When genocide becomes a political football

Alan Wolfe weighs in on the debate raging in Boston over the Anti-Defamation League's stance on whether there was, in fact, an Armenian genocide in Turkey during WWI. When the ADL's New England regional director recently said, yes, there was genocide, he was summarily fired. The national ADL holds no position official on the genocide ...

By Blake Hounshell

August 21, 2007, 3:22 PM

Alan Wolfe weighs in on the debate raging in Boston over the Anti-Defamation League's stance on whether there was, in fact, an Armenian genocide in Turkey during WWI. When the ADL's New England regional director recently said, yes, there was genocide, he was summarily fired. The national ADL holds no position official on the genocide or non-genocide itself, but the organization all but opposes a pending Congressional resolution that would label the deaths of some 1.5 million ethnic Armenians a genocide. Writes Wolfe:

To say that the ADL's position is incomprehensible to most Bostonians, including many of its most prominent Jews, is an understatement. Wild speculation exists about its reasons, ranging from Turkey's support for Israel to a desire not to allow the term genocide to become overused.

If it's the latter, then how does one explain the ADL's position on Darfur, which is probably an even murkier case for genocide than was the Armenian massacre? More likely, the ADL is being perfectly transparent about its motives, as expressed in its open letter on the subject:

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.

Michael Crowley of the New Republic interprets this to mean that "the ADL, along with other leading Jewish-American groups, apparently considers friendly relations between Israel and Turkey … more important than the underlying historical question."

To which I would reply: The ADL is a political player, not some neutral arbiter of historical disputes. As much as we might like to see the legal term "genocide" be rigorously applied at all times, the real world simply doesn't work that way. And on the merits, I would say that the national ADL is justified in pointing out that such a resolution would have consequences—failing to achieve concrete results, needlessly provoking Turkey at a fragile time in its politics, and yes, risking blowback for Turkey's Jewish community. Whether the ADL should be in the business of protecting Israel's strategic allies from criticism is another question, however.