FM to propose cabinet resolution to officially recognize Ottoman genocide of Armenians

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar plans to propose on Sunday a cabinet resolution to officially recognize the genocide against the Armenian people during the final years of the Ottoman Empire, his office says, in a move that will no doubt provoke diplomatic rival Turkey.

Armenians have long sought international recognition of the killings in the early 20th century, which reportedly left some 1.5 million of their people dead, as a genocide. Turkey — the Ottoman Empire’s successor state — strongly rejects the allegation that the massacres, imprisonment and forced deportation of Armenians amounted to genocide.

Israel long avoided recognizing the killings as genocide due to the diplomatic sensitivity of the matter, but the sharp deterioration of relations with Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, has led it to take certain steps toward recognition in recent years. Last August, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said for the first time that he recognized the genocide.

“Despite extensive and unequivocal historical documentation, the Armenian Genocide remains the subject of an organized campaign of denial and minimization, including the manipulative rewriting of history books, primarily by Turkey,” the explanatory text for the proposal says.

“In light of this moral and historical obligation, it is proposed that the Government of Israel recognize the genocide committed against the Armenian people during the final years of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, given ongoing attempts to blur, minimize, or deny the atrocities of the Armenian Genocide, the proposal calls for condemning all efforts to distort the historical truth of these events.”