By Laura M. Colarusso, Globe Correspondent | September 20, 2007
Needham officials are lashing out at the Anti-Defamation League for the reluctance of its national leadership to fully recognize the Armenian genocide, but have stopped short of withdrawing from the ADL’s No Place for Hate program, as Watertown and Newton have done.
The town’s Human Rights Committee has demanded that the ADL recognize the deportation and killing of more than 1 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923 as a genocide.
No Place for Hate, a program designed to help towns foster respect and diversity, has come under intense scrutiny since August, when the national ADL’s position on the Armenian genocide prompted officials of Watertown to withdraw from the program.
On Tuesday, Newton Mayor David Cohen said he would accept the recommendation of his city’s Human Rights Commission and drop out of No Place for Hate until the national ADL definitively recognizes the historical events in question as genocide.ADL Executive Director Abraham Foxman has stated that the atrocities were “tantamount” to genocide. The ADL’s regional office in New England has labeled what happened to the Armenians a genocide
Needham officials say the ADL’s inability to accurately describe the atrocities undermines the goal of the No Place for Hate program.
ADL officials from both the national office in Washington and the New England office in Boston did not respond to calls seeking comment. However, a message on the organization’s website states that the ADL continues to characterize a proposed congressional resolution on the matter as “a counterproductive diversion [that will not foster reconciliation between Turks and Armenians.”
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/09/20/town_hits_adl_stance_on_genocide/