This past August, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made headlines when he acknowledged, for the first time, that what befell the Armenian people a century ago was indeed a genocide. As Israel’s premier, his words were momentous and long overdue.
But words, however powerful, are not enough. Israel must now take the next step and formally recognize the Armenian genocide. Anything less leaves us standing on shaky moral ground and sends the wrong message to friend and foe alike.
More than a century ago, the Ottoman Empire unleashed one of the most systematic campaigns of extermination in modern history. Between 1915 and 1923, approximately 1.5 million Armenians were murdered, deported, or left to die in the Syrian Desert. They were starved, beaten, and massacred solely because of their identity, and many of the survivors were compelled to convert to Islam.
The very term “genocide” – coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish jurist who lost most of his family in the Holocaust and was horrified by both the Armenian and Jewish tragedies – was born in part from the memory of that slaughter.
For Israel, a nation forged in the aftermath of the Holocaust, the moral imperative could not be clearer. To continue to equivocate or hide behind diplomatic hedging dishonors the very principles on which the State of Israel was founded.
No more geopolitcal concern
For years, successive Israeli governments justified their silence by citing geopolitical concerns. Though it may be hard to believe, Turkey was once a strategic ally, a Muslim state that recognized Israel, offered military cooperation, and served as a vital bridge to the broader Muslim world. To antagonize Ankara, we were told, would endanger critical defense and intelligence ties.
But that world no longer exists. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has become one of Israel’s loudest and most vicious adversaries. Erdogan regularly spews antisemitic invective, likens Israel to Nazi Germany, and in July 2024 he even threatened to attack the Jewish state.
Ankara has regularly hosted leaders of Hamas, which it refuses to recognize as a terrorist organization, and has reportedly allowed the group to carry out recruitment and fundraising on its territory.
So let us be clear: Israel owes Turkey nothing. Fear of offending a despot such as Erdogan cannot and must not dictate the moral compass of the Jewish state. Recognition of the Armenian genocide would not be a provocation; it would be a reaffirmation of principle that Israel’s conscience is not for sale to tyrants who glorify terrorism.
Azerbaijan-Armenia peace
Another reason that was often cited for Israel’s hesitation to recognize the Armenian genocide was its close partnership with Azerbaijan, a Muslim state that has served as an important strategic counterweight to Iran. Israel’s arms sales to, and energy imports from, Baku were viewed as too valuable to risk by taking a stand on Armenia’s tragic past.
But that calculus, too, has changed. With the signing of the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty, the decades-long conflict between the two countries over Nagorno-Karabakh is effectively over, thanks to US President Donald Trump. Israeli recognition of the Armenian genocide would therefore no longer endanger relations with Baku; indeed, it could even strengthen Israel’s standing as a moral and stabilizing force in the region.
Now that peace has been achieved between Yerevan and Baku, Israel has an opportunity to play the role of bridge-builder. By extending its hand to both nations, Israel could set an example that justice and diplomacy are not mutually exclusive.
The historical reason
Beyond politics, there is history. Armenians were among the first nations to embrace Christianity in the early 4th century; and from late antiquity onward, Armenian pilgrims and monks were a fixture in the Holy Land. The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, established in 1311, remains one of the city’s oldest continuous institutions. The Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem, with its ancient cathedral of St. James and its manuscript library, stands as a living testament to centuries of coexistence and mutual respect between two ancient peoples that have each known dispersion, exile, and survival against the odds.
During the British Mandate, Armenians and Jews lived side by side in Jerusalem and Haifa, artisans and merchants exchanging skills and stories. Even before 1948, Armenian craftsmen were renowned for the blue-glazed tiles that still adorn the walls of the Old City, including Hebrew inscriptions commissioned by Jewish patrons.
During World War I, Jewish aid workers in the Middle East helped Armenian refugees fleeing the Ottoman massacres. And when the Holocaust ravaged Europe, many Armenians, scarred by their own people’s suffering, offered solidarity to Jews facing the same abyss.
Throughout history, Jews and Armenians have recognized something of themselves in each other: small nations surrounded by larger hostile powers, bound by faith and memory, sustained by culture and perseverance. Both have endured expulsions, pogroms, and campaigns of extermination. Both have rebuilt their homelands from the ashes of catastrophe.
To recognize the Armenian genocide is not to diminish the Holocaust, which remains unique in its scale, intent, and industrialized cruelty, and will always be in a category of its own in human history. Rather, it is to affirm the universal moral lesson that when humanity turns a blind eye to mass murder, evil metastasizes.
Critics may argue that Israel gains nothing by inserting itself into a historical debate. But far from weakening Israel’s standing, recognition of the Armenian genocide would bolster it. It would signal to the world that Israel stands on the side of justice, not expediency. And it would remind our enemies that the Jewish state does not cower before bullies such as Erdogan.
The story of the Armenian people and its endurance in many ways mirrors our own. By recognizing its pain and acknowledging its suffering as genocide, Israel would demonstrate that moral courage need not come at the expense of national interest.
The writer served as deputy communications director under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.