Israel's cabinet voted unanimously on Sunday to recognize the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as a genocide, a historic step that Israel had avoided for decades out of deference to its relationship with Turkey. The decision, which now moves to the Knesset for a parliamentary vote, drew swift condemnation from Ankara.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar, who had announced a week earlier that he would bring the proposal to the cabinet, hailed the outcome. 'It's never too late to do the right thing,' he wrote after the measure passed, noting that 'Israel joins 32 countries that have fulfilled a moral duty by recognizing the historical truth.' Sa'ar framed the recognition as a matter of historical fact rather than a diplomatic maneuver.
Historians estimate that some 1.5 million Armenians were killed in massacres and forced deportations as the Ottoman Empire collapsed during and after World War I. Armenia and a growing number of governments have long campaigned for the killings to be formally labeled a genocide, a term Turkey rejects, insisting the deaths occurred amid the chaos of war and did not constitute a deliberate campaign of extermination.
Turkey responded angrily, calling Israel's move a 'politically motivated' step intended to distract from Israel's own conduct, including its actions toward Palestinians. The reaction underscored how far relations between the two countries — once close regional partners — have deteriorated, and how the recognition is entangled with current geopolitics as much as with the events of a century ago.
For years, successive Israeli governments declined to recognize the genocide, wary of damaging strategic and military ties with Turkey and sensitive to relations with Azerbaijan, a close Turkish ally and Israeli energy and defense partner. That reluctance had drawn criticism from those who argued that Israel, founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, bore a special moral responsibility to acknowledge another people's genocide.
The recognition still requires approval in the Knesset, where it is expected to advance given the breadth of support reflected in the unanimous cabinet vote. Sa'ar's office cast the measure as ending years of Israeli inconsistency on the question, in which sympathetic statements were never matched by formal government policy.
The decision lands at a moment of open friction between Israel and Turkey, and analysts said it is likely to be received in Ankara as a deliberate rebuke rather than a neutral historical reckoning. While Armenian advocates welcomed the move as a meaningful addition to the roster of recognizing states, its immediate diplomatic effect is to widen the rift between two governments whose partnership has unraveled in recent years.