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ADL local leader fired on Armenian issue

posted 18 years ago by VarlOatesIII
51 replies | jump to latest

Genocide question sparked bitter debate

By Keith O'Brien, Globe Staff | August 18, 2007

The national Anti-Defamation League fired its New England regional director yesterday, one day after he broke ranks with national ADL leadership and said the human rights organization should acknowledge the Armenian genocide that began in 1915.

The firing of Andrew H. Tarsy, who had served as regional director for about two years and as civil rights counsel for about five years before that, prompted an immediate backlash among prominent local Jewish leaders against the ADL's national leadership and its national director, Abraham H. Foxman.

"My reaction is that this was a vindictive, intolerant, and destructive act, ironically by an organization and leader whose mission -- fundamental mission -- is to promote tolerance," Newton businessman Steve Grossman, a former ADL regional board member, said yesterday.

"I predict that Foxman's actions will precipitate wholesale resignations from the regional board, a meaningful reduction in ADL's regional fund-raising, and will further exacerbate the ADL's relationship with the non-Jewish community coming out of this crisis around the Armenian genocide."

Tarsy, 38, said he had been struggling with the national position for weeks and finally told Foxman in a phone conversation Thursday that he found the ADL's stance "morally indefensible."

The regional board's executive committee backed Tarsy and, according to a source fa miliar with the discussion, even went a step further, resolving to support legislation now pending before Congress to acknowledge the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians during the World War I era as genocide.

The national office's three-page response -- which it provided yesterday to the Globe -- did not mention the local office's intent to support the legislation. But it made clear just how far apart the two sides were on an issue with local, national, and international implications.

The letter, signed by Foxman and Glen S. Lewy, the ADL's national chairman, said "we have acknowledged the massacres of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire and called on Turkey to do more to confront its past and reconcile with Armenia. We will continue to press Turkey, publicly and privately . . ." But the letter also makes clear that the national ADL feels the safety of Israel, which considers Turkey a rare Muslim ally, is paramount.

The national ADL leaders also said employees who do not agree with the ADL's position should not differ pubicly, but should resign. "No organization can or should tolerate such an act of open defiance," the letter said.

Asked how they would resolve the difference of opinion, both local and national leaders said they did not know.

"They've taken a position," Foxman said in an interview. "We've taken a position. I hope they will read our position and hopefully we'll have conversations."

Tarsy's firing -- and the national office's rebuke of the local office's independence -- marked the latest twist in a debate that began weeks ago in Watertown, home to more than 8,000 Armenian-Americans. Residents there became angry when they learned that the ADL was the sponsor of the town's anti-bigotry program "No Place For Hate" and, on Tuesday this week, the Watertown Town Council voted unanimously to pull out of the program.

At issue was not the program itself, but rather a tangle of international politics dating back more than 90 years. From 1915 to 1923, Ottoman Turks massacred as many as 1.5 million Armenians in what is now modern-day Turkey. Armenians, historians, and some European nations have recognized the killings as genocide. But the Turkish government has refused to accept the genocide label and the national ADL refuses to use it as well.

In a 438-word open letter slated to appear in advertisements inside local newspapers beginning next week, the ADL does not use the word genocide. Officially, Foxman reiterated yesterday, the ADL has no position on the genocide issue. But it does not support the legislation in Congress. In the open letter yesterday, the ADL called it "counterproductive" and the organization, founded in 1913 to fight anti-Semitism, worried what effect passing the legislation would have on Jews living in Turkey.

Critics say this position is hypocritical. Foxman "should understand that the truth of any genocide is not conditional upon political relationships," said Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America in Washington, D.C. Rather, he said, it should be dictated by "truth" and "history."

As recently as Tuesday night, however, Tarsy defended the ADL's position before a hostile crowd at the Watertown Town Council meeting. In explaining why he did it, Tarsy said yesterday that he was doing the best he could to explain the ADL policy while struggling at the same time to change the policy internally. Neither side would back down and he was fired.

"I have been in conflict over this issue for several weeks," Tarsy said. "I regret at this point any characterization of the genocide that I made publicly other than to call it a genocide. I think that kind of candor about history is absolutely fundamental."

Both the Jewish and Armenian-American communities rushed to Tarsy's defense yesterday in the wake of his firing and applauded him for taking the stand that ultimately cost him his job.

"I'm devastated to hear the news," said Ronne Friedman, senior rabbi at Temple Israel, the largest synagogue in Boston. "I think he's really a quality professional and a wonderful person of conscience. I think it's an inexcusable behavior on the part of the national office."

