Why attacks on the ANCA expose fear, not facts
It’s worth asking why the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) has recently come under such coordinated attack from media outlets aligned with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
What do these unfounded assaults say about the ANCA — and, just as importantly, about the authors behind them? What do they want? And what do they fear?
Let’s start with the facts. Over recent weeks, a series of articles — different headlines, different bylines, but strikingly similar talking points — have targeted the ANCA.
Notably, none challenges a single factual claim raised by the ANCA regarding the Netanyahu government’s denial of the Armenian Genocide, its complicity in Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Artsakh or its threats to Jerusalem’s historic Armenian Christian Quarter.
Instead of engaging these realities, the authors resort to ad hominem attacks, attempting to discredit the ANCA for speaking plainly about abuses against the world’s first Christian nation.
This is not a debate. It is an effort to chill free expression through smears and insinuation.
Why? Because they fear the ANCA.
They fear an Armenian American community that is informed, organized and unwilling to be silenced. They want Armenian Americans removed from Washington’s policy conversation — canceled for insisting on accountability, human rights and historical truth.
They will fail.
And, in the end, their hysteria will reveal far more about them than about us: more about their fears and our resolve; more about their lies and our truth.
Expressions of being “informed, organized and unwilling to be silenced” by ARF is in itself demonstration of fear. ARF accusations of alleged attempts to “silence” them is pure fiction. They seem to be “sensitive” against the deserved pushback by those who see a very suspicious alignment of ARF policies with that of the Kremlin.
If smear campaigns and sabotage against ANCA and the ARF by the Jewish lobby/Israel, were not bad enough, worse, it gets attacked and sabotaged by the arch-traitor and arch-saboteur Pashinyan and his unpatriotic supporters. It seems that Armenians are one’s own worst enemy. It makes the job of its external enemies so much easier, that they don’t even have to resort to their usual divide and conquer tactics.
Oh, c’mon Zaven. Are you really Armenian, or are you a Judas Tree?
Steve’s statement, “Armenians are one’s own worst enemy. It makes the job of its external enemies so much easier, that they don’t even have to resort to their usual divide and conquer tactics” is assured, given our post 1915 trauma and dispersal and restart from nothing.
Zaven seems to like to spout the same familiar narrative/trope exactly meant to silence and instill fear – and, y’know, Russia, Russia, Russia, we’re being too sensitive…sounds like Turkey in 1915 all over again. I guess when it comes to genocide, we are definitely attuned to its possibilities.
Meanwhile, Armenia is at stake as is the AAP. Then what’s left?
Armenians are located globally – even in (Russia). I love all my people, no matter where from. I think we can rise above Zaven’s myopic view to support the efforts of ANCA and hope Zaven will see the “Judeo/Christian” plot for what it is…outright evil and besieging Armenia.
In any case, genocide is UNACCEPTABLE. What is being done to Gaza is REPREHENSIBLE. Making Armenia the next proxy for the West, like Ukraine, is also REPREHENSIBLE. Wake up and join the movement. We are a global people and Armenia must pivot in several directions at once in whatever way possible. So it does require all of us. But do not ever say what most of us see is “fiction”.
ANCA is taking a stand against obvious attempts to silence the Diaspora. You have to be blind to not see.
Get noisier and repost the word to the unawakened faithful. Do not doubt for a moment that we are in an unholy war.