Holocaust Denial is increasingly en vogue among the most extreme members of society. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is fond of engaging in it. So too is Ernst Zundel, a German neo-Nazi currently jailed in Germany for his Holocaust denial activities. It is a vile, wretched practice aimed at perpetuating hate.
It is thus, as an American Jew, that it brings me great sadness to see Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, which is arguably the foremost combatant of anti-Semitism, engage in a similarly disgusting process. For some ninety years now, Turkey and Turkish groups have denied their responsibility for the Armenian Genocide. Increasingly, they have preyed on prominent Jews who greatly value Turkey's surprisingly strong ties with Israel to aid them in the denial of their state's and ancestors' genocidal slaughter. After all, if anyone knows systematic, ethnic slaughter, it's Jews.
It appears the Turkish lobby caught themselves a big fish: Abe Foxman. After the flip, we'll look at Foxman's words, how wrong he is, and why he is now clearly unfit to head an organization whose mission is combating bigotry.
In the wake of a potential Congressional vote recognizing the Armenian Genocide, Turkey dispatched Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul to meet with more than a dozen leaders of major Jewish organizations to enlist their help in preventing action on the resolution. AIPAC declined to take a stance, determining the issue to be too far removed from their pro-Israel policies. It is worth noting that AIPAC has no problem lobbying on behalf of aid for the countries that have their embassy to Israel located in Jerusalem, but the response could have been worse.
Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, refused to accept the Turkish stance, saying that he believed it was a genocide and that "the right thing for the Jewish community is to recognize the Armenian genocide as a fact." Abe Foxman? He danced to the Turkish tune:
"I don't think a bill in Congress will help reconcile this issue. The resolution takes a position. It comes to a judgment," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "The Turks and Armenians need to revisit their past. The Jewish community shouldn't be the arbiter of that history," he said. "And I don't think the U.S. Congress should be the arbiter either."
Foxman is hardly alone in this regard. None other than Shimon Peres has enabled the Turkish denial of their crimes. I understand how important Israel's relationship with Turkey is. But virtually every major historian without a personal stake in the argument unequivocally accepts the fact of the Armenian Genocide.
Two columns were published recently on this act by Mr. Foxman. In his HuffPo piece titled, "Abraham Foxman Should Be Fired," columnist Mark Oppenheimer writes, "Remember the skit on Chappelle's Show in which ethic groups get to draft new members and propose trades? Well, I am prepared to offer Foxman on the cheap. Would the Chinese-Americans like him? The Boston Irish? The Amish? You don't even have to send us anybody now. We'll trade for a player, or a team of oxen, to be named later." Meanwhile, Jewcy.com ran an op-ed by their senior editor, Joey Kurtzman, simply titled "Fire Foxman." Kurtzman writes:
It is a scandal of unprecedented proportion when one of the most prominent figures in our community, a man who claims to speak on our behalf, publicly challenges the historicity of another community’s genocide. Foxman’s ADL no longer represents the interests of the Jewish community. In fact, it seems the only interests it represents are its own.
My feelings toward Foxman are best summed up by the closing salvo of Prof. Israel W. Charny, who is the Executive Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, when he wrote to Shimon Peres:
Even as I disagree with you, it may be that in your broad perspective of the needs of the State of Israel, it is your obligation to circumvent and desist from bringing up the subject with Turkey, but as a Jew and an Israeli I am ashamed of the extent to which you have now entered into the range of actual denial of the Armenian Genocide, comparable to denials of the Holocaust.
Charny quite rightly took his fellow Israeli Jew, Shimon Peres, to task for his aiding and abetting the denial of a gross crime against humanity. I now tell my fellow American Jew, Abraham Foxman: stand down. You are no longer fit to lead. And your organization will never again get a dime from me until you either publicly reverse your stance or resign your post.
I respectfully ask all other progressives, especially Jewish progressives, to do likewise.