Top US Jewish group recognises genocide of 1.5 million Armenians

[babsbunny]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2893892.ece

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Published: 25 August 2007
The Anti-Defamation League, a leading US-based Jewish organisation, has for the first time - and with some reluctance - recognised the slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks between 1915 and 1917 as genocide.

It did so under pressure from some American Jewish communities, including those in areas where there are Armenian populations, and against a background of attempts to push a new bill through Congress to force the United States to recognise the genocide. Like Israel, the US does not officially acknowledge it.

Abe Foxman, the director of ADL, which had previously been reluctant to inflame Turkey by recognising the genocide, said that he had taken the decision after consulting the Jewish Nobel Prize-winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.