After years of avoiding the issue to preserve ties with Turkey, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday acknowledged for the first time that he recognizes the Armenian genocide carried out during World War I by the precursor to modern-day Turkey, the Ottoman Empire. Netanyahu made the statement in an interview with American podcaster Patrick Bet-David. This comes amid ongoing diplomatic quarrels between Jerusalem and Ankara over the Gaza war, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowing to cut trade with Israel and recently imposing various restrictions on the Jewish state.
The host questioned why Israel, of all countries, had not recognized the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides, saying, that if there was "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, why haven't you yet recognized the Armenian Assyrian and the Greek genocide that the Turkish did to that community," Netanyahu answered that Israel has officially declared through its parliament, but he was also willing to state so himself.
"In fact, I think we have because I think the Knesset passed a resolution to that effect," Netanyahu said. The host pressed him to go a step further, saying, "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," to which Netanyahu responded, "Yeah, I just did, here you go."
The Armenian Genocide, also called the Armenian holocaust, was a deliberate and systematic campaign by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenian population in its territory, mainly in Anatolia. It involved mass killings, deportations, and death marches carried out under conditions designed to cause death.
After the end of World War I, Turks, Kurds, and Azeri Muslims continued killing Armenian Christians until 1923.
Historians estimate that about half the Armenian population of Turkey – between one million and one and a half million people – was wiped out. Other Christian minorities, including Assyrians and Pontic Greeks, were also slaughtered at the same time in what is known as the Assyrian genocide and the Pontic Greek genocide. Many scholars view these actions as part of a deliberate Ottoman policy to cleanse Asia Minor of Christians.
Haifa this year hosted a ceremony marking 110 years since the genocide. About 30 countries have officially recognized the events of that era as genocide. Most historians and researchers share this view. The European Union and the Pope also declared their recognition of the Armenian genocide in 2015.
Thee fate of the northern part of Cyprus, which has been effectively controlled by Turkey since the 1970s, has also been a source of friction between Israel and Turkey.
