GENOCIDES GALORE

Israel Condemns the Armenian Genocide

Three weeks ago, righting a persisting “wrong,” Israel officially recognized the “Armenian Genocide.” For decades, Israeli commentators and left-wing politicians had been pressing successive Israeli governments to do so, to no avail - the governments serially prioritized Israel’s relations with Turkey, whose Ottoman rulers and their republican successor, Ataturk, had murdered more than one million Asia Minor Armenians during 1894-1924, most of them in 1915-1916, during the First World War. Turkey, contrary to almost consensual historiographic opinion in the West (though not in Turkey), has always vigorously denied the charge, claiming that its Armenian population had “betrayed” Turkey and made common cause with Turkey’s Allied enemies and rebelled behind the front lines. Most Western historians say this is en large a lie, but they concede that here and there groups of Armenians had helped the Allies. But most Armenians were butchered by the Turkish army, gendarmerie, police and citizenry, driven like sheep to the slaughter.

For decades, Israel treasured its relations with Turkey, which was the first – and for decades, the only - Muslim country to recognize the Jewish state and establish diplomatic relations with it (in 1949). In 1980 the two countries raised their relations to the ambassadorial level. Over the following decades, economic relations flourished as did Israeli tourism to Turkey, and Israel’s military industries helped modernize Turkey’s fighter jets and tanks while the two countries’ intelligence agencies shared information. The Israel Air Force (IAF) even trained in Turkish air space and Turkey’s newly-installed leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, went on an official visit to Jerusalem (in 2005).

But from that point on relations deteriorated and Erdogan, a Sunni Islamist, over the past months has accused Israel of committing “genocide” in the war in Gaza and has compared Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler.

Commentators say the downward spiral in relations was the result of Erdogan’s growing Islamic religiosity and Israel’s previous war with the Islamist Hamas in Gaza, during 2008-2009. Erdogan, prime minister and then president of Turkey since 2003, is now a major patron of Hamas, and Hamas operatives harboring in Turkey and, protected by Turkish security agencies, run terrorist cells and operations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israel repeatedly berated Erdogan’s accusations of “genocide” while he was busy denying Turkey’s very real genocidal past.

Following the Israeli cabinet’s genocide statement, Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan – often mentioned as the 70-year-old Erdogan’s likely successor - declared that Israel has become “a burden that humanity can no longer bear,” which Israeli officials interpreted as an oblique call for Israel’s disappearance.

But both countries have so far refrained from breaking off diplomatic relations and, it is rumored, Fidan even secretly visited Israel a few days ago to mollify Jerusalem.

Nonetheless, Israeli commentators believe that Erdogan, who is bent on restoring Turkey to the regional, hegemonic glory it enjoyed in its Ottoman heyday, is busy constructing a web of alliances with Sunni Muslim states that will imperil Israel down the road, much as Iran’s mobilization of Shi’ite Muslim groups – including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis - has over the past few years tightened a type of noose around the Jewish state, which led to Israel’s savaging of Hezbollah in 2024-2025 and Iran itself in 2025-2026. Turkish-Pakistani and Turkish-Saudi relations have recently improved.

Most dangerous, in Israel’s view, is Turkey’s patronage of Syria, led since December 2024 by Ahmed a Sharaa, the former al Qaeda officer who commanded the Sunni rebel forces that toppled the Iranian-backed Assad regime. Immediately after a Sharaa took over Damascus, Israel bombed Syria’s anti-aircraft defense systems and various Syrian army bases. Israel now fears that Turkey, which substantially helped a Sharaa topple Assad, is now bent on rebuilding Syria’s air defenses – radar networks and anti-aircraft missile batteries – which, once installed, will limit the IAF’s freedom of movement over Syria. For Israel this is critical as the IAF almost daily traversed Syria in its assaults on Iran’s nuclear sites, leadership, and military and industrial installations in its campaigns in June 2025 and February-April 2026. Joint Syrian-Turkish moves against the Kurds in northern Syria and the Turkish intercession with Trump against using the Kurds to topple the regime in Tehran have both angered Jerusalem. So has Turkish assistance, on various levels, to the Hamas in Gaza. But so far Israel has managed to bar the entry of Turkish troops or “advisors” into the bifurcated Strip.

Worrisomely in the background is US President Trump’s very public designation of Erdogan as a “great friend” and his “consideration” of selling Turkey American F-35s, the world’s most sophisticated fighter aircraft and a mainstay of the IAF. The combination of a refurbished Syrian air defense network, perhaps even manned by Turks soldiers, and a Turkish air force equipped with F-35s (in addition to their 270 F-16s) would imperil the IAF’s supremacy in the region’s skies. Turkey also seeks American engines for its projected fleet of advanced home-made TAI TF KAAN all-weather fighters.

