Foxman is a showman and an opportunist. The ONLY reason he made an about-face is because he was afraid that the hundreds of thousands in donations would dry up. He couldn't give a rat's behind about the issue of Armenian genocide, or any other genocide. Anyone who knows their history, and does NOT pander & go along with revisionism to suit their political agenda, knows that the Armenians suffered a genocide by the Turks. As for Weisel, he used to be a man of conscience. Of late he has become obsessed with fitting in with the polically correct crowd, and has lost his moral compass. His gabfest with the 'leading lights' in Jordan is just the latest example of how he has become a pandering fool.

There is no difference between a muslim denying the jewish genocide or a jew denying the armenian genocide. It's a fact that they both happened denying that either happened is immoral.

The ADL finally realizes that we can't deny the horrible atrocity which took place during world war 1. I'm ashamed because, we recognize this tragedy only now, we should have done many years before, but it's never too late. Turkey as a moral nation must acknowledge about the genocide whom committed by it selfs, this is a very basic demand upon a democratic. Countries like turkey and there is nothing to do on their islamic dominated religion. Actually, underscore the fact the religion dimension isn't fair towards Turkey. We must be the first people who condemn any other genocide. nice day for all of you!

A REAL YNETESQE ORGANIZATION !

It is ironic that the Armenian campaigners use the holocaust to play on the sentiments of Jews - Armenia was, afterall, allied to the Nazi regime for several years including the relevant period. Coincidentially, the foremost historical authorities on this subject, namely Bernard Lewis and Gilles Veinstein, as well as other leading scholars like Andrew Mango and Guenter Lewy are all Jewish - and quite happily all point out the same holes in the Armenian version of events.

Adolph Hitler cited the world's silence over the mass murder of the Armenians as evidence that the world would not lift a finger to stop Germany from killing the Jews. And he was right.

I don’t think we should play games when it comes to identifying a problem, and not disclosing it. If there is an organization that talks about anti- Semitism and types of genocide acts (like ADL), I think it is crucial that we have a clear point of view. Of all the people in the world, we (Jews) are the ones who understand what its like to be in tough situations. If there is an organization, whose job is to explain situations, give answers, fight back on anti-Semitism, teach people about the horrors, about true horrors, not just to the Jewish people, but to the humanitarian race, we need to see situations in an “as is state”. There should be no considerations to what might happen to the Jews living in Turkey, no consideration to the relationship between Israel and Turkey. I don’t care about the foreign policy; I don’t care about the future policy Turkey will have. I agree it is important to make sure everyone is safe, and that g-d forbid no one should be threatened, or bullied around by government officials, but at the end of the day, if you want me to listen to what you have to say, if you want me to go on ADL’s website and read what you put up their, you better have credibility. Without credibility as an organization, you might as well pack your bags and go home. Turkey plays its roll in the region, regardless of what some organization has to say about its history. If Turkey has a relationship with Israel, it is for its benefit. If it will bully around its citizens over what some American organization might say, it will do so for some other reason regardless. Credibility is the name of the game if you want to be a worldwide organization, and have a worldwide voice. I am happy to hear the change in direction the organization has decided to take, and I can only hope we remember our purpose.

A good first step in reclaiming Jewish values. Next the governments of Israel and the US should step up. It's about time but not too late. Turkey will be stronger when it recognizes this horror. Turkey is the hope of the Muslim world. Armenian wrongs do not change the facts of their tragedy.

Contra Metin (#7) we're talking about a period during World War I, some 20 years before the Nazi regime came to power. And one shouldn't overlook similar atrocities, in smaller but still substantial numbers, that took place in the 1890s. Turks should recognize that the present generation isn't being held responsible for what happened 90 years ago, but it is part of their national past they need to confront. Just as the US has worked to confront its past atrocities against the native populations and its history of slavery, Turkey should recognize that one can't move forward until one knows where he's been. Islamic leaders should similarly come to grips with the tens of millions killed during the Islamic conquests, and the second class status (dhimmitude) imposed on the newly subject peoples. I won't hold my breath. Armenians suffered in the greatest numbers, but they were not the only ones. My father's family belonged to the ancient Jewish community of Aleppo. In the closing year of WW II, many Jews were marched off toward the Turkish heartland where many, including my father's father, perished. Perhaps someone who knows of such a march can shed light on it; my father was 4 at the time.

