This article is part of a partnership with OC Media. You can read the original in English here.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has announced that he plans to present a bill to the Knesset for the official recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
In a post on the social media platform X, Sa’ar stated that he would submit the corresponding resolution for parliamentary consideration at its next session.
“Recognizing the genocide committed against the Armenian people in the final years of the Ottoman Empire is both a moral and historical duty. We must also strongly condemn any denial, downplaying, or distortion of historical truth,” he wrote.
The issue of recognizing the Armenian Genocide remains highly politicized in Israel due to complex relations with Turkey, which, as the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, denies the genocide. In addition, some critics argue that such recognition could affect the uniqueness of the Holocaust as a historical phenomenon in terms of the scale of its victims. An additional factor is Israel’s close ties with Azerbaijan, which also denies the genocide and, along with Turkey, opposes its recognition.
In 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in an interview with American podcaster Patrick Bet-David that he recognizes the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. At the same time, he mistakenly claimed that the Israeli parliament had already made such a decision, whereas this only referred to recognition by the parliamentary Education, Culture, and Sports Committee in 2016, which does not constitute an official state decision.
Previous attempts have been made in the Knesset to pass a bill recognizing the Armenian Genocide, but none were ultimately approved.