ADL Endorses Congressional Recognition of Armenians Genocide

WASHINGTON, DC — The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a leading US-based Jewish civil rights group publicly endorsed on Monday a bipartisan House of Representatives resolution that re-affirms the United States record on the Armenian Genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turkey more than a century ago.

In a statement, ADL affirmed that H. Res 296 — introduced into the House of Representatives in April — was a “historic Congressional resolution…long overdue,” praising it as “an important step toward raising awareness and educating the American public about the horrific genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire against Armenians during the early part of the 1900s.”

More than 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered by Ottoman Turkey between 1915-23, in a government orchestrated system wide killing campaign that was later used to form the legal definition of “genocide.”

“The 20th century saw the worst episodes of genocide in recorded human history, beginning with the Armenian Genocide, through the Holocaust and all the way to the atrocities in Bosnia and Rwanda,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in the statement.

Greenblatt observed that “historians note that Hitler viewed the Armenian Genocide and the world’s indifference toward it as inspiration to launch his own genocidal campaign across Europe. We believe that remembering and educating about any genocide — Armenian, the Holocaust, Bosnia, Rwanda, and others — is a necessary tool to prevent future tragedies and begins with recognition.”

The last time a Resolution related to the Armenian Genocide passed in the House of Representatives was in 1984, when House passed Joint Resolution 247, designating April 24, 1985, as “National Day of Remembrance of Man’s Inhumanity to Man”.