes (perpetrated against any group, not just Jews.). After the raids in New Bedford, MA that callously rounded up alleged "illegal aliens" and the subsequent anti-immigrant hate and violence hurled largely at members of the Latino community, the New England regional office of ADL spoke out loudly against these events, took action to help victims, and started a campaign to fight the troubling trend of discrimination against those perceived to be immigrants. This campaign, and others like it, illustrate how regional ADL branches are often much more willing to take on discrimination against groups that are not Jewish, in this case the Latino community.

It is also important to point out that it is these regional offices that respond to local anti-semetic incidents, like the spray-painting of a swastika on a home or a synagogue. ADL's local branches work with the victims, their communities, and local police departments to respond to these events. While the author of the above article is right in pointing out that Jews enjoy a position of unprecedented privilege, antisemitic incidents do occur and do merit an organized, but local, response.

So, while I agree with much of the criticism leveled at the national ADL office, let us remember that much of the work done by the regional offices is laudable and should be distinguished from the troubling actions of Abe Foxman.

Khoren really hits the nail on the head when he says "Saying nothing would be much better than what Abraham Foxman does on a regular basis."

That's what's so insane about this, and why it reveals that Foxman has gone completely off his rocker. The normal debate on the issue in the Jewish community is between people who say, "This goes to the heart of our experience as a people, if we sit around silently while the Armenian Genocide is denied, then as well as hurting the Armenian people and dishonoring the memory of those killed, we also disgrace ourselves, our tradition, and the memory of those lost in the holocaust", and others who say "No, we just need to be quiet, we can't say anything about the Armenian Genocide, we need to think about the well-being of Israelis and/or Turkish Jews."

I flatly reject the position of the second group, I think it's morally outrageous, but, yes, at least I understand it. But for Foxman to take the totally gratuitous step of denying the Genocide rather than simply shutting up about it...it's madness. And from the conversations I've had, even people who normally support him were aghast about it.

"It is the seductive appeal of the ADL's dark visions that most threaten us." — Joey Kurtzman

What dark vision is that?

I came to US at 27 years. Never heard anything negative about Jews in eather school,home,work. In US I hear alot about Polish anti-semitism. I see alot of articles about Holocast, nothing about millions of killed Poles. A lot of articles about Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, nothing about the ten times larger Polish Warsaw Uprising. Not much also about victims of Stalin.
How would you feel?
My business is not ethnic, wife is African-American, we attend church for Christmas carols.

As an Armenian-American, I must applaud Joey, and other gutsy Jewish-American journalists like him who have raised their concerns over denial of the Armenian Genocide by Jewish organizations like ADL. I used to attend ADL functions with my Jewish friends in Orange County California. I had no idea then that an ADL leader would participate so openly and forcefully in Turkey's diseased policy of Genocide denial.

There are a few hundred survivors of the Genocide still alive, many of them still of sound mind. I shutter to think how it must make them feel when a prominent Jewish leader comes out and tells them, in essence, that the horrors they witnessed and miraculously survived was merely in their imagination.

More than 1/3 of the world's Armenian population was exterminated between 1895 and 1923. It has taken Armenians a century to recover from this crime. And yet we cannot fully recover and end our mourning when countries like the U.S., UK, Israel, and most importantly, Turkey, refuse to minimally acknowledge the truth, let alone atone for it. Ad to that the ADL and AIPAC helping Turkey continue its denial, and you can imagine that the disappointment and hurt can lead to anger. Yet, ask yourselves the last time you heard or read a nasty word about Jews or Israel coming from an Armenian community or government leader or Armenian organization?

Anyway, I think it is cathartic for many of us to see stories like this coming in particular from the Jewish community, it helps to release the anger. So thank you for that.

Joey thanks for the enlightenment - I had no idea.
With Turkey bidding to join the EU and the leverage this gives the EU on Turkey, hopefully some change will occur - it certainly helped Orhan Pamuk.   I tried emailing this page and I got a message saying 'you are not authorized blah..'  

If we totally reduce the argument of the "Fire Foxman" advocates, we are left with high moral principals but no living Jews. The pro-ADL side understands that we should not shirk moral principals but we need to see what reality we live in. Only a few years ago, within living memory, most of our cousins were slaughtered. Turkey took in tens of thousands. Turkey has been a good friend since they took in the victims of the Inquisitions of 1492. Recognizing good friends, even those with black stains is very important for a people with few friends hanging by a thread. And by the way, there are some very popular Armenian Jew-haters, see below:

Headline News
Friday, October 27, 2006 by Staff Writer

Armenian Parliamentarian’s Remarks Cause Storm

Vartan Ayvazian, a member of the Armenian parliament, caused a political storm when he made anti-Semitic statements concerning a drilling company in Armenia.
“Do you know whom you defend?” he was quoted by Armenian newspapers as angrily telling reporters. “You defend Jews. Why don’t you go and find out who’s behind Global Gold? Instead of preventing them from violating our country’s laws, you want to defend them?”

