Israel recognises Armenian genocide: political reasons, moral policy

Israel’s cabinet decision to formally recognise the Armenian Genocide is one of those rare moments in which a government can act from questionable motives and still arrive at the right place.

The timing was clearly political. Israel did not suddenly discover the historical record. It did not need another century to study the death marches, massacres, forced conversions and destruction of Armenian life in the late Ottoman Empire. Nor did it need new evidence to understand what genocide scholars, historians and many democratic governments have long accepted: that the murder and deportation of Armenians during World War I constituted genocide. What changed was not history. What changed was Turkey.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar insisted that the decision was not an act of retaliation against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s hostility to Israel. But the context is impossible to ignore. Relations between Israel and Turkey have collapsed since October 7 and the war in Gaza. Erdogan has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide, deepened his confrontation with Jerusalem and positioned Turkey as an increasingly assertive regional rival, including in Syria.

That does not make Israel’s recognition wrong. It makes it overdue.

For decades, Israel avoided formal recognition because of diplomatic calculations. Governments in Jerusalem feared angering Turkey, once an important strategic partner, and later worried about the impact on Azerbaijan, a close security and energy partner that has fought repeated wars with Armenia. The moral case was always strong. The political appetite was not.

That is why this week’s decision matters. Israel may have recognised the Armenian Genocide for the wrong reasons, but it has still done the right thing.