The State of Israel has joined, with great fanfare, the select list of 32 countries that already recognize the Armenian genocide, that open wound in the collective memory of a people who, for more than a century, have fought to ensure that the world does not forget the massacre perpetrated under the rule of the Young Turks during World War I.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s proposal was unanimously approved by the cabinet and now awaits only parliamentary ratification, a procedure that feels like a mere formality because the decision has already been made, the stone has already been thrown, and the fuse has already been lit.
As expected, in Jerusalem, the Armenian Church and the Armenian community in the Holy City expressed their gratitude, that automatic, almost ceremonial gesture in response to a recognition that had been denied them for decades, but which now arrives as a poisoned gift, like a hug that squeezes too tight, because everyone knows, or should know, that this is not an act of historical justice, but a long-range missile launched against Turkish sensibilities in the midst of a war of narratives that is anything but holy.
Because the question that no one dares to ask out loud but that everyone whispers in the corridors of diplomacy is: Why now? Why precisely at this moment, when Netanyahu’s government is being brought before the International Court of Justice on charges of genocide in Gaza? Why now, when images of malnourished Palestinian children and bombed-out hospitals are circulating around the world and staining Israel’s image with blood that is anything but metaphorical? The answer is as cynical as it is predictable: Israel has decided that the best defense is a good offense, and what better offense than to dig up the corpse of the Armenian genocide to spit it in Erdogan’s face, just as the Turkish president has cast himself as the fiercest accuser of the Israeli campaign in Gaza.
For decades, successive Israeli governments maintained a prudent silence on this issue, a silence calculated to avoid straining relations with a strategic regional power like Turkey, a NATO member and, until not long ago, a major commercial and military partner. But that silence has been broken, not because of an ethical awakening, but because the relationship with Ankara is already so rotten, so poisoned by the personal feuds between Netanyahu and Erdogan, because of the differences over Syria, Turkey’s support for Hamas, and the competition for hegemony in the Eastern Mediterranean, there is nothing left to lose. If Turkey is going to brand Israel as a perpetrator of genocide, Israel will respond by calling Turkey itself a perpetrator of genocide, even if that means using the suffering of the Armenians as nothing more than a battering ram, just another bullet in its diplomatic arsenal.
Ankara’s reaction was not long in coming, and the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has described the decision as “political” and a crude attempt to “cover up its own crimes,” recalling that Israel faces proceedings at the International Court of Justice over the war in Gaza. And they are not wrong, because the Israeli maneuver is as transparent as it is pathetic: acknowledging a historical genocide to divert attention from the contemporary genocide being committed just a few hundred kilometers away, while hospitals run out of electricity and trucks carrying humanitarian aid wait at the border.
Erdogan, in his role as Israel’s scourge, has declared at a party event that “a genocide has been committed” in Gaza and that “without a doubt we will hold them accountable for it,” and Netanyahu, in his role as the misunderstood martyr, responds by pointing to Turkish support for Hamas and Ankara’s hostile rhetoric, as if that justified the bombing of schools and the starvation of a trapped civilian population.
It is the battle of the titans of cynicism, a mud-wrestling match where both hurl the filth of other people’s pain at each other, and where the real victims, the Armenians of 1915 and the Palestinians of 2024, are mere spectators forced to watch their suffering become ammunition for the ego war of two leaders who have nothing of statesmen and everything of schoolyard bullies.
But Israeli hypocrisy does not stop with Turkey, because it also splatters Azerbaijan, that strategic ally with whom Israel maintains a relationship as solid as it is lethal. Baku, which along with Ankara refuses to label the massacre of Armenians as genocide due to its conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, has expressed its “deep concern” over the Israeli decision and has asked Jerusalem to reconsider its stance.
But, and here is the great contradiction that lays bare the farce, despite the words of rejection, the strategic relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan remains as solid as ever:
Tel Aviv continues to be one of Baku’s main arms suppliers, and Azerbaijan continues to supply a significant portion of the oil that Israel consumes. In other words, the recognition of the Armenian genocide has not moved a single needle on the real chessboard of the Caucasus, because Israel knows perfectly well that its alliance with Baku is far more valuable than any symbolic gesture toward Yerevan, and that it can afford the luxury of offending Armenians with one hand while with the other it continues to arm their executioners. It is moral schizophrenia turned into foreign policy, the ability to hold two completely contradictory discourses without flinching, knowing that the world is so accustomed to its double standard that it barely even registers surprise.
And in the middle of this geopolitical quagmire, the Armenians, both those of the diaspora and those of the Republic, find themselves in a position as ridiculous as it is despairing. The Armenian community in Jerusalem has thanked the recognition, as could not be otherwise, but Pashinyan’s government has been notably cold, stating that it sees “no need to respond” and refusing to celebrate what should be a historical victory. That coldness is the most eloquent response:
Yerevan knows that Israeli recognition will not return a single meter of the territories lost in Nagorno-Karabakh, will not stop the military alliance between Israel and Azerbaijan, and will not guarantee its security in the face of Turkish hostility. It is an empty gesture, a firework that lights up for an instant but warms nothing, and which moreover arrives stained by the blood of Gaza, by the Israeli bombs that continue to fall on a people that also cries out for justice and recognition for its own ongoing genocide. Because how can Armenians embrace a recognition that comes from a State that is being accused in The Hague of committing the very same crime they suffered? How can they feel honored when the executioner of Gaza sets himself up as judge over Turkish history?
This Israeli move is, at its core, nothing more than a geopolitical mirage, a smoke screen that fools no one except perhaps the most naive. By joining the countries that recognize the Armenian genocide, Israel is not winning any real battle, but rather showing the world its desperation to shift the focus of attention, its inability to defend its own conduct in Gaza, and its decision to set fire to the regional chessboard rather than admit that it has lost the moral high ground. The decision can be interpreted as a turning point in Israeli foreign policy, yes, but not toward greater ethical coherence, rather toward greater belligerence and cynicism, where historical memory becomes a projectile weapon and principles become a tailored suit that is put on or taken off depending on which enemy one wishes to harm.
And in the end, the only thing that becomes clear is that, for Israel, recognition of the Armenian genocide is not an act of justice, but an act of war against Turkey, and that the Armenians, once again, are the great losers in this story, used as pawns on a board they do not control, forced to accept a recognition that tastes of ash because it comes from a hand stained with rubble and contemporary blood. That is the great tragedy, and the great shame, of this diplomatic farce that the world applauds without understanding, or that it understands all too well and prefers to look the other way.
