Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan receives the ADL’s ‘Courage to Care’ award from ADL National Director Abraham Foxman in New York. June 10, 2005. (Photo: jta.org)
Award-winning actress/comedian/author Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of ABC-TV’s The View, has been suspended for two weeks for a minor slip-up (Monday, January 31) regarding the Holocaust.
Meanwhile, some of her Jewish accusers have been guilty of far worse—including genocide denial/diminishment—although mainstream corporate media have rarely reported that fact.
Born Caryn Elaine Johnson in NY City in 1955 to Black parents, Goldberg has no Jewish ancestors but merely feels Jewish. She invented her name.
While The View was discussing the Holocaust, Goldberg interjected that it wasn’t about “race” since both Germans and Jews were “White.” It was “about man’s inhumanity to man.”
Co-host Joy Behar—an Italian Catholic with two Jewish husbands and a Hadassah Woman of the Year award—justifiably disagreed: Nazis considered Jews a “different race.”
American Jews and non-Jews, plus organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and American Jewish Committee (AJC), swiftly, and sometimes harshly, criticized Goldberg. Some want her fired.
Goldberg acknowledges and apologizes
On the following day’s The View, Goldberg acknowledged her slip-up and apologized:
The Holocaust “is indeed about race because Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race … I regret my comments.”
Nevertheless, fellow Black and ABC News President Kimberly Godwin suspended Goldberg for two weeks to “take time to reflect and learn.”
Who led the stampede against Goldberg? Jonathan Greenblatt (ADL’s CEO/National Director) and David Harris (AJC’s longtime CEO).
Holocaust hypocrisy
Nazis saw Jews as an “inferior race,” tweeted Greenblatt. “Holocaust distortion is dangerous.” He also guested on Tuesday’s (Feb. 1) The View.
Harris tweeted, “Goldberg absurdly claims the #Holocaust ‘isn’t about race’.” Jews were considered a “subhuman race.” “Please rethink & apologize.”
Yet for decades the ADL and AJC colluded with Turkey and Israel to deny or diminish the Armenian Genocide committed by Turkey (1915-1923) and to defeat Congressional resolutions on that Genocide. No one disputes that.
William Parsons, the late U.S. Holocaust Museum’s Chief of Staff, personally told me that the ADL stealthily opposed Armenian Genocide recognition.
Some Jewish groups claim credit for ensuring that such a [Armenian Genocide] resolution never passes.
Jewish advocacy groups, including the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs [Jinsa], the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC], B’nai Brith and American Jewish Committee [AJC] “have been working with the Turks on this issue” for more than 15 years, said Yola Habif Johnston, director for foundations and community outreach at Jinsa.
“The Jewish lobby has quite actively supported Turkey in their efforts to prevent the so-called Armenian genocide resolution from passing.”
In early 2007, veteran Los Angeles Times writer Mark Arax, an Armenian American, penned an article documenting the ADL’s anti-Armenian policies.
However, Managing Editor Douglas Frantz decided that an Armenian couldn’t be objective about the ADL. So he assigned the task to Jewish writer Richard Simon.
Simongutted Arax’s research and deleted incriminating statements by the ADL’s then National Director Abe Foxman, including:
“Was it [the Armenian deaths] genocide? It was wartime. Things get messy.”
“If helping Turkey helps Israel, then that’s what we’re in the business of doing.”
Had Goldberg made analogous statements about the Holocaust, her career would now be over.
Imagine Armenian American organizations’ fate had they opposed the scores—if not hundreds—of Holocaust legislative initiatives in America.
The Times later forced Arax out.
Inspired by Arax and others, I initiated a campaign in Massachusetts against the ADL in 2007.
Human rights activists, Armenian American organizations, and principled Jews later joined in. The campaign grew quickly. National and international media couldn’t ignore it.
A diplomatic uproar between Turkey and Israel ensued.
In 2007-2008, a dozen Massachusetts cities and the umbrella Massachusetts Municipal Association kicked out the ADL’s so-called No Place for Hate program.
They realized that the ADL was unfit to lecture anyone about civil/human rights.
The AJC has been even more hostile to Armenians than has the ADL.
In the Turkish propaganda film Blonde Bride, AJC Strategic Affairs Director Barry Jacobs (now deceased) claimed that the Armenian massacres couldn’t be genocide since the Holocaust was “unique.”
