The Road to Israel’s Recognition of the Armenian Genocide Is Paved With Secrets and Lies
The Wire, IndiaIf Israel is finally prepared to recognize the Armenian genocide, it should also acknowledge its own decades-long role in denying it.
On April 24, 1915, the rulers of the crumbling Ottoman Empire launched the destruction of the Armenian people. In less than four years, more than one million Armenians were murdered, while the survivors were scattered across the globe. Men, women, and children were forced onto death marches, imprisoned in concentration camps, raped, and killed. The late professor Yehuda Bauer, one of the world’s foremost Holocaust historians, argued that despite important differences between the two events, the Armenian genocide is history’s closest parallel to the Holocaust.
For decades, Israeli Foreign Ministry denied the genocide
On June 25, 2026, in a surprise announcement, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar declared in a post on X that he would ask the government to formally recognise the Armenian genocide at its next meeting.
The proposed resolution, which the Israeli government approved on June 28, will now be brought to a vote in the Knesset. It states that “despite extensive and unequivocal historical documentation, the Armenian genocide remains the target of an organised campaign of denial and minimisation, including the manipulative rewriting of history books, primarily by the Turkish government.” It therefore argues that “in light of the moral and historical obligation, the Government of Israel should recognise the genocide committed against the Armenian people in the final years of the Ottoman Empire,” and calls on Israel to condemn “any attempt to deny, minimise, or distort the historical truth of these events.”
Yet for decades, it was Israel’s own Foreign Ministry that denied those events constituted genocide. It established Israel’s official position that the Armenian people had suffered a “tragedy,” but not a genocide. Consistent with that policy, the ministry blocked repeated efforts in the Knesset – led primarily by the left-wing Meretz party – to secure official recognition.
The ministry’s refusal reflected geopolitical priorities. During the 20th century, it was driven by concern for relations with Turkey. In the 21st century, Azerbaijan – locked in conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh – became an additional consideration. The Foreign Ministry reaffirmed that position before Israel’s Supreme Court in February 2020 during freedom of information litigation that I pursued with genocide scholar professor Yair Auron.
For Israel, the issue centered on strategic, political, and security partnerships with two Muslim-majority states, both of which have purchased billions of dollars’ worth of Israeli weapons. Even after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to power and relations with Turkey deteriorated, Israel chose not to burn its remaining bridges, hoping instead that Turkey’s leadership would eventually change.
Israeli foreign minister’s refusal to describe the events as genocide
Until last week, Minister Sa’ar himself rejected describing the events as genocide. When I asked him about his position in April 2025, he replied: “The Foreign Ministry’s position has not changed. Israel has never denied the tragedy and the suffering of the Armenian people during World War I.” In other words, he continued to define the events only as a “tragedy.”
Minister Sa’ar’s reversal appears driven less by a reassessment of history than by political necessity. With uncertainty over whether prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will honour promises to place him near the top of the Likud list in the next election, Sa’ar, like other potential primary contenders, appears eager to thrust himself into the public spotlight by provoking a direct confrontation with president Erdoğan.
But the minister’s political manoeuvring is matched by something equally troubling: the role of the Foreign Ministry officials who drafted the proposed resolution.
For decades, the ministry did not merely deny that the Armenian genocide was a genocide. It actively participated in a global campaign of denial, institutional minimisation, and historical revisionism. That record is documented in diplomatic cables released by the Israel State Archives.
Among them are cables from the early 1970s showing senior Foreign Ministry officials working to derail film adaptations of Franz Werfel’s novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, which chronicles the Armenian genocide, particularly a production starring the Jewish actor and Oscar nominee Chaim Topol.
Cables from the 1980s reveal that the ministry also sought to prevent Jewish communities – especially in the United States, France, and Argentina – from developing ties with Armenian communities or participating in Armenian genocide commemorations. On July 8, 1987, the head of the ministry’s Diaspora Affairs Department wrote: “Israel has no interest in appearing publicly as an opponent of Armenian activity. But in principle we do have an interest in preventing the proliferation of ‘Holocausts,’ which would only blur the uniqueness of the great Jewish Holocaust… There is also the matter of Turkish sensitivities and their expectation that we assist them against the Armenians… It seems to me there is neither historical nor moral justification for Jews to initiate or actively support the Armenian Holocaust. Accordingly, we agree that every effort should be made, with the utmost discretion, to prevent conscious Jewish mobilisation on behalf of the Armenian Holocaust, including the establishment of memorials and similar initiatives.”
