Who Remembers Now the Destruction of the Armenians?

David Weigel | August 28, 2007

Jamie Kirchick is making sense about the Anti-Defamation League's stonewalling on a Congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide:

For pragmatic reasons, a sense of the Congress resolution acknowledging the Armenian genocide may not be such a great idea. Turkey is an important ally in the Muslim world. Would it really be worth hurting that relationship over a resolution that, however morally just, bears no force? A few weeks ago, however, a legislator told me that if such a resolution really did offend the Turks to the point that they would hamper American military maneuvers out of Incirlik Air Base or by fooling around in Kurdistan, then maybe our relationship with Turkey is not all it's cracked up to be in the first place.

But at the end of the day, these realpolitik considerations should have no bearing on a civic organization committed to humanitarian goals, which is what the ADL claims to be. Yes, it is part of the ADL's mission to defend Israel (and, it bears noting, to debunk Holocaust deniers)--but the ADL is not a mere extension of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Pussyfooting on the existence of the Armenian genocide works against everything for which the ADL claims to stand.

Incredibly ironic, too, as the title of this post is a much-repeated paraphrase of Hitler's August 22, 1939 speech. Hitler's point was that founders of great empires are remembered for the kingdoms they build and not the people they slaughter. He was, unsurprisingly, wrong as all hell, evidenced by the other example he gave: "history sees in [Genghis Khan] solely the founder of a state." (The Reich didn't last long enough for him to witness John Kerry's Senate testimony or Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.) How the ADL expects people to remain concerned about genocide while forgetting or blowing off a fairly recent genocide, I have no clue.

I've got nothing else to add to Kirchick: Either the ADL is an organization that dogpiles people who minimize genocides or Nazism or it's an extension of Ehud Olmert's press shop.

And yes, I realize I just quoted Hitler to make a point. If Abe Foxman wants to sue me, the subpoena should be sent to reason's Washington, D.C. office between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. any day this week.