Why the ADL Recognized the Armenian Genocide

Sometimes a Google news search works like an Ask Sherlock engine. I don't mean to tread on Joey's well-pounded terrain, but I think I know why the ADL offered its mealymouthed half-recognition of the 20th century's first genocide. Abe Foxman has a book to sell.

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have broadened their notorious thesis, that U.S. foreign policy is perilously controlled by a Zionist Lobby (their caps) consisting of high-powered American Jews, into a volume that's already led to the usual cycle of nonsense: canceled lecture gigs, rescinded invitations, and an overflowing Dershowitz inbox. And as disastrous as it may be to hear this, the one person responsible for rebutting Lobby hobbyhorse is none other than the charming Mr. Foxman himself. This sailed in under the radar in the Times a few days ago:

Also being released on Sept. 4 is “The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control” (Palgrave Macmillan) by Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. The notion that pro-Israel groups “have anything like a uniform agenda, and that U.S. policy on Israel and the Middle East is the result of their influence, is simply wrong,” George P. Shultz, a former secretary of state, says in the foreword. “This is a conspiracy theory pure and simple, and scholars at great universities should be ashamed to promulgate it.”

You don't know whether to laugh or cry, really. But how clear it now seems. The ADL is looking to rob Mearsheimer and Walt of their easy trump: How dare we be accused of propagating the deadliest lie being by the man who believes mass graves are only as real as their Hebraic inhabitants. Foxman will presumably argue that M/W are wrong because, well, his pro-Israel organization just alienated Israel's biggest Muslim ally, so there.

That smile on Tony Judt's face right about now? Ear to ear, baby.