On March 9, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a post on X, which can be translated as: “Israel, which adheres to the laws of war, will not receive moral lectures from Erdogan, who supports the killers and rapists of the terrorist Hamas organization, denies the Armenian Holocaust, and slaughters the Kurds in his country.”
Netanyahu was responding to a previous speech by the Turkish leader in which he compared him to Stalin and Hitler, accusing him at the time of committing a clear genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.
The interesting part of Netanyahu’s tweet was his reference to the “Armenian Holocaust”. A similar tweet was made by the Israeli President Katz on January 12, 2024, in which he said: “President of Turkey @RTErdogan, from a country that committed the Armenian Genocide in its past, is now proud to target Israel with unfounded allegations. We remember the Armenians, the Kurds. Your history speaks for itself…”
The strangeness is that Israel itself has not recognized the Armenian Genocide. The Israeli political establishment has struggled for decades against recognizing the Armenian Genocide, for two reasons: to preserve the exceptionalism of the Holocaust of European Jews during the World War II carried out by Nazi Germany, and to maintain the long-term strategic alliance with Turkey.
In his book, titled “The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide”, Yair Auron explains the official Israeli position surrounding the Armenian Genocide, writing: “Over the years, there has been a suppressed discomfort and criticism of evasive behavior, which tends towards denial, adopted by different governments in Israel regarding the memory of the Armenian Genocide.”
The government of Israel is not only a government that denies genocide when it comes to the Armenian Genocide, but it is also an active partner today in the recent wars waged by Azerbaijan with the help of Turkey against Armenia and the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Israel provided Azerbaijan with high-tech weapons, which enabled it to penetrate the defenses of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. Before the Azerbaijani “final solution” in September 2023, Israel transferred 92 flights of weapons and ammunition from Israeli military bases to Azerbaijan. In July 2023, two months before the attack, Yoav Galant, the Israeli Minister of Defense, visited Azerbaijan and praised the military cooperation between the two countries.
Israel not only participated in denying the Armenian Genocide in the past, but it also takes part in the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Disputes between Israel and Turkey are increasing as the Israeli army is accused of committing war crimes and genocide in its war in Gaza, and Israel –the country built by Holocaust survivors– is today accused by South Africa in the International Court of Justice of committing “genocide” in Gaza. Besides, it is also accused of not adhering to the “laws of war” contrary to what Netanyahu claims.
But what does Netanyahu say when he remembers the “Armenian Holocaust”?
There are two ways to remember past atrocities: stopping crimes in the future when they occur, and the slogan “Never again!” is a first step in building a civilized system after war crimes and genocide.
But Netanyahu does not commit to this, but rather to a different slogan: “It will not happen again to us!” Justifying crimes against humanity and genocide in the past that are remembered to justify future crimes, not to stop them.
When Netanyahu speaks to Erdogan, he speaks from a logic of power addressing power. Netanyahu says: Do not interfere in my massacres against the Palestinians, because I do not interfere in your genocide of the Armenians, the massacres of the Kurds, and your assisting role in the cleansing of Armenians in Karabakh!
On April 24, we will be commemorating the 109th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and we ask this question: what lessons have we learned from the first genocide in the twentieth century?
