Amid diplomatic row with Turkey, Israel to debate recognizing Armenian genocide

i24 News, Israel

Jerusalem residents march on April 23, 2018 to commemorate the Armenian genocide in 1915 under the Ottoman Empire.
i24NEWS (Ben Freedman Collins)

Israel’s parliament will debate recognizing the Armenian genocide, public broadcaster Kann reported Tuesday, amid a diplomatic spat with Turkey over the deaths of dozens of Palestinians in clashes with Israeli troops on the Gaza border last week.

It is the first time in years that the foreign ministry has not objected to a debate on the Ottoman Empire’s massacre of some 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 during World War One.

The debate was expected to be held in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, on Wednesday, Kann reported.

Israel has refrained from formally recognizing the genocide due to its diplomatic ties with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

But the fragile Israel-Turkey relationship was thrown into disrepair last week as Ankara condemned the deaths of 60 Palestinians in Gaza border clashes as a "massacre", withdrawing its ambassador from Israel and kicking out Israel’s envoy a day later.

The row escalated on Wednesday when Turkish authorities subjected the departing Israeli Ambassador Eitan Na'eh to a rigorous security check at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport and invited local TV crews to film it.

Both the country's envoys and consuls in Jerusalem and Istanbul respectively were also withdrawn back to their respective capitals.

Israeli lawmakers had said last week that they would put forth bills proposing officially recognizing the Armenian genocide as the crisis escalated.

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/politics/175293-180522-amid-diplomatic-row-with-turkey-israel-to-debate-recognizing-armenian-genocide

Intelligence Minister Israel Katz, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, and senior Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni all expressed their support for such initiatives.

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Hotovely told Channel 2 on Tuesday that the crisis with Turkey had led Israel to “consider a series of steps”, including allowing the debate on the Armenian genocide to go ahead.

"We see this as something that has dramatic implications for Turkey, so no decision has yet been made to recognize the Armenian genocide,” she said, emphasizing that Israel “wants to preserve relations with Ankara.”

Armenians have long sought international recognition for the 1915-1917 killings in the Ottoman era as genocide, which they say left some 1.5 million of their people dead.

But Turkey — the Ottoman Empire's successor state — argues that it was a collective tragedy in which equal numbers of Turks and Armenians died.

So far, parliaments in more than 20 countries, including Germany, have voted for laws or resolutions explicitly recognizing the Armenian "genocide".