Grossman said Tarsy provided "moral leadership" and surely would have invigorated a new generation of ADL members in New England if he had been given the chance. Hamparian said it spoke poorly of the ADL's national leadership that Tarsy "was not rewarded, but fired for speaking the truth." And James Rudolph, the ADL's regional board chairman and partner at a Boston law firm, said he would miss working with Tarsy.

"I'm disappointed," Rudolph said. "He was an extraordinary leader and I'm sure that a lot of people affiliated with the board and affiliated with the ADL share my disappointment."

Rudolph, like Foxman, said he is hoping to have further conversations with the national office in the days ahead regarding the differences between them.

But they will be doing it without Tarsy, who said that he has no idea what he will do next.

"I have the greatest respect for the ADL and for its staff and leadership," Tarsy said, referring to the people he has worked with in the regional office over the years. "And I want very badly to see the ADL do what's right on this issue."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/08/18/adl_local_leader_fired_on_armenian_issue/

[–] VarlOatesIII 18 years ago

The following is the text of an advertisement that will appear in various community newspapers across the New England region, including the Boston Globe and Boston Jewish Advocate, during the week of August 20, 2007.

There has been much discussion about the Anti-Defamation League’s positions with regard to Turkey and the Armenians as well as its relevance to ADL programs combating prejudice and bigotry in New England.

Clearly, whatever one’s views on the issue, it is regrettable that such an important program as ADL’s No Place for Hate® Program, which provides a framework for fighting hatred and bigotry while increasing diversity awareness and fostering respect, has been mired in a controversy having nothing to do with the program, its goals, or its objectives. Parents, teachers, children and grandchildren in dozens of towns in New England and in communities across the country have greatly benefited from this highly successful and well-respected nationwide initiative.

We hope that communities in New England will continue to benefit from these programs. But we should be clear. This controversy occurred because of the distortion of our position on a complex issue.

ADL has acknowledged and never denied the massacres of hundreds of thousands of Armenians — and by some accounts more than one million — at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1918.

We believe that the Turkish government must do more than it has to confront its history and to seek reconciliation with the Armenian people. We have said that to the Turkish government and its officials, we will continue to do so, and we take this opportunity to repeat it publicly. We will continue to work to convince Turkey to pursue recognition and reconciliation, and we will seek ways to encourage this process.

We believe that legislative efforts outside of Turkey are counterproductive to the goal of having Turkey itself come to grips with its past. We take no position on what action Congress should take on House Resolution 106. The Jewish community in Turkey has clearly expressed to us and other major American Jewish organizations its concerns about the impact of Congressional action on them, and we cannot ignore those concerns. We are also keenly aware that Turkey is a key strategic ally and friend of the United States and a staunch friend of Israel, and that in the struggle between Islamic extremists and moderate Islam, Turkey is the most critical country in the world.

In our almost seven decades in New England, we are proud of the community partnerships we have built and the results we have achieved working with thousands of organizations, elected officials and individuals committed to making this region No Place for Hate®.

We cannot let a disagreement on how to proceed on one issue undermine all our joint good work.

Let us recommit ourselves to working together to achieve our shared goals.

http://www.adl.org/ad_new_england.asp

[–] evren4_ever 18 years ago

come on most people are fired in france because they say "there isnt any genocide."
if you wanna be really neutral to both sides then wirte them too. thats true and i witnessed it.

take care...

[–] evren4_ever 18 years ago

and i bet its about money. that company was earning money form us may be and wanted to fire him. and the other compenies who fire turks for saying that "there isnt any genocide" are winning money form armeninas. thats all about money and about land. it has got nothing to do with honor. thats what i beilive. and i belive that there isnt a genocide at all. freedom of expression ha :)

[–] Eyesore_is_cool 18 years ago

the genocide definitely happened but people should be allowed to express their views. You have to realize that Turks are brought up to believe these lies and they shouldn't be punished for defending a stance, however untrue and disgusting it may be. Also, the way people are enlightened about how flagrantly in the wrong genocide-deniers are is by listening to their terrible arguments. I've heard some really funny ones but I wouldn't dare repeat them..

also the majority of qualified historians claim it happened, although there are differences among them, such as casualties etc, and whether it was truly a 'genocide' in the sense that they wanted every armenian exterminated. I believe that maybe 800 000 were killed, not 1.5 million (these things are always exaggerated) and my views do differ slightly from the general Armenian stance, but I still sympathize with them greatly

[–] VarlOatesIII 18 years ago

(these things are always exaggerated)

Sure, as in any case. But not exceedingly, when you consider the numerous sources that base the count. At some point, the consensus became 1.5 million. That number didn't just come out of thin air. Research dictated the end result.

