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Jewish Coalition In U.S. Urges Armenian Genocide Recognition


Israel -- US President Barack Obama speaks on US, Israel and Mideast relations at the Jerusalem Convention Center in Jerusalem, 21Mar2013
Israel -- US President Barack Obama speaks on US, Israel and Mideast relations at the Jerusalem Convention Center in Jerusalem, 21Mar2013

An influential coalition of Jewish community organizations in the United States has called on President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress to officially recognize the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey.

In a resolution adopted at its recent annual conference, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) also urged Jewish advocacy groups to join the Armenian-American community in campaigning for such recognition.

“We suffer greatly from efforts to minimize our own suffering and experience of genocide and we have a moral responsibility, as Jews, to name it in others’ experience,” read the resolution. “We must not let the politics of the moment, or the U.S. government’s relationship with Turkey, sway our moral obligation to recognize the suffering of the Armenian people.”

“We call upon our the Congress and the President to officially recognize what started in 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, and resulted in the killing and deportation of approximately 1.5 million Armenians, as the Armenian Genocide,” added the JCPA.

Jewish-American lobby groups had for decades opposed U.S. recognition of the genocide in view of Turkey’s geopolitical significance to Israel. Some of them even helped Turkey block pro-Armenian resolutions in Congress.

At least two such groups, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) -- both of them affiliated with the JCPA -- reversed their positions several years ago. Earlier this year, the AJC criticized Obama for failing to use the word “genocide” in reference to the Armenian massacres.

The JCPA statement said Jewish organizations should “consult and work with the national Armenian organizations to further the goal of U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide.” It also urged “our congressional representatives” to back corresponding resolutions which Armenian-American groups have been trying to push through Congress.

One of those groups, the Armenian Assembly of America, thanked the JCPA for the “historic resolution.” “The unity of millions of Jewish and Armenian Americans in standing up for the truth is an important step along the path of justice,” Anthony Barsamian, the Assembly co-chairman, said in a statement released this week.

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