Diverse reactions have followed the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Israel’s Cabinet of Ministers on June 28, 2026.
Here are some basic facts to clarify the confusion:
After decades of denial and evasion, the Israeli government finally issued a statement recognizing the Armenian Genocide. The prolonged delay was shameful and immoral, particularly for a people who were themselves victims of genocide. To make matters worse, the Israeli government colluded with Turkey’s denialist policies for years by urging major Jewish American organizations to block U.S. congressional attempts to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
It is obvious why Israel did not recognize the genocide before and why it is recognizing it now. It has nothing to do with the facts of the Armenian Genocide. Countries base their policy decisions on their national interests, not emotional or moral considerations. Condemning Israel for recognizing the Armenian Genocide overlooks that important political reality. Israel did not recognize the Armenian Genocide until it believed that doing so aligned with its interests, just as the more than 30 other countries that have recognized it.
The next misunderstanding comes from Armenians who ask, “What has the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by foreign countries given us?” It is unrealistic to expect that the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by any country will force Turkey to acknowledge it, pay restitution for Armenian losses and return Western Armenia!
Genocide recognition is a symbolic act with several more realistic benefits:
- It continually reminds the world that the horrible crime of genocide was committed against the Armenian nation. More than a century later, it continues to haunt Turkish denialists. Wherever Turkish leaders go around the world, they are confronted with the mass murders of their ancestors.
- It brings a degree of satisfaction to the descendants of the victims by affirming that their tragedy has not been forgotten. Denial adds insult to injury.
- It answers Hitler’s notorious question: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Hitler’s erroneous belief was one of the reasons that encouraged him to plan the Holocaust.
- By not forgetting the genocide, Armenians will keep alive the hope that someday, in the distant future, when geopolitical circumstances change in the region, Armenians may have the chance to reclaim their losses.
- Each time a country recognizes the Armenian Genocide, thousands of news reports appear in the international media publicizing Turkey’s mass crimes. The Turkish government has wasted billions of dollars over the years trying to bury the issue, to no avail.
- Regardless of what motivated Israel or any other country to recognize the Armenian Genocide, Armenians should only consider their own interests.
- It is in Armenia’s strategic interest to take advantage of the growing diplomatic rift between Turkey, Israel and Azerbaijan. A possible indication of such a rift is the departure of Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Israel back to Baku last week.
Let us now turn to those who have reacted to Israel’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide with dismissal or outright denial.
Turkey: After 111 years of denial, the Turkish government continues to waste its time and resources denying the undeniable. The Turkish Foreign Ministry issued an evasive statement in response to Israel’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide. It accused Israel of committing atrocities in Gaza, which do not absolve the Turkish government of its own mass murders of millions of Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks. Furthermore, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated an obvious lie: “In our thousands of years of history, there is no genocide, no massacre, no oppression, and no colonialism.” The Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey have been in existence for far less than 1,000 years, during which they have committed massacres, oppression, colonialism and multiple genocides.
President Erdogan is also falsely claiming to be the defender of the Palestinian people. For decades, Turkey enjoyed a strong military alliance with Israel, sold billions of dollars’ worth of goods to it and allowed the transshipment of massive amounts of Azeri oil to Israel, helping fuel the war in Gaza, which has resulted in the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Azerbaijan: Even though Azerbaijan has committed its own mass crimes against Armenians, it is now making itself complicit in the Armenian Genocide of 1915 by participating in its denial. Azerbaijan is also no friend of the Palestinians. It pays Israel billions of dollars to purchase weapons and is Israel’s largest oil supplier.
The Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan issued a statement last week expressing “serious concern” about Israel’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide, urging the Israeli government to reconsider the decision. The most ridiculous part of Baku’s statement is: “Azerbaijan remains firmly committed to upholding historical truth, respecting the principles of international law, and promoting lasting peace and stability in the region.”
It is shameful that Rabbi Shneur Segal, chief rabbi of the Ashkenazi Jewish community of Azerbaijan, wrote a letter asking the Knesset not to recognize the Armenian Genocide. How can a man of God reject the truth and oppose its recognition? It is obvious that Azerbaijan’s government is pressuring its local Jewish community to carry out pro-Azeri and pro-Turkish propaganda.
