Israel to Consider Formal Recognition of the Armenian Genocide

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will bring a government resolution to Israel’s cabinet at its next meeting calling for formal recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The proposal says that, on the basis of a “moral and historical duty,” Israel should recognize the genocide committed against the Armenian people in the late Ottoman Empire, and should condemn “denial, minimization or distortion” of the historical truth about those events.

The explanatory notes say the genocide began in April 1915, when hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, leaders and scholars were arrested, deported and killed in Constantinople. After the community leadership was eliminated, the Ottoman authorities moved to systematically destroy the wider population. Men were drafted into forced labor and murdered, while women, children and the elderly were expelled and sent on death marches into the Syrian desert, where they were subjected to mass killings, rape, starvation and thirst.

The proposal says those actions led to the deaths of about 1.5 million people and the destruction of thousands of years of cultural and historical heritage in Anatolia. It also says that, despite extensive and clear historical documentation, the genocide continues to face organized denial and minimization, including manipulative rewriting of history books, mainly by Turkey. According to the text, 32 countries have already recognized the genocide through parliamentary resolutions, legislation or official statements.

The move follows comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year, when he first publicly said in a podcast interview that he recognized the Armenian Genocide. That remark came amid a sharp deterioration in Israel-Turkey relations over the war in Gaza, after Turkey halted all trade with Israel. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also escalated his attacks on Israel, comparing Netanyahu to Hitler.