Israel officially acknowledges Armenian genocide, raising questions about Holodomor

The initiator of the document was Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar, who insisted on restoring justice, emphasising that Israel can no longer ignore this tragic chapter of history.

"In my opinion, this is our moral duty as Jews and, of course, as the state of the Jewish people," Sa'ar stated.

The Foreign Minister announced the consideration of this issue as early as June 25. From now on, Israel not only recognises the fact of mass killings but also officially condemns any attempts to deny or distort historical truth.

Why Israel remained silent before

For decades, Jerusalem avoided this step, fearing to damage relations with Türkiye – a key player and economic partner in the region. Israel also highly values its strategic and military partnership with Azerbaijan, while Baku is categorically opposed to recognising these events as genocide.

However, against the backdrop of recent events – the large-scale war in Lebanon, as well as the direct armed confrontation between the US, Israel, and Iran in the first half of 2026 – the balance of power has shifted. Since Türkiye has taken a maximally hostile stance toward Israel, defending Palestine and Lebanon, Jerusalem has lifted its long-standing diplomatic veto.

As early as 2018, the Knesset (Israel's parliament) attempted to raise this issue, but the government at the time blocked the initiative for reasons of realpolitik.

Basic information about the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire

The tragedy began in April 1915, when the authorities of the Ottoman Empire arrested and subsequently destroyed hundreds of representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia in Constantinople. According to historians, the deportations and extrajudicial killings quickly became systematic.

Men were mostly shot, while women, children, and the elderly were sent on exhausting death marches through the Syrian desert. People died en masse from hunger, thirst, disease, and abuse. As a result of these events, the Armenian population almost completely disappeared from the territories of modern-day Türkiye, and the number of victims is estimated at about 1.5 million people.

It was these events, along with the horrors of the Holocaust, that later prompted lawyer Raphael Lemkin to develop the very term genocide and lay the foundation for international law that would punish such crimes.

Reaction around the world and in Türkiye

Over 30 countries around the world have already recognised the Armenian Genocide at the highest level. These include the US, Canada, France, Germany, and most EU countries. Türkiye acknowledges the fact of the mass death of Armenians in 1915 but categorically denies the term genocide, considering the events to be the result of a civil war and the casualty figures to be significantly exaggerated.

For the Armenian diaspora around the world, Israel's decision is a colossal historical victory. At the same time, official Yerevan is reacting cautiously, as Nikol Pashinyan's government is currently focused on signing a peace agreement with Azerbaijan, which is why the issue of historical memory has been deliberately pushed to the background in the country's foreign policy in recent years.

Holodomor, the Holocaust, and the Armenian Genocide

In all of these tragedies with millions of victims, as always, high politics plays the lead role.

Israel does not recognise the Ukrainian Holodomor due to the precarious security balance in its relations with the Kremlin. Yerevan also does not recognise the Holodomor, again because of its deference to Moscow and its overall geopolitical vulnerability to Russia.

Kyiv demonstrates similar pragmatism. Ukraine's position on the Jewish people is absolutely unequivocal: back in 2008, the Verkhovna Rada officially recognised the Holocaust as the genocide of the Jewish people. In addition, the criminalisation and condemnation of Nazism and the Holocaust are clearly enshrined in Ukraine's Criminal Code (Article 442 – Genocide), as well as in laws condemning totalitarian regimes. Denial of the Holocaust is unlawful in Ukraine.

However, this principle does not extend to the tragedy of the Armenian people. In order not to spoil its strategic relations with Ankara and Baku, Kyiv still avoids officially recognising the Armenian Genocide as an act of genocide.

What should be known about the Holodomor and Genocide in Ukraine

We explained how the Holodomor became a generational trauma for Ukraine and why it is important for the world to recognise it as genocide.

The Dutch parliament recognised the deportation of the Crimean Tatars during the Soviet era as genocide. The document emphasises that since the occupation of Crimea in 2014, many Crimean Tatars have been unjustly imprisoned, subjected to torture, or gone missing, which Russia has most likely continued the policy of genocide of the Crimean Tatars.