Actually, common estimates exceed 2 million, starting with the massacres from the late 19th century. 1.5 million is the middle ground for 1915. The number could be slightly lower, but unlikely. Just the same, the number could be higher. No one is going to figure out an exact number, down to the last person. But 1.5 million is the balanced conclusion.

More importantly, though, it is the "intent" of the matter, and the Ottoman leadership -- clearly -- intended to perpetrate and perpetrated "race extermination," which we now know as "genocide."

All of us must aid the Turkish people in coming to terms with this conclusion.

[–] VarlOatesIII 18 years ago

Evren,

Neutral to both sides? Each day that passes, it is becoming more and more clear to the rest of the world that one side perpetrated the extermination of the other side. What you don't seem to notice, or choose not to notice, or blatantly reject any notion of it, is that the perpetrator has long been dead and all you've been doing is make excuses for him. Yes, excuses! That's what people like yourself have been doing for decades about your ancestors -- your "dead" ancestors (the orchestrators and perpetrators of the genocide). You're afraid to face the facts and the truth, and accept the conclusion that there is blood -- massive amounts of blood -- on the hands of your ancestors because of the actions of their leaders.

"Civil unrest," "betrayal," "Armenians instigated the attacks," these are the words of perpetrators without backbone.

If one wishes to be forgiven, one must take responsibility for his actions.

Stop making excuses and start making changes for the good.

[–] evren4_ever 18 years ago

Varl,

the thing that will end this discussion is i think the word "genocide".

it was first used in 1946 in Nurnberg and in 1948 it was accepted by UN as a crime to humanity. in 1950 Turkey signed this agreement. It was later used for the serbian and croation commanders (sometimes my english cant be good enough so I hope you are understandng:) )
What I want to say is this : Yes, there is a massacre. But massacre and genocide are not the same meanings. They are whole different things. The word "genocide" was offered by Rafael Lempkin in his book. The name of the book is "Axis Rule in Occupid Europe".

And if you look at the agreement of UN about genocide (which was signed by turkey in 1950)there must be 3 conditions to define a genocide:

1-it must be in the whole country

2- It must be doe for continuin years like nazis did. (they did the genocide to jews from 1933 to 1945)

3-this must be government's political action.

but the thing that government decided was a banishment. I think it is the correect word becouse in today's conditions we can say this. the government has published a lot of legal decision which were saying "protect the armenians."

anyway, in britannica the population of the armenian people in ottoman was written as one million but in the 1950's britannica it was said that the population was 2,500,000 and it was written by anarmenian.

By the way i must say turkey must improve the connections with armenia. thats the only way to keep peace.

And if they want "freedom of expression" why did they ban their first presidents speech? i really cant understand it. Why do people always want it from turkey? Okey freedom of expression is a "must" but why dont our european friends dont want it for armenia? armenia must start considering about past and their relotionships with russians.

The Crimea war was between russia and ottoman and russians got the help of armenia and after winning the war rusians wanted to take care of the armenian's rights. and that was accepted. After some years russions were very commandin on armenian poeple and england and france didnt want it. becuase every one was enemy to each other. and in 1856 with the paris agreement it was canceled and all the europe was having the control af armenian people's rights.

see? it is a very very old subject. it mustnt only be seen in 1910s. it is a subject of may be 500 years.

take care varl...

[–] TigranTheGreat 18 years ago

Lemkin has said that he had the Armenian Genocide in mind when he invented the word "Genocide." And the genocide was part of Turkey's government policy. It's proven by historical documents.

[–] evren4_ever 18 years ago

i am not really sure about the things that u said. i remember an interview in which he is saying that he invented the word from the action of nazi's. and actually he was a jew and lost 49 people from his familiy and lived in a forest for months. this life story must be known by everyone .
and please if it is proved can u tell me where i can find the papers that say that it was the government policy.

[–] VarlOatesIII 18 years ago

Take a look at this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOqnVl4_rWU

At 2:27, you will see black-and-white footage of an interview with Raphael Lemkin. Pay close attention.

Evren,

Outright rejection of facts doesn't diminish those facts, but makes your position as clear as day: You are a genocide denier. You wouldn't believe that your ancestors committed genocide if you, yourself, had witnessed it.

