To spite Erdogan: Israel, a century later, remembered its “moral duty” to the Armenians • DOSH • RIMA

To spite Erdogan: Israel, a century later, remembered its “moral duty” to the Armenians

The Israeli government unanimously supported the proposal to recognize the mass extermination of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War as genocide. The author of the initiative was the country's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.

The decision was made at a cabinet meeting on Sunday 28 June. Next, the document must be ratified by parliament.

“It’s never too late to take the right step,” Saar emphasized after the vote.

According to him, the country fulfilled its moral duty to historical truth with this decision.

“In my opinion, this is our moral duty as Jews and, of course, as a state of the Jewish people,” the diplomat said.

The move could lead to a new round of tension between Israel and Turkey, which considers itself a successor state to the Ottoman Empire. Back in 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became the first head of the Israeli government to publicly call the Armenian tragedy genocide.

For many years, Israel avoided official recognition of these events, despite repeated discussions in parliament. According to observers, one of the main reasons was the reluctance to complicate relations with Ankara. However, due to Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip, relations between the two countries completely fell apart, effectively ending long-term cooperation. In 2023, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of “genocide” against the Palestinians.

According to the prevailing view in world historiography, approximately 1.5 million Armenians were killed in the Ottoman Empire in 1915–1916 as a result of systematic persecution and extermination. Türkiye consistently rejects the definition of these events as genocide, although it acknowledges the mass deaths of Armenians during the First World War. Ankara has repeatedly stated its readiness to open the archives of that period and create a joint commission of historians to study the events of 1915 and develop a general historical assessment of them.