Northern Cyprus: A Mickey Mouse “republic,” recognized only by its occupying power, Turkey, has no standing to make a statement on any subject. Its baseless denial of the Armenian Genocide is motivated solely by its desire to please its masters in Ankara.
Nikol Pashinyan: Regrettably, the prime minister of Armenia has lost all credibility when it comes to expressing an opinion on the Armenian Genocide. In recent years, he has made insulting comments on this subject by raising doubts about the veracity of the Armenian Genocide. When asked to comment on Israel’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide, he shamefully said: “We see no need to respond, because we believe that refraining from becoming entangled in the issue of the weaponization of the Armenian Genocide is in the interests of the Republic of Armenia.” It is utterly disappointing that the prime minister of the Republic of Armenia is trying to appease its archenemies, Azerbaijan and Turkey, by refraining from properly addressing Israel’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
It remains to be seen whether and when Israel’s Knesset will take up the issue of recognizing the Armenian Genocide and convert the Cabinet’s decision into formal state recognition through legislation.
Harut Sassounian’s latest headline – “Pashinyan, Erdogan and Aliyev are Unhappy With Israel’s Recognition of the Genocide” – is another example of misleading framing.
Turkey rejected Israel’s recognition. Azerbaijan expressed serious concern and urged Israel to reconsider. Those are clear positions of opposition.
Armenia’s government did not do that.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did not denounce Israel’s recognition, did not ask Israel to reverse it, and did not express dissatisfaction with the recognition itself. He said Armenia saw no need to respond because it is not in Armenia’s interest to become entangled in the “weaponization” of the Armenian Genocide.
That may be a cautious position. Some Armenians may disagree with it and believe Armenia should have welcomed Israel’s recognition more warmly. That is a legitimate argument.
But it is not the same as being “unhappy” with recognition.
There is an important difference between refusing to let the Armenian Genocide be used as a tool in the Israel-Turkey conflict and rejecting recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
Sassounian collapses that distinction in order to place Armenia’s prime minister in the same category as Erdogan and Aliyev. That is not analysis. It is political framing.
Ironically, the voices that clearly rejected or condemned the recognition were Turkey, Azerbaijan, and some diaspora critics of Israel’s move – not the Armenian government.
One can argue that Armenia should have issued a stronger public statement. But it is false to suggest that Armenia’s cautious silence is equivalent to Turkey’s denial or Azerbaijan’s objection.
This is the problem with much of this style of commentary. A partial fact is taken, stripped of context, and turned into the most damaging possible accusation against Pashinyan. The result is not serious criticism. It is a narrative that deepens mistrust toward Armenia’s state leadership and institutions.
There is nothing wrong with criticizing Pashinyan. Many Armenians, including many in Armenia, dislike his words, style, and behavior. But criticism should be accurate, proportionate, and grounded in facts.
Armenia is already in a difficult balancing position. It faces pressure from Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Russia while trying to diversify its partnerships, rebuild deterrence, and reduce dangerous dependency. In such an environment, diaspora commentary should help clarify reality, not amplify panic or political hatred.
A headline can be connected to a real event and still mislead readers if it strips away context, exaggerates intent, or assigns guilt before the facts support it.
Armenians need serious criticism, not fear-driven framing.
We should hold Armenia’s leaders accountable. But we should also be careful not to turn every development into another reason to weaken the state Armenia needs to survive.
Berge Jololian
Yerevan, Armenia
(Watertown, Massachusetts)
Berge, you have to learn how to read a simple sentence in English and understand its meaning. Where did I say that Pashinyan directly rejected Israel’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide. I said, he was unhappy with it. He is terrified of backing any Armenian national issue that might upset Erdogan and Aliyev.
He is quick to criticize Armenians who support our national cause, but is silent or criticizes those who do with outlandish excuses like excuses Azerbaijan’s demand to move 300,000 Azeris to Armenia by blaming not Aliyev, but Armenians who support Artsakh. This is complete nonsense and anti-Armenian.
