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  • JTA.org: Armenian Jews call out ADL

    Armenian Jews call out ADL

    Published: 09/10/2007

    Armenian Jews called on the Anti-Defamation League to support a U.S.
    congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide.

    In a letter to ADL National Director Abraham Foxman, the chairman of
    Armenia's Jewish community, Rimma Varzhapetian-Feller, applauded the
    organization's "firm stand" recognizing the genocide. But
    Varzhapetian-Feller lamented that the ADL refuses to support a
    resolution now being considered in Congress to recognize as genocide
    the World War I massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

    "Any genocide committed against a nation must not remain unrecognized
    or unpunished," said the letter, according to the Armenian Web site
    PanARMENIAN.net. "However, on behalf of our community I express regret
    over the fact that the ADL doesn't endorse the House resolution on the
    Armenian Genocide."

    Varzhapetian-Feller said the failure to recognize the Armenian
    genocide paved the way for the Holocaust and suggested that a
    congressional resolution could help prevent future genocides.

    The ADL has been at the center of a controversy since the town council
    in the Boston suburb of Watertown voted to sever ties with an
    anti-bigotry program the organization sponsors in protest of the ADL's
    positions on Armenian genocide. Two other suburban Boston communities
    have followed suit.

    After Watertown's decision, the ADL switched from its long-held
    position of neutrality on whether the Armenian massacres constituted
    genocide, but the group remains unwilling to support a congressional
    resolution affirming ADL's newly adopted position that the Armenians
    suffered attempted genocide at the hands of the Turks.

    Other Jewish groups -- including the American Jewish Committee and
    B'nai B'rith International -- have adopted similar positions, citing
    concerns about American and Israeli strategic interests in the Middle
    East and threats to the Turkish Jewish community.

    The Armenian National Committee of America has lined up support for a
    congressional resolution from 12 Jewish groups, including the Union
    for Reform Judaism, Americans for Peace Now, the Zionist Organization
    of America and the Progressive Jewish Alliance.

    Source: http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/home/index.html

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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