In 2013, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick nominated Mr. Berman, a long-time member and National Commissioner of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), to be a Superior Court judge.
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Judicial Candidate Joseph Berman, the ADL and the
Armenian Genocide
By David Boyajian
Background
The presentation below was given by David Boyajian at a
public hearing for attorney Joseph S. Berman before the Massachusetts
Governor’s Council on February 26, 2014.
The hearing took place at the State House in Boston, Massachusetts. Mr. Boyajian is a member of the Armenian
American community of Massachusetts.
In 2013, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick nominated
Mr. Berman, a long-time member and National Commissioner of the Anti-Defamation
League (ADL), to be a Superior Court judge.
The Massachusetts Constitution empowers the eight elected members of the
Governor’s Council to confirm or reject all judicial nominations.
Following Mr. Berman’s first Governor’s Council hearing
on November 13, 2013, a three-month long public controversy ensued over his
suitability to be a judge.
The Councilors had several reasons, beside his ADL
leadership post, for doubting Mr. Berman’s suitability: his lack of truthfulness as to whether he had
asked elected officials to lobby the Councilors on his behalf; a lack of
criminal trial experience; poor demeanor; over $100,000 in political campaign
contributions, including to Governor Patrick, since being rejected for a
judgeship in 2004; and more.
On February 26, the Governor’s Council vote was a 4-4
tie, which means that Mr. Berman’s candidacy for a judgeship failed.
Presentation by David Boyajian
Councilors, thank you for the opportunity to address you
today.
I know that a majority of you have previously indicated
they will not confirm Joseph Berman to be a Superior Court judge, and that you
have a variety of reasons for that.
I’ve listened to the tape of Mr. Berman’s first hearing in
November, and I’m aware of those reasons.
Mr. Berman’s position as a National Commissioner of the
Anti-Defamation League, which has engaged in inexcusable activities against an
ethnic group - Armenian Americans – is one reason that has been expressed by
some.
I must note that in his questionnaire in November of
2013, Mr. Berman listed himself as being on both the National and Regional ADL
boards.
I’ll be providing factual context to what I will be
saying about Mr. Berman’s nomination and the ADL so that the Council, those
present, and the media, understand my remarks.
This is especially important because the media has often misrepresented
some essential facts.
I’m going to talk about the credibility of Mr. Berman
and, because New England (N.E.) ADL officials have publicly supported him, the
credibility of the N.E. ADL.
During his November 2013 hearing, Mr. Berman did himself
no favors when, during questioning by Councilor Jubinville, he repeatedly
denied having called any official or candidate to lobby the Councilors. He later had to admit to Councilor Caissie
that that morning he had phoned a State Senator – now a Congresswoman - to
lobby some of you. Credibility and truthfulness
are, of course, essential qualities in a judge.
Mr. Berman has been a member of the ADL for about 19
years, and an ADL National Commissioner since 2006.
For 20 years - and probably even longer - the ADL has
been denying the factuality of the Armenian genocide committed by Turkey
against Armenian Christians from 1915 to 1923.
The ADL, consciously and deliberately, went out of its way to engage in
anti-human rights activities directed against a particular ethnic group, namely
Armenian Americans, who had never given the ADL any reason to do so.
All those years, surely the New England ADL, including
Mr. Berman, knew what the ADL was doing.
Did they speak out? No.
The ADL, which claims to be a universal human rights
organization, not just a Jewish one, has also actively worked with Turke, a
major human rights violator, to defeat Armenian genocide resolutions in the US
Congress. Can you imagine any genuine
human rights group, such as Amnesty International, actively working against
recognition of a proven genocide?
Just imagine the ADL’s reaction if some organization
which claimed to uphold human rights were trying to stop the scores of
Holocaust resolutions in the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, and other
countries.
Would the Governor even be nominating Mr. Berman if the
ADL was trying to defeat a Congressional resolution recognizing the evils of
Black Slavery?
What would your reaction be if the ADL made a deal with
the British Government to defeat a resolution on the Irish Famine?
At his November 2013 hearing, Mr. Berman was asked what
he’d do if he were a member of an organization which opposed recognition of the
Holocaust. He said only that he would
oppose the policy. I don’t believe
him. I believe that he would resign from
such an organization. Yet he never
resigned from the ADL.
