On Sunday, the Israeli cabinet approved a proposal for formal recognition of the genocide, which now goes before the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, for a vote. This has sparked criticism in Turkey and Azerbaijan. For Armenians, it is a political move that reflects current tensions and conflicts. For Kegham Balian, an activist with “Save The ArQ,” Israel’s action is an “insult to the memory” of the 1.5 million murdered by the Ottoman Empire.
Milan (AsiaNews) – Kegham Balian, a prominent figure in Jerusalem’s Armenian community, has launched a frontal attack against the Israeli government after it decided to recognise the Armenian genocide.
For him, this is an “insult to the memory” of the approximately 1.5 million Armenians murdered by the Ottoman Empire. More than a century after the genocide, they are being used as a “bargaining chip” to fuel tensions with Turkey and anger its leaders.
A leading figure in the movement defending the Armenian Quarter of the Holy City, Balian has fought numerous battles for the rights of Christians and the defence of their property, like the long-running dispute over the Cows’ Garden (Goveroun Bardez).
“In 2020,” the activist writes on X, “during the 44 Day War, Israel, ALONGSIDE Turkey, supplied Azerbaijan with intelligence and cutting-edge weaponry, leading to the killing of 5,000 Armenian soldiers, culminating in the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), and the mass exodus of 150,000 Armenians from their 2,000-year-old homeland.” In light of this, “We will not allow the suffering of our people to be used for political weaponization.”
Israel and the (Armenian) genocide
On Sunday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s cabinet unanimously approved a bill formally recognising the Armenian genocide, sending the measure, introduced by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, to the Knesset for a vote.
The minister condemned efforts to deny or distort the historical record. “It’s never too late to do the right thing,” he said after the vote, calling recognition of the Armenian genocide “both a moral and historical duty”.
If approved by the Knesset, the official recognition would put an end to decades of silence and disinterest on the issue, especially given the strategic relations, at least in the past, with Turkey and Azerbaijan.
The issue has been discussed in Israel for years, with individual lawmakers, cabinet ministers, and parliamentary committees expressing timid support for recognition.
A relatively small group of Israeli politicians, academics, and intellectuals has long argued that the country had a moral obligation to take a step toward recognition. However, no government or government body has yet approved an official proposal to this effect.
By contrast, Turkey continues to deny that the systematic mass killings, deportations, and persecution of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire constitute “genocide”.
Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, citing the mass killing of Armenians as one of the defining events that led to develop the concept.
Israel Charny, founder of the Jerusalem Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, is among those who have called for recognition beyond convenience or political contingency, forcefully criticising Israel’s official public policy, calling it a form of denial.
In 2001, he publicly rebuked then-Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres for referring to the tragic events of 1915 as “Armenian allegations”, and for believing that they did not constitute genocide and should not be compared to the Holocaust.
In 2000, Yair Auron, another leading scholar, published the book The Banality of Denial, in which he examined Israeli governments’ refusal to acknowledge the Armenian genocide in order to preserve relations with Turkey.
For over 20 years, some Knesset members have sought (in vain) to recognise the Armenian genocide, with the left-wing Meretz party playing a leading role.
Beginning in 2008, its then-leader Haim Oron succeeded in placing the issue on a committee agenda for the first time, but years of hearings have yielded no results. In 2016, his successor, MK Zehava Galon, noted how, “Year after year, we give false hope to those gathered here.”
On that occasion, the Education Committee approved a non-binding recognition of the genocide, although the measure was not adopted by all Knesset members.
The Turkish-Azeri front
Since the start of the war in Gaza in 2023 and Turkey’s repeated accusations that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, some Israeli officials have increasingly invoked the Armenian issue to attack Ankara and the Turkish government.
As early as January 2024, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared that the country was presenting legal evidence to support South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded by turning the tables.
Accusing Turkey of hypocrisy as “a country with the Armenian genocide in its past,” he harshly attacked his Turkish rival: “We remember the Armenians, the Kurds. Your history speaks for itself.”
However, for Armenians, this sudden shift in rhetoric from senior Israeli ministers and officials appears more like a political move driven by cynicism and self-interest than a true acknowledgement.
In this regard, Jerusalem-based Armenian activist Setrag Balian, co-founder of the Save The ArQ movement, which advocates for the preservation of the Old City’s Armenian neighbourhood, claims that Israel is simply weaponising the Armenian genocide against Turkey in response to its accusations of Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Among those who have criticised the Israeli leadership’s “self-interested” choice is Azerbaijan, which had forged a deep alliance over the years with Israel, calling it a “distortion of historical facts” by the Netanyahu government.
The South Caucasian country, which has close ties with Israel and has repeatedly fought with neighbouring Armenia, especially over control of Nagorno-Karabakh, has taken a position similar to Turkey’s.
“The decision by the Israeli government concerning the so-called ‘Armenian genocide’ is a matter of serious concern,” reads a statement by the Azerbaijani foreign ministry. “The distortion of the historical facts surrounding the events of 1915, and the reduction of a complex historical issue to a political decision without a sound legal or scholarly basis, are unacceptable.”
For the Azerbaijani government, “Such actions do not contribute to reconciliation or mutual understanding. Instead, they deepen existing divisions and undermine efforts to achieve lasting peace and stability in the region. We call on the Israeli government to reconsider this decision.”
Armenians: abuses and violations
In the triangle between Israel, Turkey, and Azerbaijan, what remains are the Armenian people in the Holy Land and in their homeland, with the government in Yerevan greeting the Jewish state’s move with silence and coldness, to put it mildly.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that he feels no need to respond to Israel’s decision and the reactions of regional countries, adding that he does not intend to turn the genocide into a political weapon because it is not in his country’s interest.
Armenian Christians in the Holy Land, however, remember the long list of persecutions and violations of religious freedom that they have recently experienced, with an escalation in the number of attacks.
Hagop Djernazian, leader of the Armenian community in Jerusalem, said that “Israel had the opportunity to recognize the Armenian Genocide on moral grounds, but Israel missed that opportunity.”
According to the Religious Freedom Data Center, anti-Christian intolerance is on the rise, with around 100 incidents recorded in the first six months of 2026 alone, with the overall number for the whole year expected to exceed the 181 cases reported in 2025.
The incidents include spitting, verbal abuse, vandalism, grave desecration, and graffiti, mostly in Jerusalem’s Old City, near Mount Zion, and the Armenian Patriarchate.
The Armenian Quarter is the smallest of the four that make up the Old City, covering around 14 per cent of the total area. Located in the southwestern corner of the Old City, it is accessible through the Zion Gate (Bab al-Nabi Dahoud) and the Jaffa Gate (Bab al-Khalil).
The Cows’ Garden, a plot of land owned by the patriarchate that was the target of an attempted expropriation for a settler settlement, is among the most emblematic examples of violations in recent years.
Observers note that Armenians also live under Israeli occupation and face a critical struggle for survival due to, not only to Jewish fanatics, but also to the decisions of corrupt clerics who care more about their own interests than the future of the community.