Yet, you dare to support his anti-Armenian positions. Yes, Armenia needs a sensible foreign policy, but we have the wrong guy to do it. You are in Yerevan, why don’t you try to knock some sense into his head? I doubt you will try such a thing besides defending his diatribes and critcizing those who support the Armenian Cause. Even if you try such a thing, Pashinyan willreject any sensible advice, pretending to know everything, which he doesn’t. Have you ever spoken to him for one minute? I have. I met with him in his office for one hour and listened to his stupidest statements. After you meet him personally, then write to me. Until then….
Stop acting like Pahinyan’s propaganda tool.
Mr. Sassounian,
Personal insults do not answer the point I made.
Turkey rejected Israel’s recognition. Azerbaijan expressed serious concern and urged Israel to reconsider. Armenia’s government did not do either.
You may believe Pashinyan was privately unhappy, afraid, or wrong to remain cautious. That is your interpretation. But it is not the same as Erdogan’s and Aliyev’s open rejection of recognition.
That distinction matters.
I am not defending Pashinyan personally. I am defending accuracy in public discussion.
Criticize him all you want. But placing Armenia’s cautious diplomatic position in the same category as Turkish denial and Azerbaijani objection is misleading.
Armenia is already under pressure from Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Russia. Diaspora commentary should clarify facts, not turn every issue into another personal attack that weakens confidence in the Armenian state.
Respectfully,
Berge Jololian
Yerevan, Armenia
(Watertown, Massachusetts)
Berge Jololian, it could not have been framed any better than than in your comment that “A headline can be connected to a real event and still mislead readers if it strips away context, exaggerates intent, or assigns guilt before the facts support it.” Indeed, Armenians need serious criticism, but I do not expect it coming from Harut Sassounian.
Vahe,
I am not surprized that you agree with Berge. Before he came on the scene, you were and are one of the few remaining Pashinyan propagandists.
I think this is all about Pashinyan and his lack of leadership than anyone or anything else. We already know why Israel made such a statement which is to use the Armenian Genocide as a tool to hit back at Turkey for Erdogan’s stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his characterization of the Israeli leaders as Nazis for invading Gaza and killing tens of thousands in the process, not to mention the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister. They certainly did not all of a sudden come to a moral epiphany on this issue and decided to do the right thing. They had made similar statements in the past but not at this level and ever since the Turkish Islamist leader Erdogan came to power in 2003 first as prime minister and then in 2013 as president. They clashed heads a couple of times on such issues in the last two decades while prior to Erdogan they were allies helping each other against the interests of their respective victims. We also know why our Turkish and Azerbaijani enemies are up in arms about the statement made by Israelis and that is because, dirty politics and current chaotic situation in the Middle East aside, who knows more and can relate and whose statements carry more weight than that of those, despite their hypocrisy, whose people not only had already lived and experienced such a tragedy themselves but one of their own, Raphael Lemkin a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent, was the one who came up with and invented the word genocide in 1944 to describe what was done to the Armenians first and then to their own people later on. The hypocritical and morally-bankrupt Erdogan, whose terrorist defense ministry helped Azerbaijan by taking the lead in invading Artsakh and ethnically cleanse it of its native Armenian population, is as usual trying to kill the message, the Armenian Genocide, by killing the messenger, the Israeli leadership with blood on their hands.
If we pay very close attention to Pashinyan’s statements about this issue and many others in recent past and connect the dots we will realize that it is Pashinyan who has weaponized this and other issues. Pashinyan has stated and claimed many times that he is only the prime minister of contemporary Armenia and that it is through his policies focusing only on contemporary Armenia that he has finally established an Armenia that is truly independent. His response to Israelis is anything but the response of the leader of such an Armenia. Of course not much can be expected from someone like Pashinyan who equates the loss and ethnic cleansing of Artsakh and the unnecessary loss of thousands of lives to his discovery and acquisition of his newly-found “independent Armenia” as if to say all these losses were necessary and pre-requisite to achieving his imaginary independent Armenia.