Some essential background if I may: Jewish political
analysts and the Jewish media have acknowledged that the ADL’s anti-Armenian
activities came about as part of a three-way deal many years ago among Turkey,
Israel, and a few of the leading Jewish American lobbying groups, including the
ADL, the American Jewish Committee, AIPAC, the Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs, and B’nai B’rith.
I know this personally because 10 years ago a fine man,
William Parsons, the then-Chief of Staff at the US Holocaust Museum in
Washington, DC, gave a public lecture at Tufts.
He told me afterwards that the ADL was indeed lobbying against Armenian
Americans. Has it never occurred to the
National ADL and its Commissioners that they cannot credibly ask us to
commemorate the Holocaust while they simultaneously work to cover up a
Christian genocide?
Again, surely the New England ADL, and its National
Commissioners, including Mr. Berman, knew what the ADL was up to. Did they ever speak out? No.
I must mention that scores of American organizations, of
various orientations and ethnic groups, and many well-known Jewish American
organizations, historians, authors, human rights advocates, and elected
officials, have openly supported the Armenian genocide resolution. Such groups include the American Jewish
World Service, the Jewish War Veterans of the USA, and Jewish World Watch.
Those Jewish organizations spoke out. Did the New England ADL, and Mr. Berman? No.
In July of 2007, the ADL’s Armenian genocide denials and
lobbying for Turkey against Armenian Americans began to make headlines. It started locally with a letter I wrote to
the Watertown Tab newspaper pointing out that Watertown was one of many
municipalities that had adopted the ADL’s alleged anti-bias program known as
“No Place for Hate.”
It quickly became a national and international
issue. Frantic diplomatic activity took
place between Turkey and Israel. There are hundreds of articles about this
archived on the Armenian American activists’ website known as
NoPlaceForDenial.com.
On NoPlaceforDenial.com, please look particularly at the
section titled “The History of Lobbying Against Genocide Recognition”, which
contains revealing articles from the Jewish and non-Jewish press. You will be shocked and repulsed.
So, what did the N.E. ADL and Joseph Berman say or do
before this issue erupted in 2007?
Apparently, nothing.
In August of 2007, Andrew Tarsy, head of the N.E. ADL,
after initially not acknowledging the Armenian genocide, then spoke out
publicly, and acknowledged the Armenian genocide. He was fired by ADL National
Director Abraham Foxman. Did Mr. Berman
ever speak out publicly? No.
Mike Ross, the Boston City Councilor, and Stewart Cohen,
former chairman of Polaroid, immediately resigned from the ADL. Did Joseph Berman resign? No. In
his first Governor’s Council hearing, in November, Mr. Berman was asked about
this. He replied that he wrote a
resignation “in his head”, but never acted on it. I am sorry, but “in his head” is not good
enough.
Mr. Berman says that he and some other New England ADL
members went to New York City in November of 2007 to the ADL’s national
conclave. They said they wanted the ADL
to change its stance against Armenians.
First, even assuming that they did so, at that point it was too little,
too late.
You see, three months earlier, soon after this issue
broke, the National ADL, on August 21, 2007, issued a statement that purported
to be an acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide, but was not.
The ADL’s full statement implied that the Armenian
genocide – it also used the phrase “tantamount to genocide” - was simply a
“consequence” of wartime conditions. But
the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, the grandfather of all
international law on genocide, specifically requires intent by the perpetrator
to legally be “genocide”.
Now, that legalistically dishonest ADL statement was
implicitly rejected not just by Armenian Americans and human rights
advocates. It was also rejected by the
Massachusetts Municipal Association, which represents all the Commonwealth’s
cities and towns. The MMA cut ties with
the ADL’s “No Place for Hate” even after the ADL statement. The following
municipalities also cut ties after the ADL statement: Arlington, Bedford, Belmont, Lexington,
Medford, Needham, Newburyport, Newton, Northampton, Peabody, Somerville, and
Westwood.
Many top members of the N.E. ADL, including Mr. Berman,
are lawyers. Surely, if laymen can
understand the dishonest wording in the National ADL’s statement in August of
2007, so can lawyers in the N.E. ADL. A
judge should have knowledge and integrity when it comes to civil and human
rights law.
Yet now – and only now- are we hearing publicly from Mr.
Berman on the Armenian genocide issue, just when he wishes to become a
judge.