1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed in Turkey. It's obvious that American Christians continue pressuring the U.S. Senators to pass aresolution in the US Congress in this respect. USA is historically a Christian country. 95% of Americans are Christians and with the growing immigration of latin americans this figure will grow further. Public holidays r Christian too.

Mazel tov to Abraham Foxman and the ADL for doing the right thing. I have no idea about the Armenian Orthodox Church's position on Israel or its history of relations with the Jews of the region, but facts are facts and history denial stinks. Mazel tov again.

Mr. Foxman is so full of himself that he thinks that if the ADL sides with the Armenians the 20,000 Turkish Jews will be in grave danger. This is so absurd. However he now gives Turkish fanatics an idea to go bash the Jews. Could he not keep his big mouth shut regarding the Jews in Turkey?

A mature democracy doesn't "take it out" on its Jews just because it doesn't like a statement or policy. Iran does that, Syria does that, a democracy like Turkey would be insane to do so. But if she did, then Turkey is not immune.

typical armenian pressure and its consequences. i only recommend to all jewish brothers to searche really neutral studies which depends on ottoman and russian archives. secondly i really disgusted about chairmans hideous justification about jewish community in turkey. really no one cares even usa officially claims it is genocide. it shows your own moral level not ours. but i am really hopefull that this so called genocide allegations will be condemned by all in the future.

Aside from being a generally useless organization, the ADL got itself into this mess by going beyond what they should have done, and entering areas of political conflict. It should have, as a Jewish organization, stuck with issues of anti-Semitism in America. But, in order to increase its donations, which are limited by a limited agenda, it broadened its goals to stick its nose into everyone's business, thus getting into political quandries of divergent interests. This is a prime example.

I agree with Rami, it's about time. Now they just need to fix up some other issues they've been ignoring. For instance, how they've been dealing with the anti-Semitism at the University of California, Irvine. Backroom meetings and angry letters have not had any noticeable effect on reducing the openly espoused anti-Semitism at UCI. They've been against the civil rights investigation by the US Department of Education. They've refused to videotape or audiotape the anti-Semitic speeches, and the one time their local Executive DIrector - Kevin O'Grady - did videotape an anti-Semitic speech made in an outdoors free-speech area in May 2004, he said he was ordered by the NY office - where Foxman works - to destroy the tape and to never do such a thing again. I saw a bunch of stuff first hand from January 2004 to December 2006, so YnetNews, if you're interested, I can fill you in on a bunch of stuff and connect you with students and professionals who have also been involved.

You should be ashamed of yourselves. First, you announce that your change of position was not the result of your convictions but simply the clash among personnel. Then, you make the change of position utterly meaningless by attaching all kind of qualifications and conditions to it. I have a secret I want to share with you. No one cares about ADL or that idiotic moron, Abe Foxman. His picture is already in most Armenian dictionaries to define the word hypocrite.

This world needs more people like Mr Foxman!

The man is such a hypocrite. He pushes US to nuke Iran without worrying about the 25,000 Iranian Jews, yet he uses Turkish Jews as an excuse to deny the armenian genocide? Turks bombed synagogues in Istanbul years ago without needing the admission of historical facts as an excuse.

The ADL took the right moral step in acknowledging the Armenian genocide, which should have done long time ago. As for Metin and his likes, if you mean WWII Armenian relations with Germany or the Nazis, then probably you have just arrived to this planet from Mars. The fact is that Armenia, as a constituent part of Soviet Union not only was not in friendly terms with the Nazis and Germany during WWII, but was fighting in the soviet Armies against it. In facc one of the first Soviet divisions that entered Berlin was led by Nver Safarian, an Armenian high ranking military official, and many Soviet generals were Armenian, such as Hovhannes Babajanian, Admiral Issacov and Khanperyants, and others. What did Turkey do during this time? After almost annihilating the entire population of Western Armenia during WWI, in WWII as a hungry wolf was waiting at the border with Soviet Armenia in order to attack it if Stalingrad fell, secretly conducting friendly relations with Nazi Germany, and only declaring war on her, when she was defeated by freedom-loving peoples of the world. Most of the historians know the truth and are objective in affirming the fact of the Armenian Genocide. The historians that you mention are only few and paid revisionists by the Turks. Shame on them and you!