On another occasion he crudely boasted that the AJC’s stance on the Armenian Genocide was “B.S.”
The AJC, said Jacobs, “will be Turkey’s friends officially in Congress.” And it was.
AJC board member/superstar Cheryl C. Kagan, a Maryland State Senator, said that an Armenian Genocide resolution was like designating a state cat. And what happened to Armenians was “an alleged massacre.”
Imagine if Whoopi Goldberg had uttered similar things about the Holocaust.
In 2012, David Harris proudly accepted the tyrant’s coveted “Order of Friendship” award in NY City. Read that sentence again.
Azerbaijan’s “lobby in the U.S.,” Aliyev has announced, “is the Jewish community.”
One wonders if the AJC and Harris know about America’s FARA (FOREIGN AGENTS REGISTRATION ACT).
And yet Harris dares to criticize Goldberg.
The AJC should remove “Defending democratic values for all” from its motto. The ADL slogan “to secure justice and fair treatment to all” is pathetic.
Only after many years of pressure did the ADL and AJC finally acknowledge (insincerely, no doubt) the Armenian Genocide. Many principled Jewish academicians, human rights advocates, organizations, and elected officials did so decades before.
The ADL and AJC have never apologized for their war on Christian Armenians. It’s too late now. Contrast that with Goldberg’s apologies to Jews.
Nor have they and similarly smug, genocide-denying/diminishing Jewish organizations opened their archives to expose the full details of their war on Armenians.
Jewish organizations say that Holocaust denial/diminishment is anti-Semitic and, consequently, “hate.” By analogizing the Armenian Genocide to the Holocaust, can we say that certain Jewish organizations are “hate groups”? I don’t see why not.
In the meantime, the ADL, AJC, and similar organizations need to leave such blameless people as Whoopi Goldberg alone, stop intimidating others, and pray for redemption.
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Whoopi Goldberg slipped up but some of her critics are shameless hypocrites
Posted on February 14, 2022 by David Boyajian
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan receives the ADL’s ‘Courage to Care’ award from ADL National Director Abraham Foxman in New York. June 10, 2005. (Photo: jta.org)
Award-winning actress/comedian/author Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of ABC-TV’s The View, has been suspended for two weeks for a minor slip-up (Monday, January 31) regarding the Holocaust.
Meanwhile, some of her Jewish accusers have been guilty of far worse—including genocide denial/diminishment—although mainstream corporate media have rarely reported that fact.
Born Caryn Elaine Johnson in NY City in 1955 to Black parents, Goldberg has no Jewish ancestors but merely feels Jewish. She invented her name.
While The View was discussing the Holocaust, Goldberg interjected that it wasn’t about “race” since both Germans and Jews were “White.” It was “about man’s inhumanity to man.”
Co-host Joy Behar—an Italian Catholic with two Jewish husbands and a Hadassah Woman of the Year award—justifiably disagreed: Nazis considered Jews a “different race.”
American Jews and non-Jews, plus organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and American Jewish Committee (AJC), swiftly, and sometimes harshly, criticized Goldberg. Some want her fired.
Goldberg acknowledges and apologizes
On the following day’s The View, Goldberg acknowledged her slip-up and apologized:
The Holocaust “is indeed about race because Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race … I regret my comments.”
Nevertheless, fellow Black and ABC News President Kimberly Godwin suspended Goldberg for two weeks to “take time to reflect and learn.”
Who led the stampede against Goldberg? Jonathan Greenblatt (ADL’s CEO/National Director) and David Harris (AJC’s longtime CEO).
Holocaust hypocrisy
Nazis saw Jews as an “inferior race,” tweeted Greenblatt. “Holocaust distortion is dangerous.” He also guested on Tuesday’s (Feb. 1) The View.
Harris tweeted, “Goldberg absurdly claims the #Holocaust ‘isn’t about race’.” Jews were considered a “subhuman race.” “Please rethink & apologize.”
Yet for decades the ADL and AJC colluded with Turkey and Israel to deny or diminish the Armenian Genocide committed by Turkey (1915-1923) and to defeat Congressional resolutions on that Genocide. No one disputes that.
William Parsons, the late U.S. Holocaust Museum’s Chief of Staff, personally told me that the ADL stealthily opposed Armenian Genocide recognition.
