Slavish loyalty to Israel can do strange things to one’s internal moral compass. And in the ADL’s case it involved weird contortions that prevented it from acknowledging that the Armenians suffered genocide in 1915 at the hands of the Turks. Abe Foxman’s calculations are that Turkey is perhaps the largest Muslim country to have relations with Israel and that such relations are too important to jeopardize over an issue like whether Armenians were exterminated sometime in the deep dark past.
The deepest irony here is perhaps the most obvious. That Jews suffered perhaps the greatest genocide in world history themselves and therefore might be expected to be sensitive to the similar fate suffered by Armenians. But, as I said. logic goes out the window when you are fettered by cold, hard political calculations as Abe Foxman was. Was, that is, until he made the disastrous decision to fire his New England regional director, Andrew Tarsy for declaring the obvious–that the ADL position was “morally indefensible.” Bravo, Andrew. You stated the obvious, but at what a cost.
Abe Foxman has always been bullet proof in the ranks of leaders of major American Jewish organizations. He runs the ADL with an obsessive focus on the issue of anti-Semitism that leaves many American Jews cold and leads them to believe the organization no longer has much relevance to many of the real issues affecting our community. But despite his dinosaur status, he hasn’t paid a price–until now.
No less a figure than Steven Grossman, former senior official in the Clinton Administration and leading Jewish figure in New England, took Foxman to task for his imperiousness. Alan Dershowitz (no moral paragon himself) resigned from the ADL’s regional board in protest.
Foxman bowed to the inevitable and swallowed a bitter pill in releasing this oddly imprecise statement:
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.
I have consulted with my friend and mentor Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and other respected historians who acknowledge this consensus. I hope that Turkey will understand that it is Turkey’s friends who urge that nation to confront its past and work to reconcile with Armenians over this dark chapter in history.
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.
What is odd is that Henry Morgenthau, who was U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian genocide could not have used the term since it had not been invented:
When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact.”
But “death warrant to a whole race” certainly sounds like he’s describing genocide. This begs the question: if Henry Morgenthau knew it was genocide when he made this statement in a book published in 1919, why, 90 years later, hadn’t Abe Foxman gotten the memo?? And why, all of a sudden is Elie Wiesel his “rabbi” on this subject when Wiesel has acknowledged Armenian genocide for ages? It strikes one as disingenuous and self-serving in the extreme.
Finally, IF Foxman now accepts Armenian genocide why doesn’t he support a Congressional resolution that affirms the identical position? You can’t have it both ways, Abe. If it’s genocide then Congress has a right to call it that too and you should support that. Why should Turkey’s support for Israel blind us to what is the morally right thing to do? Do we think Turkey will turn its back on Israel if we call a spade a spade? And if Turkey would do so is it’s support worth having??
Also, there’s no accounting for the involvement of the Armenian Danshak and of their involvement with the Russians, or of the Russian Empire’s wars with Ottoman Turkey which the Armenians joined with from ealy 18th Century onwards but by the 20th Century. There doesn’t seem to be much written about the threat to the Armenian Gregorian Church from Russification, or of the Armenian formulation independence Tsarist Russia or Ottoman Empire. There’s a great deal of focus on Ottoman ‘exile’ of it’s Armenian population, and yet little mention of the Kurds’s being main perpetrators or of the Turks who tried to save Armenians as they were marched to their deaths. Little mention is made of the terrorist acts made against Turks by Armenian Nationalist groups funded by other Armenian groups (residing in Paris, Germany etc), and very little gets said about Tsarist Russian atrocities in that time period either.
It all looks very muddy from here. There also appears to be a suppression of facts and acts on the Armenian side which can’t help to make relations with modern day Turkey very easy, diplomatically speaking. I think that has to do with modern day geo-politics, yes? The Armenians want the land formerly known as ‘Western Armenia’ back, and the Kurds Nationalist groups also have a claim to the same land, don’t they? Then there’s the ridiculous post-modern argument that since the term ‘genocide’ (from Raphael Lemkin) wasn’t around at the time, it can’t be termed ‘genocide’ after the event.
Another thing to note is this was not a war between two sides – it was a multi-ethnic/peoples conflict across several political borders and across several historical ethnic borders. It was the Kurds, rather than the Turks, who were the primary opponents of the Armenians, at least during those stages of the struggle that involved the mass extermination of civilians, and all the groups involved suffered severely at the hands of all others.
There is evidence of a prolonged strategey of ethnic cleansing of any Muslim they found in ‘their land’ by Armenia’s Dashnaks between 1918 to 1920. Also there is evidence of the Armenian Dashnak/Cossack massacres of ethnic Muslims between 1914 and 1918. (And 1918-1920) By ethnic Muslim, I mean Kurd, Turk, and Tartar (Azeri). I’m told that Tartar, when used by Russians or some Westerners writing of that time, used it in an incorrect and often disparaging way, a bit like the reference to Native Americans as ‘savages’, because they didn’t understand or approve of their cultural structures.