Therein lies the issue - according to the Nuremburg trials, Hitler said no such thing. The copy of the speech that included that line, US evidence 28, was tossed aside and two other copies (29 & 30) were authenticated.- they contained no such remark. Armenians claim that Bardakjian sourced it but he only ever relies on the same documentation that was thrown out at Nuremburg. This is all outlined in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and no new evidence to support the claim that Hitler made any such remark has ever come to light. As long as Armenians continue to use discredited evidence and forgeries (like the Talat Telegrams which constitute 100% of documentary proof of an intent to commit genocide, but were dismissed as crude forgeries by the investigating British when they first surfaced and every non-partisan historian who has studied them since) then Turkey cannot be expected to humour them. If Armenians want historical truth they should open their archives - they will show what the archives of their allies show. That they started an uprising, taking entire cities and massacring the populations. What happened to the entire Muslim population of present day Armenia? According to French Ottoman specialist Gilles Veinstein, who is rated highly enough that he was given the prestiguous College de France appointment, if there are any real forgotten victims during this episode, then it is those Turks. He further argues that, in this respect, Turkish denouncification of Westeran partiality is proper. The core claim is that the Ottomans pursued a policy of exterminating their Armenian population. This can be empirically disproven in 5 minutes; 1) Large Armenian populations away from trouble spots were excluded from the relocation order. 2) The many Armenians that survived the trekk were then left unharrassed, despite still being in what was then Ottoman territory. Yes, many Armenians were massacred and died of the same famine and epidemics that also killed 25% of Turks. 600,000 total dead according to the Armenian representation at the Paris peace conference, and all the allied intelligence agencies. The number continues to grow and grow over the decades of campaigning. Is it not enough that westerners continue to push this while ignoring their own exploits in Africa, Asia etc without them trying to push this discredited case that the poor, misguided Germans just took their lead from the terrible Turks? The Germans did not recognise a part of history - they accepted the findings of a contemporary court case they developed reams of evidence - a case similiar in nature to the one that was attempted against the Turks but was abandoned after two years because of a complete lack of any evidence. In the words of, Bernard Lewis, the man described by the Encyclopedia of Historians as "the most influential postwar historian of Islam and the Middle East": "When you brought up the question of “genocide”, you imply that there was a deliberate policy of extermination, to annihilate systematically the Armenian nation. This is very doubtful. The Turkish documents prove an action of relocation, not extermination."

lthe struma refugee ship could have been given sanctuary . Instead it was towed out to be sunk its believed by a soviet submarine . So much for the superiority of islamic mercy and socialist realism.

Armenian communities have militias which are legal in America to protect themselves from any future possible genocides, they tell me. In the 1980's the NATO Command Azalea Festival Queen was a Turk. Armenians in the area were so outraged because of the 1915-1918 Turkish genocide of Armendians, that they protested en masse the selection of a Turkish Azalea Queen. Usually, the top Admiral escorted the Azalea Queen in a promenade at NATO headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. But for the Turkish Azalea Queen, an enlisted walked around. Fear of the protesters becoming violent caused the change in the custom for that year only, to my knowledge.

As a concerned members of the Turkish American community we are disappointed to learn about the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has formally recognized the so called genocide of Armenians at the hand of Turkey in a statement released on Tuesday, marking a dramatic U-turn over the organization's position on the issue. Nearly two years ago, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan extended an invitation to his Armenian counterpart to establish a joint commission of historians and other experts to study records of the late Ottoman period in the archives of Turkey, Armenia and other relevant countries, and to share their findings with the international community. It was hoped that such an initiative would shed light on a disputed period of history and pave the way for a normalization of relations between the two countries. Turkey’s proposal has been praised by a number of European governments, and numerous members of the European Parliament have called on Armenia to accept it. The U.S. Administration has also applauded this initiative, with President Bush encouraging its adoption it in his 2005 message to the Armenian American community. The Armenian government has not yet accepted this proposal. It is only through common dialogue, not legislation, that a process of reconciliation can begin. With your support all these attempts of the Armenian lobby only it will ruin our relationships and no clear gain will come to an end. Sincerely, Feray Girgin Lues PS:Truth and Consequences: Armenians, Turks and Jews “I believe that engagement, not avoidance, is the best strategy. In a perfect world, Armenian and Turkish historians would sit together and review the archival material, debate differences, and seek a common understanding of the past,” writes American Jewish Committee Executive Director David A. Harris on the Jerusalem Post Blog New York, August 21, 2007 From 2000 to 2002, I led a graduate seminar entitled "Post-Holocaust Ethical and Political Issues” at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Among the topics covered was the politics of memory. --------------------- We have many interests as a Jewish people. Protecting historical truth ought to be right up there near the top of the list. http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=849241&ct=4284543