Turkey will never be shown any respect by the world community until Turkey espouses the truth. The longer that Turkey carries on with its blatant denial campaign, the greater the loss for the future of the Turkish people.

It is your government that is doing you the most harm.

[–] evren4_ever 18 years ago

Varl,

I think the thing tha u dont get is this : i dont care if there is a genocide or not. i didnt do it. if it is true it wasnt turkey or my ancestors. if it is true ok i will gladly accept it. I just say that this must be worked out by a commitee by the neutral historians. And I know that armenian people were in russian army at that time while they were ottoman citizens. ( again sorry for english may be citizen want used that time )

i just want to remind the respectful historians in america who say "there isnt a genocide" and they are threatened and they were made shut up. but some other respectful say that "there is a genocide"

and i must remind the turkish ambassadors that were killed by armenian terrorists. please remember them, too.
and after world war 1 the people who were responsible for the deportation (or genocide which u prefer) were sent to Malta by the war trials and they are not in armenian documents ext. armenians are not all innocent and they dont accept.

and one last : there is an armenian old lady here saying that armenia will want land from turkey after turkey accepts genocide. this is what i am saying this is not about honor this is about land and money. this is called imperialism which is best known by russia,england,france and AMERICA.

take care everyone...

[–] John_Hancock 18 years ago

Evren,

How sneaky of you to avoid what was DIRECTLY answered about Raphael Lemkin. I suppose if you did address the posts, you would have to relinquish your baseless position. Where is your honesty and integrity?

Also, your definition of Imperialism is completely skewed...please do everyone a favour and look it up in any dictionary. You may be intelligent enough to realize that Turkey has been one of the worst offenders in history as far as Imperialism is concerned, followed by England, America, Spain, Portugal, France Holland, and so on.

If Armenians seek to have the Genocide recognized and accepted, and during their plight also desire to have their own lands justifiably and rightfully returned, then more power to them. This is NOT Imperialism, because they are not seeking to gain other peoples' land or personal property. They are seeking to regain their OWN land and possessions (also known as "reparations") which had been taken from them by the Ottoman Empire. This is what you don't seem to understand, perhaps because you don't want to weaken your position.

As I've said before, please do your research before you waste our time posting garbage that doesn't make any sense.

[–] evren4_ever 17 years ago

John,

you are saying me sneaky but you are very sneaky, too. Turkey is not an imperialist country. Turkey was founded after a war against imperialism which still has lots of fans in African countries. Do me a favour please : if you dont know Turkey's history please dont talk about it. but if you want to talk then you must read it first. That was Ottomans. They were imperialist. thats true.

And one more thing :

Do you say "Germans did genocide to jews" or do you say "Nazis did genocide to jews"? I think u say the second. but you say "turks did genocide"
if there is a genocide then it must be wrong. becuse at that time there wasnt a country called turkey. If there is a genocide then you must say "ottomans did the genocide" but i think it will be wrong, too. because you dont use "germans" and you use "nazis" instead. i dont know the english name of the party of enver pasa but then you must use "that political party did genocide"

and by the way armenia is in its own lands and this was signed in an agreement. i just couldnt get the name.

now tell me who is sneaky?

anyway forget it i wont be here anymore i think movie sites suck :)

take care and hope everyone of you have the best in life...

[–] TigranTheGreat 17 years ago

Germany paid Jews for the Holocaust. So, why should Turkey avoid responsibility for the genocide by Ottomans?

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[–] TigranTheGreat 17 years ago

Sure, but at the time of Hitler's election, Germans didn't know what he was going to do. And once Hitler started doing what he did, German people no longer had the electorial option to remove him. So, how could they be responsible?

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[–] TigranTheGreat 17 years ago

They were, but not because they had elected Hitler, but because post-war Germany was the inheritor of Nazi Germany. There is no rule that says "A current regime is responsible only if the prior regime had been elected."

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[–] TigranTheGreat 17 years ago

So, if you don't think that Germany paid Jews due to being an inheritor, then why do you think it paid them? Because the people had elected Hitler? Have you ever read that as a justification?

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[–] TigranTheGreat 17 years ago

Yes, in that case, Armenia would be responsible, if successive Armenian goverments tried to suppress the truth and avoid responsibility.

