Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu publicly stated on Tuesday, for the first time, that he acknowledges the Armenian Genocide that took place during World War I.
Netanyahu made these remarks during an interview on the PBD Podcast, hosted by Patrick Bet-David.
The discussion began when Bet-David drew a comparison between the widespread recognition of the Holocaust and the limited acknowledgment of the Armenian and Assyrian genocides.
“For anybody that doesn’t recognize Armenian-Assyrian genocide, if there’s any country that I would have expected to be on the list that recognized the Armenian and the Assyrian and the Greek genocide, it would be Israel,” Bet-David said.
Bet-David then pressed the Prime Minister directly, asking, “Why haven’t you yet recognized the Armenian, Assyrian and the Greek genocide that the Turkish did to that community?”
Netanyahu responded by saying, “In fact, I think we have, because I think the Knesset passed a resolution to that effect.”
However, Bet-David expressed doubt, questioning whether the recognition had ever come directly from the Prime Minister himself. “I don’t know if it’s come from you, though. I don’t know if it’s come from the prime minister of Israel,” he said.
Netanyahu then gave a clear and direct answer: “Yeah, I just did.”
For decades, Israel had avoided formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide due to its once-close relationship with Turkey. Those ties, however, have been severely strained since the outbreak of the war.
At one point, the Knesset had planned to hold a vote on formally acknowledging the World War I massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide. That vote was ultimately canceled, with then-Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg, who had initiated the proposal, explaining that the government opposed moving forward.
Armenians have long sought international recognition for the mass killings that took place between 1915 and 1917 under Ottoman rule, claiming that approximately 1.5 million Armenians were killed during that period.
Turkey, the modern successor to the Ottoman Empire, continues to reject the classification of the killings, deportations, and widespread suffering of Armenians as genocide, maintaining that the events of 1915 do not meet that definition.
Netanyahu’s decision to openly recognize the genocide comes at a time of heightened tensions, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has escalated his criticism of Israel since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Before the Hamas attacks on October 7, Israel and Turkey had been moving toward repairing their strained diplomatic ties.
In March, Erdogan lashed out at Israel, calling it a “terror state” following Israel’s unexpected strikes on terror-related targets in Gaza.
By June, the Turkish President went further, declaring that Netanyahu’s administration posed the “most significant threat” to stability and security across the Middle East.
{Matzav.com Israel}