In July 1920 the then Dashnak government in Erivan gave a secret order to the Dashnak military forces to begin guerilla punitive activities in Karabakh, Nakhchivan, and Zangezu provinces to clear the Azari ‘Tartars’ from the land they wanted to expand the Armenian state into. Dashnak was overthrown in Armenia at the time, but still exists today with it’s politicians in Armenia insisting that Karabakh/Karabagh is a de-facto independent state from Azerbaijan (pre-Tsarist/Soviet history tells us this isn’t so). Dashnak were active as an Armenian nationalist group in the 19th Century in Ottoman Anatolia, and who also seized overlapping territory on Azarbaijani lands where both Armenians and Azerbaijan in the 1990s (Karabakh/Karabagh) – and a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing of Azari Muslims began – 2.5 million were slaughtered at the hands of General Dro’s militia.
There has been a prolonged clearance strategy on the part of Armenian Nationalists to clear Yezidi, Kurds and Azari from those lands were boundaries naturally overlapped. Armenians, both in their own diaspora over centuries and also in their own search to spread the Gregorian net naturally expanded and would have done so regardless of their long ‘partnership’ with pre and post-revolution Russia.
Has anyone here heard of the infamous General Dro? He participated in the Armenian military strategy of clearing the Azari from lands which went to make up the Soviet Armenia between 1918-1920.That strategy had not changed from then through to the now.
Does anyone here remember Armenia’s most recent war in the 1990’s with Azerbaijan which created over 1 million refugees?
Some academics, not only Winston Churchill, tried to frame the treatment of Armenians in Ottoman territory in 1915 as being based on their Christianity, rather than on the Armenian Nationalistic political agitation which stretches back to the beginning of the 19th Century, across several centres in Europe and Russia.
Some agitators in the Armenian Diaspora recommended the use of civil disturbance in Ottoman Turkey in what could only be described as ‘terrorist’ attacks on their own Ottoman Armenians as the means to garner external support from other ‘superpowers’ to help them gain nationalist independence from Ottoman Empire. The Turks also have documents showing they were deported because of Armenian collaboration with then enemy-Russia, terrorist activities from the various socialist diaspora groups such as the Hanschak and the Dashnak.
More worrying is that some Armenian nationalists believe and refer to themselves ‘Aryan’, and display an inability to discern the ethnic and religious difference between a Yezidi, a Kurd, a Turk and a ‘Tartar’.
The Armenian claim to the Azerbaijan region is not ‘arguably stronger’ than the native Azari or Tats who have always lived in that region. The Yezidi (from Yazd) and the Azari(from Azerbaijan) lived continuously in that region, with the scholar Herodotus, writing in 5th Century BC, before Christianity began, mentioning that regions mountain shrines.
Although the ‘Saracens'(Turks) invaded in the 7th Century, and a majority of Zoroastrians converted to Islam, this region was never an ‘Armenian’ or Christian land. The Armenian claims is easily disputed, with overwhelmingly strong evidence dating back to the founding of Zoroastrianism anywhere between 1700 BCE (most likely) up to around 600 BCE (when the ‘oral’ tradition became written down). Zarathushtra was the ‘prophet’ of Zorastrianism, whose life and good deeds are exceptionally similar to those of the Christ figure (although fundi Christians refute the similarities) – born of a virgin, baptised by water (fire and wind) gnostic revelations at age 30, prophecies regarding social justice, religious purity and fighting the corruption of Kings and Governors. With a region of influence stretching from the Aral Sear through Afghanistan through Persia (Iran) and across the mountainous regions of Ancient Kurdistan, Zoroastrianism, which is monotheistic, is perhaps one of the best known and most highly regarded of the Eastern Philosophies by Western Philosophers and Writers.
Although the Byzantian (Eastern) Christians ‘conquered’ the Baku region around 624 BCE(AD) , they held it for no more than 50 years, but whilst they were there, they actively destroyed the ancient Zoroastrian Temples (something the ‘Saracen Turks refrained from doing), and extinguished the ‘Holy Fire’ for 12 years before indiginous religious peoples managed to light it again. The Byzantian Christians didn’t last long there, and it’s possible that many welcomed the Saracens at first who pushed out these relative newcomers to the region. The ‘Saracens’ entered around 674 BCE(AD). Such exploits such as Temple-destroying and Holy Flame-snuffing won’t have made the Christian Soldiers very popular in Baku, and might even have given a helping hand to the Saracen conquest of that region.
Despite the claims of Armenian Christianity and Armenian Nationalists, the origins of most of the Christian churches in the territory of Azerbaijan belong to Albanian Christianity date back to pre-Saracen times, and are very ancient, some being supposed to be built on the sites of ancient Zoroastrian temples. Armenian Christianity took over these old Albanian churches in that region, even bulding their own in Shusha and Karabakh from the 18th Century onwards.