His remarks were a result of a bitter dispute between Armenia and the American mining company “Global Gold” that was jointly administered by Jews and Armenians. Ayvazian has made anti-Semitic comments in the past, as have some prominent Armenian Christian priests in Yerevan in recent years.

The Jewish community of Armenia was quick to publicize his latest remarks. The president of the Armenian Jewish community, Rimma Varzhapetian said Ayvazian’s statements were insulting and hurtful.

“A man in this position should not express himself in this manner. He should first think. What was said was very hurtful. There is no anti-Semitism in Armenia and the Jews live in a nice atmosphere,” she said. “We think there are personal interests involved, which in no way extend to the Armenian people and government,” so we don’t want to make a fuss about that.”

The dispute between Ayvazian and Global Gold arose when the Environment Ministry decided to revoke the company’s license to carry out exploratory work at one of its Armenian gold mines saying it failed to honor its investment commitments. The company denies the accusations and will not leave before a court ruling.

Global Gold is run by Van Krikorian, a prominent American Armenian and former chairman of the Armenian Assembly of America.

HH,

To justify ADL's complicity in Genocide denial by combing the Internet for an Armenian anti-semite is truly demoralizing to both our communities. If we follow your logic, then Armenian organizations should combat Holocaust recognition, because Jews like you and Foxman take anti-Armenian positions and make anti-Armenian comments.

Furthermore, if you are Jewish, then you certainly must know that Turkey is one of the most anti-semitic nations in the world, if not the most anti-semitic. Why don't you take 30 seconds and do another search, but instead replace "Armenia" with "Turkey" and see what you get!

Armenians, like Jews, are ethnocentric. We don't hate anyone, we just like Armenians more than everyone else. I'm sure you, in particular, know what I mean. But of all the "caucasian" peoples of the world, except Jews, there is probably no other group of people who looks up to and admires the Jewish people more than us. Those Jewish stereotypes that have always been so repugnant to blue-blooded wasps, we have admired and largely adopted those stereotypes for centuries. So please don't take the anti-semitic remarks of one person, who by the way caused an uproar according to the article you pasted into your response, and attribute it to the vast majority of Armenians who admire your people despite the injustices we've experienced from many of the leading Jewish organizations.

anti-semite who happens to be Armenian. Even the very article you pasted quotes a local Jewish leader saying there is no anti-semitism in Armenia in general.

And even if 90% of armenians were rabid anti-semites, that would still not justify a single racist anti-armenian comment from any Jew, much less from a member of the self-anointed Jewish leadership.

The whole reason hatred is such a problem is that it is potentially limitless. Once we allow ourselves to judge and persecute (and "DEFAME") individuals based on their tribal identity, we open the floodgates of hatred, because in every ethnic group we can always find someone with bad characteristics that we can stupidly blame the whole group for.  If we allow that type of thinking among ourselves, we encourage it in others.

 So even those of you who think "what's good for the Jews" should be the measure of all our actions should think twice about supporting people who act callously in our name.

"I came to US at 27 years. Never heard anything negative about Jews in eather school,home,work. In US I hear alot about Polish anti-semitism. I see alot of articles about Holocast, nothing about millions of killed Poles. A lot of articles about Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, nothing about the ten times larger Polish Warsaw Uprising. Not much also about victims of Stalin.
How would you feel?
My business is not ethnic, wife is African-American, we attend church for Christmas carols." Anonymous unfortunatelyJul 11, 2007
10:42 pm

So you came from Poland and you never heard of anti-Semitism. You probably never heard of Auschwitz or of the other dozens of death camps in Poland. You also never heard of the Kielce massacre and many more like it.

This are the kinds of people Joey with his article attracts.

The last line should read:

These are the kinds of people Joey with his article attracts.

So by having ONE Polish comment off into the anti-Semitic end, this automatically disqualifies any qualms both Jews and Armenians have against Foxman's policies.

Hmm.

The problem as I see it is that words and their meanings are totally distorted.

The Armenians speak of "their" holocaust. But was it really a holocaust?

Among some of the American-Armanians I met working in Yerevan you will hear comments such as "The Jews hijacked as their "own", the notion that they were the only victims of a holocaust."

What happened to the Armenians in Turkey has happened to Jews throughout history. The Ottomans wanted to expell non-Moslems from their country; and they attempted to do so during WWI. Did the Spanish do the same with the "their" Jews? Dis the English do the same with "their" Jews as well? Or what about Stalin and his treatment of Jews. Did he not try and force them into exile by creating a "Jewish State" in the Siberian bowels of the former Soviet Union?

What distinguishes those examples, including the Armenian situation with that of "the holocaust" was that Hitler and company wanted to extinguish the Jews, as a group, worldwide; to make the Jewish population ZERO (or "Jew-free"). Unlike prior history, it was not a case of expelling the Jews from Germany but to eliminate them from planet Earth.

The situation in Turkey during World War One was NOT the case. You did not see attempts by Turkey to invade next-door Imperialist Russia and destroy their "own" Armenians in the area now comprising the Republic of Armenia".

