Classic Passing the Buck

[Nick_A]

I cannot understand how Jews of all people could take such a postion as presented in the Turkish Daily News:

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/a...?enewsid=71599

Four large U.S. Jewish groups have lent support to Turkey's position in opposing the passage of two resolutions pending in Congress that call for official recognition of World War I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

B'nai B'rith International, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) have recently conveyed a letter from Turkish Jews who oppose the resolution to U.S. congressional leaders, officials from the groups told the Turkish Daily News.

In their letter, leading Turkish Jews have urged congressional leaders to postpone considering the genocide measures. In conveying the letter to Congressofficials, the four U.S. Jewish groups tacitly agreed to its contents.

Going further, the ADL and JINSA have also added their own statements opposing the bill.

"I don't think congressional action will help reconcile the issue. The resolution takes a position; it comes to a judgment," said ADL National Director Abraham Foxman.

"The Turks and Armenians need to revisit their past. The Jewish community shouldn't be the arbiter of that history, nor should the U.S. Congress," he told JTA, a Jewish press organization.

Now suppose America would say that the facts are not clear so we will no longer refer to the Jewish loss of life as a holocaust. The Germans siding with Hitler and the Jews should get together, revisit their path, and talk it out. There would be outrage and rightly so. How people can be this way with a straight face is beyond me.

[Joseph]

"NEVER AGAIN" TO FUTURE GENOCIDES AND ATTEMPTED DENIAL OF PAST ONES

ArmRadio.am
01.05.2007 13:25

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC),
the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and B'nai
B'rith International recently conveyed a letter from the Turkish
Jewish community opposing a resolution recognizing the genocide.

It is troubling that some major Jewish organizations have lined up in
support of Turkey's efforts to keep the US Congress from recognizing
the Armenian massacres as an act of genocide, Daniel Sokatch and and
David N. Myers write in an article published in the May 1st issue of
The Los Angeles Times.

"The American Jewish community has insisted, and rightly so, that
the US Congress, the United Nations and other governmental bodies
formally commemorate the Holocaust. Why should Jews not insist on
the same in this case, especially given the widespread scholarly
consensus that what happened to the Armenians from 1915 to 1923 was
genocide? After all, the man who coined the term "genocide" to refer
to the Holocaust -- the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin -- cited
the Armenian massacres as a precedent.

The unfortunate and well-known answer to the question is that
Turkey has fiercely opposed efforts to call the Armenian massacres
"genocide." Moreover, it has asked its friends to help beat back the
attempts at historical recognition.

Jewish opposition to recognizing the Armenian genocide comes mainly
from a desire to safeguard the important strategic relationship
between Turkey and Israel. Alone among the world's Muslim nations,
Turkey has forged close military, political and economic ties with
Israel," the article says.

The authors note that it is a mistake for Jews -- or, for that matter,
anyone -- to surrender the moral imperative of condemning genocide
in the hopes of avoiding a perceived, but by no means necessary,
strategic loss. "Similarly, it would be a mistake for Turkey to
hinge its own strategic interests on the denial of past criminal
acts. Coming to terms with the past, as democratic Germany has done
in the aftermath of the Holocaust and South Africa in the wake of
apartheid, is the best path to political legitimacy.

Turkey, a trusted ally and friend of the Jews and the United States,
must come to terms with its past for its own sake. It is that battle
that leading Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel laureate Orhan
Pamuk and martyred Armenian activist Hrant Dink, have been waging
so nobly. We should do all in our power to strengthen the hands of
these figures and avoid the abyss of historical revisionism."

Daniel Sokatch and David N. Myers suggest that in response to such
denials, all decent-minded people, and Jews in particular, must
continue to declare loudly "never again" -- not only to future
genocides but also to the attempted denial of past genocides,
regardless of who the perpetrators or victims are.