Showdown Set in ‘Genocide’ Debate by Rebecca Spence (Jewish Daily Forward, September 1, 2006) contains this damning boast:
Some Jewish groups claim credit for ensuring that such a [Armenian Genocide] resolution never passes.
Jewish advocacy groups, including the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs [Jinsa], the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC], B’nai Brith and American Jewish Committee [AJC] “have been working with the Turks on this issue” for more than 15 years, said Yola Habif Johnston, director for foundations and community outreach at Jinsa.
“The Jewish lobby has quite actively supported Turkey in their efforts to prevent the so-called Armenian genocide resolution from passing.”
In early 2007, veteran Los Angeles Times writer Mark Arax, an Armenian American, penned an article documenting the ADL’s anti-Armenian policies.
However, Managing Editor Douglas Frantz decided that an Armenian couldn’t be objective about the ADL. So he assigned the task to Jewish writer Richard Simon.
Simon gutted Arax’s research and deleted incriminating statements by the ADL’s then National Director Abe Foxman, including:
“Was it [the Armenian deaths] genocide? It was wartime. Things get messy.”
“If helping Turkey helps Israel, then that’s what we’re in the business of doing.”
Had Goldberg made analogous statements about the Holocaust, her career would now be over.
Imagine Armenian American organizations’ fate had they opposed the scores—if not hundreds—of Holocaust legislative initiatives in America.
The Times later forced Arax out.
Inspired by Arax and others, I initiated a campaign in Massachusetts against the ADL in 2007.
Human rights activists, Armenian American organizations, and principled Jews later joined in. The campaign grew quickly. National and international media couldn’t ignore it.
A diplomatic uproar between Turkey and Israel ensued.
In 2007-2008, a dozen Massachusetts cities and the umbrella Massachusetts Municipal Association kicked out the ADL’s so-called No Place for Hate program.
They realized that the ADL was unfit to lecture anyone about civil/human rights.
The campaign hasn’t ended.
The AJC is worse than the ADL
The AJC has been even more hostile to Armenians than has the ADL.
In the Turkish propaganda film Blonde Bride, AJC Strategic Affairs Director Barry Jacobs (now deceased) claimed that the Armenian massacres couldn’t be genocide since the Holocaust was “unique.”
On another occasion he crudely boasted that the AJC’s stance on the Armenian Genocide was “B.S.”
The AJC, said Jacobs, “will be Turkey’s friends officially in Congress.” And it was.
AJC board member/superstar Cheryl C. Kagan, a Maryland State Senator, said that an Armenian Genocide resolution was like designating a state cat. And what happened to Armenians was “an alleged massacre.”
Imagine if Whoopi Goldberg had uttered similar things about the Holocaust.
The AJC is also the greatest Jewish friend of the utterly corrupt, dictatorial, culture-destroying, terrorist-supporting regime of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
In 2012, David Harris proudly accepted the tyrant’s coveted “Order of Friendship” award in NY City. Read that sentence again.
Azerbaijan’s “lobby in the U.S.,” Aliyev has announced, “is the Jewish community.”
One wonders if the AJC and Harris know about America’s FARA (FOREIGN AGENTS REGISTRATION ACT).
And yet Harris dares to criticize Goldberg.
The AJC should remove “Defending democratic values for all” from its motto. The ADL slogan “to secure justice and fair treatment to all” is pathetic.
Only after many years of pressure did the ADL and AJC finally acknowledge (insincerely, no doubt) the Armenian Genocide. Many principled Jewish academicians, human rights advocates, organizations, and elected officials did so decades before.
The ADL and AJC have never apologized for their war on Christian Armenians. It’s too late now. Contrast that with Goldberg’s apologies to Jews.
Nor have they and similarly smug, genocide-denying/diminishing Jewish organizations opened their archives to expose the full details of their war on Armenians.
Jewish organizations say that Holocaust denial/diminishment is anti-Semitic and, consequently, “hate.” By analogizing the Armenian Genocide to the Holocaust, can we say that certain Jewish organizations are “hate groups”? I don’t see why not.
In the meantime, the ADL, AJC, and similar organizations need to leave such blameless people as Whoopi Goldberg alone, stop intimidating others, and pray for redemption.
David Boyajian’s primary foreign policy focus is the Caucasus. His work can be found at www.ArmeniaPedia.org/wiki/David_Boyajian