In Antiquity, Baku was famous throughout the Eastern world as a place of pilgramage, frequented by millions who came to worship and pay homage to a sacred eternal fire stemming from the ignition of the naturally formed naphtha. Baku had always been in the hands of the native people there, and seen as part of Persia. The Christians destroyed the Zoroastrian temples during their short time there. It’s not surprising that the Armenian Christians were pushed out, is it? It’s surprising they’re trying to claim that the Baku region is their land. They were not Zoroastrians, they did not venerate the eternal flame (they snuffed it out!) They were not Albanian Diophysite Christians who had successfully lived alongside existing ethnicities/religions for centuries without trouble.
Another thing – there were non-Dashnak Armenian in the Ottoman government during Ataturk’s time and maybe even a little before that – maybe have a look from 1880 onwards. The Ottomans kept good records of both citizenship and government so it shouldn’t be too hard to find out.
Main thing to realise here, I think, is that Armenian nationalists were working both Tsarist forces, then Bolshevik forces, and they had their own militia led by General Dro, plus, there was a great deal of political and martial agitation in the lead up to this. General Dro, who committed an Azari genocide of 2.5 million Tats “systematic extermination of the entire Muslim population of the independent republic of Armenia which consisted of at least 30-40 percent of the population of that republic. The memoirs of an Armenian army officer who participated in and eye-witnessed these atrocities was published in the U.S. in 1926 with the title ‘Men Are Like That.’ Other references abound.” (Rachel A. Bortnick – The Jewish Times – June 21, 1990.) General Dro was given political asylum by the USA until his death.
We shouldn’t ignore the geo-political nature of this struggle -and we shouldn’t forget that organised Armenian nationalist forces were slaughtering Kurds from 1914 onwards – before the Kurds slaughtered the departing Armenians from Ottoman Anatolia.
It’s completely UNLIKE the Nazi slaughter of European Jews – It pains me when I hear it compared to our Shoah – although our suffering does not exclude recognition of other peoples sufferings.
(apologies – that post doesn’t read so very well)
I don’t believe it was a ‘death warrant to a whole race’ – the event didn’t exist in a vacuum.
I’ve tried above to pull together (very badly) some of the historical events before and after the Ottoman administration exiled it’s Armenian population, at a time when Armenian nationalists were on the border with Russian forces, and internally, Armenian militia agitations were ongoing internally in Anatolia since 1880s (ish). Outbreak of WWI – by this point there was a long history of Armenian militias in accordance with Russian Military vs. Tartars/Kurds etc – a central focus seems to be Baku (Azari) and also the Armenian nationalists own aims to form own state in a region that overlaps with Kurdish and Yazidic territories.
Once we start recognising genocides, we must also consider their political use – Armenian militias also committed genocides against ethnic Muslims both before and after the Armenian genocide.
I wonder if the whole world isn’t in Diaspora sometimes, and gone mad trying to redefine old empires in the name of Nationalism.
tl – a saddened internationalist 🙁
Congratulations Tangentlamna,
You have cut and pasted directly from a rabid site that makes david irviing look good!
You have also explained why the Holocaust needs context and didn’t happen in a vaccum!
Genocide is as old as mankind. Your statement that the genocide against the Armenians needs context and is different from the Shoah is morally and factually bankrupt exceptionalism. The Shoah mirrors other genocides. It follows other genocides on a model of justification (and you are doing some justifying right there!).
It is simple. The Ottoman Turks occupied Armenia, an area known historically for the Armenians long before any other group laid claim. There was genocidal forced conversion to Islam (eg the Child tax, which involved the taking of millions of children under Ottoman domination over the centuries, and converting them to Islam at age 12.), the were regualr massacres, and when the Ottoman Empire began to breaks up due to its own extreme repression of ethnic groups the Ottomans commited mass genocide.
The great majority of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, 1.5 million, were women children and old men, your cut and paste from a hate site is EXACTLY the ay the Nazi assigned collective guilt to us!
From The Boston Globe:
“Under pressure from local board members, the national Anti-Defamation League will reconsider its refusal to support a congressional resolution on the Armenian genocide, the organization’s national director said yesterday.
The decision to reexamine this issue was made a day after the director, Abraham H. Foxman, issued a statement saying that the ADL believed the congressional resolution to be “a counterproductive diversion.”
But the ADL regional board forced the issue to the forefront yesterday when it met at a synagogue in Chestnut Hill and voted in favor of bringing back its fired regional leader, Andrew H. Tarsy, as well as placing the congressional resolution on the national policy-making agenda.”
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/08/23/genocide_issue_still_in_flux_for_adl/
Thanks for that link, Scurrilous. I just posted about this.