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For at least five years if not longer Armenian activists have addressed the ongoing lobbying activities of a handful of American J-ewish organizations including the AJC on behalf of Turkey in the halls of U.S. congress to stonewall US official acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide.
As recently as February 2008, AJC representative Barry Jacobs disclosed his organization's position that the AJC can't say whether or not it was a genocide because it happened so long ago, that it is not good to get into recognizing genocides unless it is geopolitically favorable and not only AJC but the whole j-ewish community was against calling it a genocide. http://www.xxxcy.com/post/american_x...des_took_place
"Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of America: Your efforts to score points in Ankara at the expense of the Armenian Genocide issue is a transparent transaction that, I think, squanders the moral capital of the xxxish community, undermines our collective efforts to fight Holocaust denial, and, if the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] experience of the last few months is any indication, is very far outside of the mainstream of your own community, and it's just so painful to come and hear you echo those same themes again. I just had to share that with you.
Barry Jacobs, Director of Strategic Studies of the American xxxish Committee:
It's not about the position of the American xxxish Committee and the American xxxish community. It's not about, we are not historians, which is a polite, bullxxxx way of saying we're not going to take responsibility, we are not going to make a decision on 1915. But the relationship between United States and Turkey, if we want to, I don't know where you are, whether you are right or left, if you're left in the United States and want to get out of Iraq, well, look you at the map, Brits have pulled out of Basra, there are only two ways to get out of Iraq, you have to go south, you have to go north, and if you go north you got to go through Turkey.
So the argument that finally persuaded Congress, and I know this is not – I'm looking for a strong enough word – [unintelligible] but, the message was that the bilateral relationship between the United States and Turkey will suffer greatly if this resolution is passed. The xxxish Community believed that also, and that's been our position. And the world is not made up of choices between good and bad, at least not in the Foreign Service when I was in it, it's made up between choices between bad and worse. So we take practical positions, and the position of all the xxxish organizations, including ADL, was not have a position on the facts of what happened, or not taking a public position on what happened in 1915, we did not think, do not think, that the United States Congress is the place to settle this.
And that's all I can tell you. And that's the real world and that's the position of United States Government and of the Government of Israel."
Yet, despite plenty of empirical evidence that the AJC is not friends with Armenians, in the U.S. and abroad, a member of the Armenian clergy in the eastern U.S. honored AJC for a "longstanding friendship". http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/c...241&ct=5908607 (notably, this Armenian clergyman honored a member of AJC who is also influential in JINSA which also actively lobbied on Turkey's behalf against US Armenian genocide recognition)
This branch of the Armenian church in the U.S., this clergyman who holds himself in high regard, was used like a tool by the AJC for them to make a political statement about the long-standing friendship of Armenians and J-ews. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/...mber/2.17.html
Last I recall, I don't have any friends that spit on me or don't stand up for me when I am spat upon. In the same way the AJC doesn't accurately represent the sentiment of the whole J-ewry, the Armenian church does not accurately represent all Armenians.
This Armenian clergyman is oblivious to the manner in which our long standing friends are treated in of all places Israel. I don't see American J-ewish organizations condemning the practice of Orthodox, nay extremist, J-ews spitting on Armenians in Jerusalem.
If Armenians spat on orthodox J-ews in New Jersey, it would be treated as a hate crime.
Friends don't attempt to revise your history, they don't prevent others from properly acknoweldging your past (especially, when it is so close to their past in time and occurrence) and they don't support those who are preventing others from properly acknoweldging your past.
The saying is your enemies' enemy is your friend. It's not your enemies' fried is your friend.
Someone on in the East Coast Armenian community needs to read this clergyman the riot act.
As recently as February 2008, AJC representative Barry Jacobs disclosed his organization's position that the AJC can't say whether or not it was a genocide because it happened so long ago, that it is not good to get into recognizing genocides unless it is geopolitically favorable and not only AJC but the whole j-ewish community was against calling it a genocide. http://www.xxxcy.com/post/american_x...des_took_place
"Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of America: Your efforts to score points in Ankara at the expense of the Armenian Genocide issue is a transparent transaction that, I think, squanders the moral capital of the xxxish community, undermines our collective efforts to fight Holocaust denial, and, if the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] experience of the last few months is any indication, is very far outside of the mainstream of your own community, and it's just so painful to come and hear you echo those same themes again. I just had to share that with you.
Barry Jacobs, Director of Strategic Studies of the American xxxish Committee:
It's not about the position of the American xxxish Committee and the American xxxish community. It's not about, we are not historians, which is a polite, bullxxxx way of saying we're not going to take responsibility, we are not going to make a decision on 1915. But the relationship between United States and Turkey, if we want to, I don't know where you are, whether you are right or left, if you're left in the United States and want to get out of Iraq, well, look you at the map, Brits have pulled out of Basra, there are only two ways to get out of Iraq, you have to go south, you have to go north, and if you go north you got to go through Turkey.
So the argument that finally persuaded Congress, and I know this is not – I'm looking for a strong enough word – [unintelligible] but, the message was that the bilateral relationship between the United States and Turkey will suffer greatly if this resolution is passed. The xxxish Community believed that also, and that's been our position. And the world is not made up of choices between good and bad, at least not in the Foreign Service when I was in it, it's made up between choices between bad and worse. So we take practical positions, and the position of all the xxxish organizations, including ADL, was not have a position on the facts of what happened, or not taking a public position on what happened in 1915, we did not think, do not think, that the United States Congress is the place to settle this.
And that's all I can tell you. And that's the real world and that's the position of United States Government and of the Government of Israel."
Yet, despite plenty of empirical evidence that the AJC is not friends with Armenians, in the U.S. and abroad, a member of the Armenian clergy in the eastern U.S. honored AJC for a "longstanding friendship". http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/c...241&ct=5908607 (notably, this Armenian clergyman honored a member of AJC who is also influential in JINSA which also actively lobbied on Turkey's behalf against US Armenian genocide recognition)
This branch of the Armenian church in the U.S., this clergyman who holds himself in high regard, was used like a tool by the AJC for them to make a political statement about the long-standing friendship of Armenians and J-ews. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/...mber/2.17.html
Last I recall, I don't have any friends that spit on me or don't stand up for me when I am spat upon. In the same way the AJC doesn't accurately represent the sentiment of the whole J-ewry, the Armenian church does not accurately represent all Armenians.
This Armenian clergyman is oblivious to the manner in which our long standing friends are treated in of all places Israel. I don't see American J-ewish organizations condemning the practice of Orthodox, nay extremist, J-ews spitting on Armenians in Jerusalem.
If Armenians spat on orthodox J-ews in New Jersey, it would be treated as a hate crime.
Friends don't attempt to revise your history, they don't prevent others from properly acknoweldging your past (especially, when it is so close to their past in time and occurrence) and they don't support those who are preventing others from properly acknoweldging your past.
The saying is your enemies' enemy is your friend. It's not your enemies' fried is your friend.
Someone on in the East Coast Armenian community needs to read this clergyman the riot act.
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