You asked what Germans had inherited. You were right--they had inherited stolen Jewish property, and had to pay for it. But most importantly, Germans inherited Germany--the country, economy, people, everything, and that's where being an inheritor is important. Reparations aren't to compensate just for stolen property--they are to compensentate for the loss of lives and sufferings, and to punish the criminals--in this case the Nazis. Had Nazis not been ousted, their goverment would have to pay, say, $ X million as reparations to Jews. In which case the Germany as a whole would have had $X million less. So by imposing the reparations on post-Nazi Germany, the Allies were making things right--Germany was put in the same position as it would have been had Nazis themselves paid those reparations.

Sons always have to pay for fathers' crimes, there is nothing odd about the idea. For example, if your father harms someone, and dies before justice can be done, you, as the inheritor of his wealth, don't get the full wealth. The victim can sue your father's estate, get whatever he deserves, and you get whatever is left.

Similarly, justice would have required Turkish Empire to pay Armenians reparations. In this case, the Turkish Republic, as an inheritor, would have inherited whatever was left after paying those reparations. Since Turkish Empire didn't pay the reparations, things have to be made right by giving Armenians (and taking from the inherited property) what Young Turks would have paid anyway. This way, the Turkish republic neither loses nor gains from the failure of Young Turks to meet their obligations.

And in the case of Armenia, as opposed to Germany, things get even more interesting, because of the issue of the land. Had there been no Genocide, Western Armenia would have been independent (since there would be enough population to support an independent state). The Turkish Empire, as all empires, was disintegrating, local ethnic homelands--Serbs, Greeks, Arabs--were gaining independence, and Western Armenia was no exception. It had full right of self-determination (until 1918, independent Armenia applied to Western Armenia, noone thought about the independence of Eastern Armenia). So, had things gone the right way, i.e. had there been no Genocide, the Turkish republic would have inherited a Turkey without the Western Armenia. Not taking it away from the Turkish Republic would mean that a) Genocides work, and b) countries benefit from a genocide, which obviously cannot be allowed. Therefore, justice requires to put Turkey in a position as it would have been had there been no Genocide--i.e. giving Western Armenia to Armenia.

And keep in mind that your "Sons and Fathers" analogy is not exactly applicable either to Germany or Turkey. In 1946 Germans were not the sons of the fathers, but the fathers themselves--just a year ago the whole society had been involved in whatever transpired. And in 1923 the Turks were the same Turks that had participated, aided, and abetted in the crimes of Young Turks, so they were not completely innocent.

Of course you might say that that is not the case after 90 years. That say, if you inherit your fathers property intact, your grandchildren do not have to pay--i.e. "there comes a point beyond which we just have to move on." That is true if the victim has made no claims, and the sons and grandsons have been innocent. But if the sons and the grandsons have used fraud, bribes, and other illegalities to avoid responsibility, then they become accessories to the crimes commited by the father, and the law doesn't let them off the hook.

Therefore, in the case of Turkey, all the successive regimes of the "Republics," starting with the Little Butcher Mustafa till today, have used the entire goverment machinery to suppress the truth, coerce others not to talk of the truth, and avoid giving Armenians what the Ottomans should have given in the first place--money and land. Since modern Turkey can't be allowed to benefit from these crimes commited by its modern and past rulers, both money and land needs to be restored to Armenians.

[–] TigranTheGreat 17 years ago

By the way, when say "Turkish Empire," there is a reason. Before Young Turks, maybe you could say the empire was more Ottoman than Turkish. Maybe. After Young Turks, who were pan-Turkic racist fanatics, and especially after Balkan Wars, there was nothing Ottoman about the empire. It was basically Turkish.

[–] TigranTheGreat 17 years ago

By the way, you didn't answer me earlier. Are you genghis? He was all into Samurais and stuff.

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[–] TigranTheGreat 17 years ago

Wikipedia is an unreliable user-edited site infested with Turkish and Azeri falsifiers. Me and some fellow members from this board have spent some time trying to clean up their nonesense--obviously a complete clean-up is an overwhelming task. Yet the Genocide article is one of the most accurate, the the numbers are still consistent with the truth. 1.5 million in 1915-1919 is still above 500,000. It also falls in the range of 300,000 to 1500000, so the quote hasn't disproven anything. The Smyrna article is less reliable, as Turkish users have been able using pro-Kemalist western sources to distort the truth. No wonder Wikipedia is not allowed as a source in academic research.

