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American Jewish Official Retires After Long Anti-Armenian Campaign

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  • American Jewish Official Retires After Long Anti-Armenian Campaign

    AMERICAN JEWISH OFFICIAL RETIRES AFTER LONG ANTI-ARMENIAN CAMPAIGN
    By Harut Sassounian

    AZG Armenian Daily
    01/11/2008

    Armenian Genocide

    Barry Jacobs, Director of Strategic Studies at the American Jewish
    Committee (AJC), is retiring from his organization at the end of
    October. The "good news" was confirmed by an AJC official. The reason
    I characterize Jacobs' departure as "good news" is that he has been
    at the forefront of AJC's attempts over the years to undermine the
    adoption of various congressional resolutions on the Armenian Genocide.

    Several months ago, I wrote a column calling for Jacobs' dismissal from
    AJC because of his long-standing anti-Armenian efforts. Although I am
    sure that my column had no bearing on his departure, I am pleased that
    he will not be around any longer to carry out the Turkish government's
    denialist directives

    I had called for Jacobs' dismissal after his infamous public
    confrontation with Aram Hamparian, the Executive Director of the
    Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), on February 21,
    in Washington, D.C. On that occasion, Jacobs had declared: "We are
    not historians, which is a polite, bullshit way of saying we're not
    going to take responsibility, we are not going to make a decision
    on 1915. ...The bilateral relationship between the United States and
    Turkey will suffer greatly if this [Armenian Genocide] resolution is
    passed. The Jewish 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 Jewish organizations, including ADL, was
    not to 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."

    For over 10 years, with the full blessing of his bosses, Jacobs
    aggressively campaigned to subvert all efforts to bring about the
    acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide by the U.S. Congress. In
    an interview published by the Turkish Daily News on July 29, 1999,
    he pledged that Jewish organizations would "take an active and
    vigorous role in being friends of Turkey in the United States.... We
    will champion to the best of our ability Turkish interests in the
    U.S. Congress. We will be Turkey's friends officially in Congress"
    and work to help get favorable legislation passed, he said.

    Speaking more like a paid lobbyist than the representative of a human
    rights organization, Jacobs shamelessly declared: "We want to work with
    your [Turkish] Embassy in Washington, the Turkish-American community
    and Turkey's many friends and win our battles on Capitol Hill. We
    want the American people and our leaders to understand what Turkey
    and its citizens have accomplished. We want our media to accurately
    reflect Turkey's importance and achievements. We don't want those
    who are not friends of Turkey to have the means to use human rights
    or other issues against your interests."

    Jacobs acknowledged that AJC's extensive support for Turkey "brought
    us [Jewish organizations] into open conflict with Greek-Americans and
    Armenian-Americans. It has been welcomed by the Turkish government,
    but we have paid a price. The price has been that we have the Greek
    and Armenian-Americans very angry at us."

    Jacobs admitted that his excessively pro-Turkish position had even
    elicited complaints from many Jewish members of his own organization
    who asked: "Why are we supporting Turkey, which has a terrible human
    rights record?"

    I have no illusion that Jacobs' retirement would alter his
    organization's pro-Turkish agenda. Nevertheless, the departure of an
    official, who cultivated extensive contacts with Turkish denialists
    for more than a decade, would hopefully diminish the effectiveness of
    AJC's activities against Armenian issues. A similar situation would
    occur should Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation
    League (ADL), leave his influential position at the ADL.

    While it is clear that the departure of a particular AJC or ADL
    official is not going to change the long-standing pro-Turkish policies
    of these organizations, it is equally important to recognize that in
    recent years closer contacts have been established between Armenian and
    Jewish American leaders and members of their respective communities.

    One would hope that those who replace Jacobs and Foxman would reassess
    their organizations' questionable stand on the Armenian Genocide
    and join the growing ranks of Jewish leaders who sympathize with the
    tragic history of the Armenian nation and resent being used as a tool
    to carry out Turkey's denialist policies.
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