Indeed, I do not recall any member of the N.E. ADL
publicly pointing out that the National ADL’s August 21, 2007 statement was
worded so as to not meet the U.N’s official definition of genocide. Many of the persons who signed a recent
petition supporting Mr. Berman - including former Attorney General Scott
Harshbarger and former Governor William Weld - are also attorneys.
Have any of them ever publicly pointed out the legal
problems with the ADL’s August 2007 statement?
Not to my knowledge.
In late 2007, the N.E. ADL did request the National ADL
to reverse its anti-Armenian policies.
But that was many years, even decades, after it had to
have known of those policies. And only
after Massachusetts Armenians Americans forced the issue in the summer of
2007.
And what have the N.E ADL and Mr. Berman done since 2007
on the Armenian issue? Apparently,
nothing at all, and worse.
You see, in 2008, Mr. Derek Shulman became the N.E. ADL’s
new director. He served until last month.
Who is Derek Shulman? He was a
“political director” in AIPAC, the American Israel Political Affairs
Committee. It is a matter of public
record that AIPAC, since at least the early 1990’s, has worked directly with
Turks to defeat Armenian genocide resolutions in the U.S. Congress. If, in 2008, the N.E. ADL and Mr. Berman were
truly sincere in the wake of being criticized over the Armenian genocide issue,
why would they allow themselves to be led by a person from an organization,
AIPAC, that has an anti-Armenian record?
Indeed, even though the N.E. ADL claims to have told the
national ADL that it should favor the Armenian genocide resolution, in a
presentation he gave in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 2012, Derek Shulman told his
audience that “we” – implying the N.E. and the national ADL - oppose the
Armenian genocide resolution.
In other words, the N.E. ADL and its leaders, including
Mr. Berman, are not credible.
And where were the leaders of the N.E. ADL in 2007,
including Mr. Berman, when the Armenian Heritage Park, which had been
designated by a state law passed by the legislature for the Rose Kennedy
Greenway, was under attack, for specious reasons, by a top member of the New
England ADL, namely Peter Meade, head of the Greenway Conservancy?
Mr. Meade, though Catholic, was and is a board member of
the N.E. ADL. In an article I wrote for
area newspapers, titled “The Greenway is No Place for the ADL”, I disproved the
specious reasons being cited by the Boston Globe, such as that there were
supposedly no memorials or ethnic content slated for the Greenway. As a member of the anti-Armenian ADL, Mr.
Meade had a clear conflict of interest vis-a-vis the Armenian Park.
Why didn’t the leaders of N.E. ADL 2007, including Mr.
Berman, speak out publicly against Mr. Meade’s conflict of interest?
I will conclude with some facts regarding what this
nomination is not about.
First, I know that no Governor’s Councilor is making a
decision on this nomination on the basis of ethnicity or religion.
Moreover, the ADL and Armenian genocide issue is not even
remotely a matter of Armenian Americans versus Jewish Americans. The two peoples are, in fact, very
friendly. Over the years, probably
hundreds of joint community and academic events and programs on genocide have
been held by the two communities. For
example, the American Jewish University in Los Angeles will hold just such an
event on March 10th.
In the year 2000, 126 Holocaust Scholars signed a
petition appearing in the New York Times that acknowledged the Armenian
genocide.
A renowned Polish Jewish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, actually
coined the word “genocide” in the 1940’s and was the primary author of the
United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948.
In a CBS-TV interview in 1949, which can be seen on YouTube, Lemkin said
that the principal reason he became interested in genocide was because “it
happened to the Armenians”. Nearly 20
countries, including Canada, France, the Netherlands, and Argentina, as well as
the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the European Union Parliament,
the Parliament of the Council of Europe, a U.N. Subcommittee, the Vatican, and
many more institutions have officially recognized the Armenian genocide
specifically as “genocide.”
Finally, the ADL, and its National Commissioners, and
similar groups, owe Armenian American reparations. They must apologize to Armenian Americans,
they must unambiguously recognize the Armenian genocide, and they must work
affirmatively for passage of the Armenian genocide resolution.
The ADL claims it is a universal human rights
organization that defends the rights of all ethnic groups. At this time, that claim is false.
The ADL, led by its National Commissioners, owe it to the
Jewish American community and others to reform so that the ADL truly supports
universal human rights.
For all the above reasons, I respectfully ask that the
Governor’s Council not confirm ADL National Commissioner Joseph Berman as a
judge. Thank you.
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David Boyajian
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