Knesset To Debate Recognition Of Armenian Genocide

The Knesset approved a motion submitted by Meretz chairwoman Tamar Zandberg Wednesday to hold a debate to officially recognize the Armenian genocide. The motion passed by 16-0.

While support for change of Israel’s traditional policy on the issue comes against the backdrop of escalating tensions between Israel and Turkey in recent months –  that reached boiling point as dozens of Palestinian rioters were shot dead on the Gaza-Israel border on May 14 with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expelling Israel’s ambassador  Eitan Na’eh and threatening to downgrade economic ties  – Zandberg said the recognition of the Armenian genocide shouldn’t be linked with politics.

“There are things beyond diplomacy. The Holocausts of people fall into this category, ” Zandberg said. “The failure to recognize the Armenian genocide is a moral stain on the State of Israel, all the more so because it is down to political interests. The disasters that befall another people are not something to be traded in, not when one is opposed and not when one wants to stick a finger in the eye of one leader or the other. There are in this house those that have turned the issue into a political hatchet.”

Israel has traditionally refrained from officially recognize the Armenian Genocide – in which some 1,500,000 Armenians were massacred at the hands of the Ottoman Turkish government a century ago –  in order not to risk its ties with the Turkish state. The Armenian Genocide has been recognized by 29 countries, including Canada, Russia, France and Germany.

Meretz has been at the forefront of the battle for Israeli recognition of the Armenian genocide since the days of former Minister of Absorption Yair Zaban when he participated for the first time in Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day in 1993.  In 2000, Meretz education Minister Yossi Sarid called on the Israeli government to officially recognize the genocide in an event marking its 85th anniversary at an Armenian Church in Jerusalem and in 2011, former Meretz leader Haim Oron proposed a motion to hold a debate that wasn’t accepted.

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid also proposed a bill to recognize the Armenian genocide earlier this year, but it was voted down in February.

However, last week, several coalition MKs announced their support for recognizing the Armenian genocide in response to the measures taken by Erdogan.

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, a member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud Party, said “there is no reason, morally or historically, not to recognize the Armenian genocide… our relations with Turkey are complex.”

According to Hay Eytan Cohen Yanorocak, an expert in contemporary Turkish politics and modern Turkish history at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University Turkey, who spoke with  TPS last week, the move to declare an annual memorial day to mourn the Armenian Genocide by Ottoman forces – a red flag for the Turks – would likely spell the end of Israel’s diplomatic relations with Turkey.

“Passing this bill would be the end of relations (with Turkey)” he said. “Not only diplomatic ties, but would also deliver a stiff blow to economic ties between the countries, which have remained strong in recent years despite the political arguments.”

The debate will be held at an unspecified date in the future.