In the final analysis, when you hear Armenian complaints about how Jews have expropriated the term "holocaust" as their "own", in my mind, that is an anti-Semitic statement.

How else would you classify their intent for such comments?

Amen...

Clever distinction, but just a bit too lawyerly.  You can slice as many distinctions and comparisons as you want between various forms of murder, but the bottom line is that millions of Armenians were systematically killed for no reason other than the fact that they were Armenian.  And the ADL is using its donors' money to lobby against American recognition of that simple truth. 

 And by the way, it's a well-known truth that Hitler's first plan was to expel the Jews.  He started killing us because no one else would take us.  So your distinction without a difference, as we lawyers like to say, is not even a distinction.

Zbird, Esq. 

American Lawyer writes:

> The Armenians speak of "their" holocaust. But was it
> really a holocaust?

In a word, yes. Much like six million of us were marched to the Nazi death chambers, the Ottoman Turks systematically slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians. As Jews, we have a special responsibility to combat the denial of genocide. Foxman can eat shit as far as I'm concerned.

The question isn't whether there was an Armenian "Holocaust."  The real question that Foxman asserted concerned whether there had been an Armenian genocide.  That historical fact - as much as the Turkish government would like like to suppress it - addresses a different term entirely.  Playing the competitive suffering game has ruined too many minority coalitions (Jews/African Americans being the largest example).  Let's not play that here. 

Start with your statute AL: The UN Genocide Convention defines Genocide as "[A]ny . . . acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group . . . ."  The key term is "in part."  The Ottomans wished to destroy the Armenian people in part - the part living in the Ottoman Empire.  Genocide.  That is what Foxman was helping to deny.  That is what is antithetical to the mission of the ADL and the ideals of the Jewish people (I hope).

It's an interesting article and although I agree with the fundamental point that on Foxman's watch the ADL has become a net negative, I find it curious that the author (and most of the commenters I read, I did not read all) have left out reference to what I believe to be Foxman's greatest crime.  In bending over backwards to hyperbolize and vigorously prosecute perceived threats coming from politically correct enemies, (read: Christians) Foxman has consistently ignored or worse, appeased actual, real and arguably much more dangerous examples of Muslim anti-semitism here in the U.S.  This is not to say Christian anti-semitism doesn't exist, (I agree with those who spoke out against Mel Gibson's movie) but it is cowardly and disingenious and damaging to legitimate Jewish-Christian partnerships for Foxman and the ADL to steadfastly ignore the threat institutionalized anti-semitism in Wahhabi-funded American Muslim institutions pose to the Jewish American community in favor of beating up on the same old bogeyman just because he knows in so doing he will enjoy the support of liberal media and the greater American Left. 

Meh.

On the one hand, Joey's hyperbole is utterly ridiculous. The ADL is a lobby group, like any lobby group, whether environmental, tobacco, Azeri, whatever. It doesn't speak for all Jews, only for what it perceives as their interest. Environmental groups don't speak for all environmentalists, or for Mother Nature. And so forth.

So, sure, it's answerable to its donors, who help guide the way it lobbies on behalf of American Jews: duh. That's how lobbies work. It's why we encourage lobbies, which is the expression of interested persons within democracies, but also regulate them (poorly), in order that they defeat alternative interests which happen not to have, or be unable to have, lobbied.

But, yeah, not all Jews agree with what the ADL has to say about a particular issue. Not all Muslims agree with CAIR. Hell, not all Americans agree with Congress, nor all Swedes with their government -- in fact, there's pretty vigorous criticism a lot of the time. Pretending that this is something dramatic or covered-up, or that it somehow renders illegitimate the arguments of ADL of any other speaker, is just plain silly. Focus on the speech, not the speaker.

On the other hand, sure, all the bluster and that-goshdarn-ADL cheerleaderism aside, there's a fairly simple message buried deep in there which is certainly true. Diaspora Jews should certainly be more active in promoting knowledge about the Armenian genocide. Every Jew I know pretty much agrees with this, whenever the topic comes up, and it is never exactly controversial to do so.

And, indeed, because of a combination of things -- the issue's politicization re: Turkey and Israel etc.; many Armenians' location in some countries where anti-Zionism is the law (Lebanon, etc) -- the latter seems not always well known.

But, instead of firing Foxman, which seems pretty dumb to me, far better to stqart new, tightly-focussed organisations which help spread the world on behalf of Armenians and, coincidentally, work against the Giving Jews a Bad Name fears that consume Joey so.

A "Jewish Committee on Recognizing the Armenian Genocide", in other words. Why the heck not?

Foxman is the mackdaddy. Y'all have no idea what you are talking about. It's because of pathetic dudes like you that I plan on sending Foxman some serious money.

Foxman is a stiff neck Zionist Jew. He is the worst of the elitist jews. Good article, good call

Was the above comment from Rube Goldstien actually written by someone sympathetic to Foxman and trying to demonstrate that antisemites just looove us self-haters? My magic Jewish eight-ball says "All signs point to yes."