Israel to Consider Official Recognition of the Armenian Genocide

Foreign Minister Gideon Saar will bring a draft resolution to the government’s upcoming meeting seeking official Israeli recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The proposal says Israel should act out of moral and historical duty, and should also condemn denial, minimization, or distortion of the historical record. It would mark a formal policy shift if approved.

The explanatory note says the genocide began in April 1915, when the Ottoman authorities arrested, deported, and killed hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, leaders, and scholars in Constantinople. After the community leadership was destroyed, the Ottoman government carried out a systematic campaign against the wider population. Men were drafted into forced labor and murdered, while women, children, and the elderly were sent on death marches into the Syrian desert, where they were exposed to mass murder, rape, and deliberate starvation and thirst.

According to the proposal, about 1.5 million people were killed and thousands of years of cultural and historical heritage in Anatolia were destroyed. It says the genocide remains the target of an organized campaign of denial and minimization, including manipulative rewriting of history books, mainly by Turkey. The draft therefore calls on Israel both to recognize the genocide and to denounce any attempt to distort the historical truth.

So far, 32 countries have recognized the Armenian Genocide through parliamentary decisions, legislation, or official statements. Saar’s move comes amid rising tensions between Turkey and Israel, after reports that the Israel Defense Forces are worried about Donald Trump’s stated intention to sell Turkey F-35 stealth jets. A senior officer told Channel 13 that the move could seriously threaten the Air Force’s freedom of action. Trump also revealed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had once considered joining the fighting alongside Iran. Two weeks ago, Erdogan said Israeli attacks in Syria and Lebanon had reached the point of threatening Turkey too, and warned that Israel’s actions in the Mediterranean were also hostile.