Hey Metin, you really don't want to know what Chutzpah is! Let me tell you this, I am half armenian/half lithuanian, 100% American and now Israeli after making aliyah and 100% Jewish. My family was killed, murdered and kicked out of their homes in the city of Van which is near Lake Van. My grandfathers name is Vanig after the city of Van. My great-grandmother fought off the Turks in the mountains on her way to America. Don't tell me this didn't happen because IT DID and my family was a part of it!! I think you should accept what happened like the Germans did, offer an apology and move on because until you do you will have people like me stepping on your throat until you do. I will never step fought into your Muslim nation until you recognize the murder of my Armenian brothers and sisters. On the other hand, I have no problem visiting Germany because they have faced up to history.

Nobody is claiming the events did not happen, this is a silly strawman argument. "The issue is not whether the massacres happened or not, but rather if these massacres were as a result of a deliberate preconceived decision of the Turkish government... there is no evidence for such a decision." It is in fact the Armenian line that denies their massacres of Ottoman Muslims. We also see the typical response of dismissing all historians who disagree with the Armenian thesis as paid lackeys of the Turkish government. The credentials of people like Roderic Davison, Rhodes Murphy, Bernard Lewis, RC Horowitz, Gilles Veinstein, Andrew Mango etc can be readily checked. Besides, if they are motivated to provide distorted versions for financial gain, then it should be easy enough to point out those distortions rather than just insulting them. For instance, when Armenian historians are taken to task by other scholars, specifics are supplied. See "Turkish Falsifiers and Armenian Deceivers" by Gwynne Dyer, or "A Disputed Genocide" By Guenter Lewy for specific examples of "willful mistranslations, selective quotations, and other serious violations of scholarly ethics." Too see what happens when an Armenian campaigner is forced to debate his position with a historian, rather than having the sort of layman on this board take everything he say as truth, search for the debates between Lewy and Dadrian, or Lewy and Balakian. You are not going to change my mind by calling me a liar or dismissing a formidable array of learned opinion as shills - you will do so by answering the questions that these historians ask. Take up Turkeys offer of judicial arbitration - have a court ruling with which to buttress parliamentary resolutions. Somebody with truth on their side ought to welcome such an opportunity instead of running from it. Be honest - this is not about historical truth, this is entirely political. Why have some of your myths blown apart on a more public platform than historians get when you can coerce the laymen into accepting everything you say because questioning any aspect of genocide is 'wrong'. After the Treaty of Sevres, when you thought you had secured the Armenia you wanted, you boasted of your great fight for independence and even documented the atrocities you committed as proof. Once Sevres was overturned and the Russians betrayed you, splitting Armenia with Turkey, you then assumed a victim role and claimed to have been completely unarmed, as if you previous statements and the evidence you produced never existed! Sorry, if pretending to accept discrepancies like this is the price of getting people to "step off my throat", I can do without. This started off as a campaign for the restitution of land - all the political resolutions in the world are not going to make that happen. It is politically impossible for any Turkish government to go along with a version of history that pretends the murder of hundreds of thousands of Anatolian Turks and Kurds did not happen. No serious non-partisan historian would agree with this. Human morality comes in waves and trends like everything else - today the moral fight is for recognition of any claim of genocide. I have faith that, given the volume of valid scholarship that disputes the text of these recognition resolutions, a future trend will be indignation against the use of moral coersion to stifle free speech and debate.

It is an insult to both turks and jews that they refer to event back in ww1 as genocide. Fact 1 - jews never took up arms against germany and tried to get land of the germans. Armenians took up arms alongside the Russians to distroy the empire they once belong too. Killing turkish women and children and distroying whole villages in their path. Fact 2 - people seem to forget that this was is propaganda machine orchestrated by the Armenian Despora who are willing to let their own people suffer in order to achive their goals. Fact 3 - Why isnt it ever mentioned how many turks were killed during those times, if people would study history they will find that more turks were killed. Why dont people leave history to the historians and let them decide what really happened. Why not ask countries like France, Spain and England to accept they have commited genocide which they clearly have. As for the almighty USA, what have you done to the Indiands who were the real owners of the lands of North America, why dont you pass a bill accepting that what you did was indeed a genocide. I am sad but not suprised to see both the USA and ADL take such a stand. I really thought jews in the US were more smarter people, but judging by the comments in this talkback everyone is playing ignorant and forgeting what an ally and friend is. Turkey is not as week as you think and someday the truth will be known. But until then ignorance rules in the sole superpowers domains. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!!!