Some of Pashinyan’s statements:
1. Claims only to be the leader of contemporary Armenia yet he pokes his nose into our recent past outside of his bubble making statements echoing thoughts similar to the thoughts and claims of our anti Armenian enemies
2. Questions the context in which the Armenian Genocide was committed
3. Questions the number of defenseless Armenians murdered
4. Questions why the Armenians did not raise the genocide claims in the international arena soon after it was perpetrated and before its 50th anniversary remembrance in 1965 not knowing or not realizing, as a former journalist mind you, that the word “genocide” did not exist until its creation or invention in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin.
5. Shuts down the newly-created department or ministry of Diaspora affairs
6. Argues that by demanding Turkey to come clean with its criminal past is what is actually holding us back from progress and it is the main source of increasing animosity between Armenia and Turkey completely ignoring Turkey’s recent critical military role in joint Turkish-Azerbaijani invasion of Armenian liberated territories in 2020.
7. Questions the Armenian origins of Shushi, the cultural capital of Artsakh, by making the claim that how could Shushi have been Armenian in 1992, before its liberation from Azerbaijan, if its population at the time was 93% Azerbaijani and once again, as a former journalist, totally ignoring the fact that the Armenian quarters of Shushi was burnt down and 20,000 of its native Armenian inhabitants murdered by joint Turkish-Azerbaijani attack in 1920 and then occupied for seventy years under Azerbaijan-SSR.
8. Blackmails people that if he is not reelected there will be war soon after the elections.
When you take all these statements into account you realize the response given to Israeli statement on the Armenian Genocide is not one made by the leader of a new “independent Armenia” but one that is trying to please our genocidal enemies! A proper response, in my opinion, would have been to acknowledge the reality and the historical facts of the Armenian Genocide by making a statement independent of the dirty politics between them and our Turkish enemies. But he did not and instead echoed Turkish sentiments. He is the one who has weaponized all of our tragedies by using them and their memories as weapons to scare people into submission because that is what an unpatriotic capitulator does. He can’t stand up to the enemy so he joins them! He is the one who has brought the homeland and the nation into the terrible state that they both are in today!
In the past two years, Uncle Sam’s Chosen Regime has:
repeatedly bombed no fewer than five countries;
killed tens of thousands of children;
maimed tens of thousands more;
displaced millions,
and terrorized tens of millions of people, from Tunis to Tehran.
Now we are supposed to celebrate that regime’s “recognition” of the Armenian genocide.
Some of our clever compatriots (let us call them Armenia-Firsters) have responded as follows: “Who cares about Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Iranians? We should focus only on our own goals and set aside the problems of others.”
Three quick observations:
(1) Many of the same Armenia-Firsters demand that member-states of the U.N. set aside THEIR narrow “national-interest” to officially acknowledge the Armenian genocide. Brazen hypocrisy anyone? The case for “recognition” is after all a moralistic argument, and in modern times moral appeals have had to be framed as universalistic claims: if we insist that others “recognize” the Armenian genocide, this is because genocide is condemnable even when it happens to Palestinians.
(2) Armenia-Firsters think they’re clever, but the record shows otherwise. Over the past 35 years, some of the loudest of them have advocated policies that have brought ruin on Armenia. From privatization and neoliberalism to Armenian participation in the Coalition of the Willing, and now the (failure-in-progress) TRIPP– all of these clever policies have turned out to benefit the rulers of the USA first and foremost, while de-industrializing, de-schooling, and depopulating Armenia. Now the Armenia-Firsters want to celebrate “recognition” by a genocidal Israeli regime that is reviled internationally, including by a large and growing number of Americans themselves. By celebrating Israeli “recognition,” the Armenia-Firsters succeed in nothing so much as discrediting the Armenian genocide.
(3) What is the point of “recognition”? If we are supposed to feel anything but revulsion at the news that land-thieving mass murderers have “recognized” the Armenian genocide, then what, I wonder, is the point of continuing with our “official recognition” obsession? (To anticipate a response from our clever Armenia-Firsters: “Oh, but recognition is just the first step in a process that will culminate in territorial concessions.” Reality check: There is no chance–zero–that such recognition will EVER result in restitution, territorial or otherwise, from the G7’s designated regional superpower, the Republic of Turkey.)
Maybe it’s time for us to get over this fixation on “official recognition.”