So far, Trump has not assured Erdogan of F-35s - though at the press conference after meeting Trump in Ankara last week, Erdogan said that Trump had already promised him “five” aircraft (he didn’t say of what kind). Years ago, Turkey was listed among the countries designated to receive F-35s but after ignoring American warnings, Erdogan went ahead and purchased Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile batteries (instead of American equipment), Washington scratched Turkey off the list.

Netanyahu has publicly denounced the prospective F-35 deal and is privately trying to persuade Trump to back off. The death last week of US Senator Lindsay Graham, a strong Israel supporter, has not helped Netanyahu’s lobbying efforts. Trump may in the end accede to his “friend” Erdogan’s wishes but the actual delivery of F-35s to Turkey will probably take years. Trump will also likely require Congressional approval for the deal – and both Democrats and Republicans are not enamored with Erdogan’s behavior as an authoritarian dictator. But Israel’s generals are deeply worried about what may be in prospect.

Not everyone was happy with the Israeli announcement about the Armenian Genocide. In Baku, the Azerbaijan government condemned the decision, saying that the step was “unacceptable” and referred to alleged Armenian misdeeds against Baku during the past hundred or so years. And the Armenian government itself also kept its distance, obliquely referring to the expedient character of the Israeli move.

Israeli-Armenian relations have traditionally been frosty. Armenia has an embassy in Tel Aviv but Israel is represented in Yerevan by its embassy in Georgia. Armenia has traditionally tried to balance between Israel and the Palestinians. It recently recognized the “State of Palestine” and obliquely condemned Israel’s air campaigns against Iran. In recent years, Armenia has been trying to improve relations with both Turkey and Azerbaijan and has downplayed the genocide issue.

On the other hand, Azerbaijan and Israel have very good, multi-faceted relations. Most of Israel’s oil reportedly comes from Azerbaijan and Israel supplies the Azeris with military equipment, including air defense batteries. Israel reportedly has electronic listening posts in Azerbaijan, which neighbors Iran. During the recent Israeli-Iranian clashes, the Azeris kept a low profile, broadcasting “neutrality” (even though Iran fired one or two missiles towards Azerbaijan, probably designed as warning shots). Western newspapers reported during the Israeli-Iranian clashes that Israel had stationed commando units in Azerbaijan for use in extrication operations in the event of Israeli planes and pilots going down in Iran.

The Azeris are a Muslim Turkic people with strong ties to Turkey. The Azeris claim that, back in 1918, Russian-supported Armenians murdered thousands of Azeris in Baku. Subsequently it was reported that Azeris, backed by Turkey, massacred ten thousand or more Armenians in and around the city. In recent decades Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought two wars, in 1992-1994, a war won by Armenia, and in 2023, a war won by the Azeri army, equipped with Israeli-made drones. Azerbaijan then conquered the disputed Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh region and in effect expelled its 100,000 inhabitants to Armenia.

Like Israel, Greece (and the Greek-ruled half of Cyprus) are wary of Erdogan’s Ottomanist pretensions and expansionist ambitions. Senior Turkish politicians have over the past years threatened Greek islands in the Aegean with invasion (much as Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974).

And while Greece kept a low profile on the Israeli declaration about the Armenian Genocide, Greek scholars said that Israel should have used the opportunity also to condemn the “Greek Genocide.” Greek historians and commentators have long charged that during 1914-1924 Turkey massacred as many as a million Asia Minor Greeks alongside the slaughter of the Armenians and hundreds of thousands of Assyrian Christians. (Assyrian historians speak of half a million or more Assyrians butchered by the Turks.) (For an overview of Turkeys destruction of its various Christian communities during 1894-1924, you can do worse than read Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi, The Thirty -Year Genocide (Harvard University Press, 2019).)

Turkey is now emerging, in some Israeli eyes, as the “new Iran,” a demonic threat down the road. Certainly, on the rhetorical plane, the two countries are on a collision course – and Erdogan it is believed, genuinely hates Israel and would like to see it disappear. Until recently, Erdogan has been restrained by the calculation that attacking Israel will harm his relations with Washington. But the emergent Trump-Netanyahu rift, and Trump’s well-publicized fraternization with Erdogan, which many in Jerusalem explain as motivated by Trumpian economic consideration rather than real fellow-feeling, may tempt the Turkish leader to press ahead with concrete anti-Israeli measures. The recent statement by Turkey’s interior minister, Mustafa Ciftci, that “as we saw the liberation of Damascus and Aleppo [from Assad], so one day we will see the liberation of Jerusalem, and these places will again be ours,” has rung warning bells in official Israeli circles. But so far, Erdogan has held back from severing Turkey’s diplomatic ties with Israel.