Israel’s government votes unilaterally to formally recognize Ottoman Empire’s mass murder of Armenians as an act of genocide, ending a long-standing policy intended to avoid diplomatic friction with Turkey.By World Israel News StaffThe Israeli government voted Sunday to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide, marking a historic shift after decades in which Jerusalem avoided an official designation over concerns about damaging ties with Turkey.The resolution, advanced by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, was approved by the cabinet and is now expected to be brought before the Knesset plenum for approval.“Recognizing the genocide perpetrated against the Armenian people in the final years of the Ottoman Empire is both a moral and historical duty,” Sa’ar said when announcing the proposal last week. “We must also firmly condemn any denial, minimization, or distortion of the historical truth.”The proposal was approved unanimously.Sa’ar told ministers during the government meeting: “It is never too late to do the right thing.”The move comes amid sharply deteriorated relations between Israel and Turkey, whose president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been one of Israel’s fiercest international critics since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack and the war in Gaza.Erdogan has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide and war crimes, while Israel has accused him of embracing Hamas and exploiting the Palestinian issue for political purposes.Turkey, the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, rejects the genocide designation, saying the deaths of Armenians during World War I occurred amid civil conflict, deportations and wartime conditions, not as part of a systematic extermination campaign.Many historians and more than 30 countries have recognized the killing and deportation of Armenians as genocide.The explanatory text accompanying Sa’ar’s proposal says the genocide has been extensively documented but remains the target of an organized campaign of denial.“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 proposal reads.“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.”The mass killings began in 1915, during the final years of the Ottoman Empire, with the arrest and deportation of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. It was followed by mass killings, forced deportations, death marches and starvation.Armenians say around 1.5 million people were killed.Israel has long wrestled with whether to formally recognize the genocide.Israeli lawmakers, academics and public figures have repeatedly called for recognition, arguing that the Jewish state has a special moral obligation to acknowledge genocide against other peoples.Successive governments, however, declined to adopt an official position, largely because of Israel’s relations with Turkey and, at times, Azerbaijan.The Knesset Education Committee recognized the Armenian Genocide in 2016, and the issue has come up several times in parliamentary debates.But until now, Israel had not adopted recognition as an official government position.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an August 2025 interview that he personally recognized the Armenian Genocide, telling interviewer Patrick Bet-David, “I just did,” when asked why no Israeli prime minister had done so. At the time, however, his statement did not amount to formal recognition by the State of Israel.The United States formally recognized the Armenian Genocide in 2021, when then-President Joe Biden said the US honored “all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today.” Turkey condemned the move.The measure still requires Knesset approval before becoming fully formalized in Israeli law.The post Israel officially recognizes the Armenian Genocide appeared first on World Israel News.