The Jewish group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reversed itself and called a World War I-era massacre of Armenians a genocide, a change that comes days after the league fired a regional director for taking the same stance.
League director Abraham Foxman's statement that the killings of Armenians by Muslim Turks "were indeed tantamount to genocide" came after weeks of controversy in which critics questioned whether an organization dedicated to remembering Holocaust victims could remain credible without acknowledging the Armenian killings as genocide.
The New York-based organization had called the deaths of up 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Muslim Turks between 1915 and 1923 an atrocity, but stopped short of saying it was genocide -- a planned extermination of the Christian Armenian minority.
Last week, the town of Watertown, home to a large Armenian population, withdrew from the ADL's "No Place for Hate" anti-bigotry program because of the organization's refusal to call the massacres genocide. The ADL also fired New England regional director Andrew Tarsy after he said he agreed the killings were genocide.
The towns of Acton and Newton were among those considering breaking ties with the ADL, and several Jewish organizations, led by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, signed a letter urging the ADL to acknowledge the killings as genocide.
In a statement on Tuesday, Foxman said he consulted with historians and his friend, Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel, after the controversy began and became convinced genocide had occurred.
In an interview, Foxman said the letter from the Jewish groups revealed divisions Jews cannot afford to have at a time of increased threats to them around the world.
But Foxman said his group would not support a pending Congressional resolution that calls the massacre a genocide, saying it was "a counterproductive diversion and will not foster reconciliation between Turks and Armenians."
Foxman would not comment on whether Tarsy would be rehired.
Nurten Ural, president of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, said she was disappointed by the ADL's decision. Turks and Armenians both suffered during the war, and calling it genocide by the Turks is like being accused of a crime you did not commit, she said.
Ural said many historians do not believe a genocide occurred, and said if the Congressional resolution passes it would damage relations with Turkey, which is valued in the West as a friend of Israel in the hostile Middle East.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS