Wednesday, December 5, 2007
New England ADL head Andy Tarsy has resigned. We wish him the best: ADL's regional leader resigns
Tarsy informed the national office of his departure Friday and alerted co-workers and friends yesterday. In a phone interview, he did not elaborate on the reason for his departure, calling it "a professional judgment based on knowing when it's your time."
But supporters said it was clearly the result of his rift with the ADL's national director, Abraham H. Foxman, over the genocide issue.
"At the end of the day, the vision of the New England leadership and Abe Foxman's leadership were simply not fully compatible," said Steve Grossman, a former member of the ADL New England board. Tarsy "realized that he would have to make too many compromises that he was not prepared to make. I think he leaves with his integrity intact, with his head held high."...
The entire situation is gag-worthy. Sadly, a lot of people with other, anti-ADL and anti-Jewish -- not pro-Armenian -- agendas have made a difficult and complicated issue worse.
Update: Another view at JR Telegraph.
I'm sorry to say it, but I think this IS an issue where Foxman and the ADL brass ARE towing the Israeli party line. No one could be more pro-Israeli than I am--which is why I'm sickened by that nation's dismissal of the Armenian genocide for the sake of a politically expedient relationship with Turkey (hardly the most trustworthy of "allies".) As you point out, Solomon, what makes this situation (and the Israeli government's grotesque approval of the former apartheid regime in South Africa during the 70's/80's) most disturbing, is that it gives Jew-haters, Israel-haters, and ADL-haters a lot of grist for their sickened mills. I find Foxman to be a good man and, in general, a very fine spokesperson for Jewish causes, but his waffling on this serious matter is quite distressing. I think Andrew Tarsy, an outstanding man with whom I have a passing acquaintance, simply could not stand by any longer as one of the greatest atrocities in recent history became a political football for the ADL and its critics. (I also have to wonder if he wasn't concerned that Foxman has all but turned the ADL into a one-man band at the expense of those in the organization with somewhat different opinions than his own.)
Perhaps. But it all boils down to how you define "genocide."
For example, Bernard Lewis, while deploring the murderous policies of the Ottoman regime towards the Armenians does not consider the onslaught against them a genocide and explains his reasons why.
This does not mean he absolves the Ottoman Turks from the slaughter and carnage that were carried out against the Armenians.
(Nor should one forget the slaughter of the Ottoman Greeks several years later.)
Bernard Lewis is an absurd outlier. In all respect, do your research before you quote a "historian" funded by the Turkish government.
As it relates to the main point at hand, the issue is not that complicated, only sad. It's sad because Israel and a handful of Jewish organizations allowed themselves to be co-opted by the Turks in a blatant effort by the Turks to deny the Armenians recognition and justice. The Turks figured correctly. For who would discredit Israel and Jewish organizations, the moral abiters of the Holocaust, when they step forward and say that the mass slaughter of the Armenians was not executed by the Turkish government, but was some kind of random consequence of war.
Honestly, it was very disheartening to see this. Morality is obviously not the currency of nation-states, and genocide will continue in perpetuity. In fact, if the Holocaust were to actually happen again, it would happen again as too few people and far less nation-states stand up against it. Andrew Tarsy is the rare exception. I applaud him.