How Israel worked to keep the Armenian genocide out of museums
The ministry also worked to keep the Armenian genocide out of museums. Israeli officials, for example, pressured planners of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles to exclude the subject from exhibits and memorials.
A series of diplomatic cables documents an intense campaign targeting the US Holocaust Memorial Museum while it was still being planned. In a cable dated March 4, 1988, Foreign Ministry deputy director General Yitzhak Lior wrote: “Our examination, following the Turkish approach to us, found that Armenian groups in the United States have indeed hitched a ride on the Holocaust Museum. Through this ideal way, they are inserting their cause directly into the heart of Washington’s National Mall.”
Lior described the pressure campaign against museum officials: “We exerted heavy pressure on our interlocutors. We argued that the Holocaust Museum would become the only controversial site on the Mall. It would become a focal point of dispute rather than a universally Jewish asset. The Turks would never accept it. Turkish Jewry would protest that their American brethren had equated the country that treated them well with the Nazis. It is unclear what interest we have in opening such a Pandora’s box. What do we have to do with the Turkish-Armenian conflict? By what right do we dilute the Holocaust with other historical controversies? Why should we serve as a substitute for an Armenian museum if they wish to establish one?… We have created an opposition bloc within the board that will now fight for a ‘clean museum.’ At its head is ADL Chairman Abe Foxman, who intends to inform the management officially that if the Armenian issue is included, he will resign and publicly explain why. This information must remain absolutely confidential.”
As a compromise, Lior proposed that “the Armenian issue be mentioned only in one of the temporary exhibitions, so that once it closes, the museum itself will remain clean.”
The released cables also show that the Foreign Ministry actively sought to derail parliamentary votes recognising the Armenian genocide around the world.
On Aug. 7, 1987, Israel’s deputy ambassador in Washington, Oded Eran, reported that a proposal to establish an Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day had been defeated in Congress. Two days later, Lior asked him to recommend “the areas in which, despite the extreme caution you exercised, we might take credit.” Eran replied: “I suggest we avoid specifics so as not to face pressure in the future. Some of those involved also do not wish to be identified.”
In another cable dated August 11, 1987, Israel’s mission in Ankara reported that “the Turkish press continued to cover the defeat of the Armenian proposal while mentioning the role played by the Jews in bringing it about.”
That same day, the head of the mission, Yehuda Millo, reported that a senior member of Turkey’s Jewish community had called “to thank us for our assistance and swift intervention. He said he made sure people here knew about it.” Two days later, Millo wrote that a senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official “thanked us for our assistance in Washington. I elaborated and stressed that what had been done involved considerable difficulties… She responded that they understood and appreciated it.”
Why the resolution is misleading and false
When the European Parliament recognized the Armenian genocide on June 18, 1987, Millo reported telling a senior Turkish official that “our intervention on your behalf… was exceptional both in our willingness to act and in the risks we assumed given the controversy surrounding the issue in Israel and throughout the Jewish world.” The Turkish official thanked Israel, saying that “a considerable number of members of parliament, both Jewish and non-Jewish, had changed their votes following our efforts and theirs.”
In a separate memorandum, Millo concluded: “We made major efforts on their behalf. In the final stages, we took actions that involved significant exposure. We did not encounter any other actor operating on their behalf… We made an extraordinary and exceptional policy decision… Fortunately, the matter has not become public thus far.”
Not everyone involved was comfortable with the campaign. In a cable dated Aug. 12, 1987, Israel’s deputy ambassador in Washington, Oded Eran, wrote: “I suddenly found myself with a very uncomfortable feeling – working against an attempt to establish a remembrance day for the genocide of the Armenian people, whatever the circumstances. It is not fitting for a representative of the Jewish state to be engaged in this.”
That is why the resolution drafted by minister Sa’ar and the Foreign Ministry is misleading – and, indeed, false. If Israel is finally prepared to recognize the Armenian genocide, it should also acknowledge its own decades-long role in denying it. It should apologize to the Armenian people and publicly confront its own efforts to deny, minimize, and distort the historical record.
Eitay Mack is an Israeli lawyer and human rights activist.