We don't hate Dink, or Taner, or any other Turk. We think they have been brainwashed by the truth-suppressing regime of their country--recognizing the Genocide for both of them has been a great accomplishment, so we can't expect them to be completely free of brainwashing. Dink is significant not for his beliefs, which are mostly ludicrious, but for his death being an indication of Turkey still being a hate-filled oppressive society (and that Armenians are still in danger there). Your case is illustrious--you may recognize the Genocide--as I said that's the best we can hope from a modern Turk--but unlike me, you have an urge to try to label and stereotype someone who disagrees with you. All Armenians believe that Western Armenia should be liberated, but very small percentage of them are Dashnaks.

Your typical narrow-mindedness was even more amusingly expressed in your last line. You automatically assumed that I don't watch movies (due to me being, in your opinion, an "ultra-nationalist"), while I assumed the opposite in your case. Yet you had no clue about the film "Ronin." Intolerance and ignorance can have entertaining manifestations.

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[–] TigranTheGreat 17 years ago

Yes, you can take a stand against your brainwasher and still remain largely brainwashed. Turkish citizens, Armenian or Turk, are fed with the myths of the Little Butcher. One such myth is the birth of "Turkiye" from supposed victories over imperialists. What the average Turk infers from the myth (and if he does not infer by himself, is fed by the state) is a paranoia against the "evil outside powers." One such evil power, in the mind of the average Turk, is the Armenian Diaspora, which supposedly hates Turks. Much of the nonesense spoken by Dink follows from that.

We all welcome that you and other Turks recognize the Genocide. It does not necessarily follow that you have broken all the chains of the mentality imposed by your oppressive government.

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[–] TigranTheGreat 17 years ago

Prejudice always exists, it's basic human nature. State-imposed suppression of ideas, on the other hand, is a feature of autocracies like Turkey. Armenia doesn't have a criminal code banning certain type of political speech. Armenia doesn't prosecute journalists for their ideas. Armenia's military doesn't threaten the president if he disagrees with the military. Armenians don't kill Turks for their ideas. Armenians don't kill Armenia's citizens for their ideas.

Who is Synth, by the way?

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[–] domagoj1973 17 years ago

"
by - evren4_ever on Thu Aug 23 2007 01:38:38"
and one last : there is an armenian old lady here saying that armenia will want land from turkey after turkey accepts genocide. this is what i am saying this is not about honor this is about land and money. this is called imperialism which is best known by russia,england,france and AMERICA.'by - evren4_ever on Thu Aug 23 2007 01:38:38 "

Sure,and how about that Otoman empire of yours.How about a 500 years of killings,genocide and occupation od Serbia,Greece ,Armenia,Tunisia and other innocent nations.Shame on you.
And by the way we showed the right way how to treat you in the Bosnian war and ask your brothers how it was when they tried to kill and occupie Serbs again.Not any more and not ever so you better be carefull.Those were only 4 years of revenge and 496 years are still to come and we can be friends again after.

[–] John_Hancock 18 years ago

Evren:

Simply look it up. Go to any credible source on the internet or in print (recent) and you'll see plainly that Raphael Lemkin coined the term "Genocide" based on the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust.

Here, I'll make it easier for you:

http://www.answers.com/topic/raphael-lemkin
http://www.answers.com/topic/genocide?cat=biz-fin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Ottoman_Empire_.28Turkey.29

[–] TigranTheGreat 18 years ago

Many Jews who lived in forests recognize the Armenian Genocide. Lemkin's reliance on Armenian Genocide is a well accepted fact, you shouldn't find difficulty finding many examples just on the internet. Here is one:

To many who had followed the bloody history of Turkey’s campaign against its own people, the impunity enjoyed by those who had ordered and carried out the killings was unbearable. One of them was Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew and a law student. Lemkin confronted one of his law school professors. He asked, “Why is the killing of a million people a lesser crime than the killing of a single individual?” (1) His professor used a metaphor to explain that courts did not have any jurisdiction: “Consider the case of a farmer who owns a flock of chickens. He kills them and this is his business. If you interfere, you are trespassing.” But, replied an incensed Lemkin, “the Armenians are not chickens.” (2) Lemkin dedicated the rest of his life to finding a way to make sure that the law would recognize the difference. In 1944 Lemkin coined the word “genocide" and later he drafted the United Nations Convention on Genocide. The convention was ratified on December 9, 1948, one day before the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

http://www.facinghistory.org/campus/reslib.nsf/lessonsnew/BF41AA95064C7A60852571DA004A8D16?opendocument

Papers by German officials say that the Genocide was a government policy. American missionaries say that it was a government policy. They can't be false.