With the rift widening between Turkey and Israel over the latter’s bombing of Palestinian settlement in Gaza, Israeli lawmakers, once again, drew the “Armenian Genocide Card,” by returning the Genocide recognition bill to the Knesset’s agenda on Wednesday.
Zionist Union and Likud party lawmakers Itzik Shmuly and Amir Ohana stated they would submit legislation to make Israel the 30th country to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
The move came as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at Israel over violent protests along the Gaza border. The Turkish President later recalled his ambassador from Israel and commented on Twitter that Israel is “an apartheid state that has occupied a defenseless people’s lands for 60+ years,” reported the Jerusalem Post.
Members of the Knesset in response concluded that the time had come to recognize the Armenian genocide by the Turks, a move Israel had previously avoided in order not to harm diplomatic relations with Turkey.
Shmuly emphasized that “We won’t accept moralizing from the antisemitic Turkish butcher who bombs thousands of Kurds in northwest Syria every day, and whose country is responsible for the genocide of the Armenian people and the historic horrors toward the Assyrians,” adding later that recognition of the genocide should have happened long ago.
“Every time the Turkish regime does something to anger Israel, the Jewish state’s politicians and members of parliament threaten Ankara with the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, furthering their cowardice as a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust,” Asbarez editor Ara Khachatourian wrote in an op-ed in December when, once again, Israel-Turkey ties were frayed.
“If the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Israel, which should have been a no-brainer, is contingent on Ankara’s whims, then, perhaps, Israeli lawmakers should abandon this effort and forever erase it from their agenda, since, evidently, the crime which served as a blueprint for Hitler to plan and execute the Holocaust does not warrant recognition by them unless Ankara, or more specifically, Erdogan angers the Jewish State,” added the Asbarez op-ed.
“Israel must recognize the Armenian Genocide not because it’s politically expedient, but because it is a historic fact. By not recognizing it, Israel continues to amplify its own hypocrisy by becoming complicit in its denial,” emphasized Asbarez in December.
Ohana argued that the diplomatic reasoning behind not acknowledging the genocide no longer existed, emphasizing that “it’s not too late to do justice. The time has come to officially recognize the terrible injustice done to the Armenians. When Hitler presented Wehrmacht officers with his plan for mass extermination in Poland, including women and children, he soothed the concerns about the world’s reaction by saying ‘who, after all, speaks today of the Armenians?’ For that reason alone we should have already officially recognized this genocide.”
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid sponsored a bill to recognize the Armenian genocide earlier this year, but it was voted down in February, which means it cannot be submitted again until August.
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein has called for the Knesset to recognize the Armenian genocide, as did his predecessor, President Reuven Rivlin. Many bills to recognize the atrocities were proposed and voted down over the years, but the Knesset Education, Culture and Sport Committee has voted to recognize the Genocide.
As long as you report it they’ll continue playing it!
“…..furthering their cowardice as a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust,” Asbarez editor Ara Khachatourian wrote in an op-ed in December…”
Be assured it’s not about cowardice but rather shrewdness of the highest order.
Israel needs to do it and stop talking about it doing it. Of all the people in the world to not recognize the Armenian Genocide, Israel should be last on the list. Do it because it the right thing to do _ not the expedient thing to do.
Of course this would come. Unfortunately the subject of the recognition of the Armenian genocide has been chained to politics.
Many countries like Germany and Syria didn’t recognize the genocide until realtions with Turkey deteriorated, Israel has been no exception to that. For years the government has been afraid from Turkish retaliation against Israel or the Jews living in Turkey. The vast majority of Israelis know about the genocide and recognize it, and it’s a national shame for Israel the cowardice from the government.
I just hope that this time the government is no longer afraid and recognize it, it’s time to stop being afraid from Erdogan, Turkey and the rest of the evil entities that have forced Israel and many other countries into this.
We should not acknowledge the recognition by Israel of the Armenian Genocide should Israel decide to do it for political expediency. The zionists, having racist and colonial nature, would not recognize the Genocide except for political opportunism. The zionists have themselves committed genocide and continue to do so against the Palestinians. They drove them out of their lands, homes, villages to establish their colony called Israel with the expansionist ideology of creating “Eretz Israel”. So what’s the difference between what the Turks did to the Armenians and what the zionists have been doing to the Palestinians? Instead of hoping Israel recognize the Armenian Genocide we should condem its crimes against the Palestinian people.
We should also protest as anti-Aryan every time an Armenian issue is criticized or attacked.
…. “Israel must recognize the Armenian Genocide not because it’s politically expedient, but because it is a historic fact. …. BECAUSE IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO., though I believe Turkey will recognize the Genocide before Israel.
It’s a game only. Zionist Israel has no intention to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
MY ADVICE TO ISRAEL IS PLEASE STOP PLAYING FOOTBALL WITH THE UNDENIABLE TRUTH WHICH IS THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE.PLEASE STOP USING OUR HORRIFIC TERRIBLE PAIN AS BLACKMAIL WHEN IT SUITS YOU.
Nicely said
This is really insulting to Armenians and to those that perished due to Genocide 100 years ago. Armenia’s foreign minister should do something to stop Israel’s insulting games. By playing this game Israel undermines their Hollowcast, because one someone suffers from something he/she doesn’t want another person to go through it. What’s also insulting is that a group in Los Angeles does a gathering/march against all Genocides at the same time that Armenian Genocide marches take place to undermine Armenian Genocide.
It is obvious the Israelis are playing political Ping-Pong with the Armenian Genocide and we know that. This is much like the article 301 of Turkish criminal code invented to deal with those who “Insult Turkishness” as if being a Turk or being associated with “Turkishness” is not an insult all by itself. They keep this hidden in the drawer and pull it out whenever they need to silence and punish those whose views are not in line with the Turkish government’s fake narrative. We also know that Israeli leaders are hypocrites who never miss the opportunity to remind the world about what happened to their people and constantly preach to the world about it and label anti-Semite those who question their motives. We know all of that. The question is why don’t Armenians monopolize on such statements and seize the opportunity to call out to the Israelis to come clean and do the right thing. Why not expose their hypocrisy in public arenas and at official levels and let them explain to the world why one such tragedy deserves the full condemnation of the entire world while others, which happened much earlier, don’t deserve an equal condemnation and recognition? Force their backs against the wall and let them come clean or permanently put a dent on the validity of the words they speak! We need to be much more vocal and smarter and use less emotions and more logic which will do us a lot of good and take us a long way forward.
Israel does not want to loose the monopoly on their So Called Holocaust
Armenia should remove all references to the Holocaust and conduct an International panel of Non Jewish Historians to investigate the mass killings of over 20M Soviet citizens at the hands of Jewish Soviet leaders & also investiage the so called Holocasut
Too much money is made by the Fake holocaust corporation, and historical evidence does not support the ridiculous 6M deaths
It makes me sick each time Israel throws in the Genocide card to piss off their allies turkey & azerbaijan
hayrigis amene luv khrad e,yegek heroo mnank ays vortodatz khntzoren. garj bahi me bzdig shahi hamar,mer artar tad e chi bighdzenk.
DEAR AZIZ, HYRIT KHRAD SHAD SHAD JEESHTED , YETEH GERNAS HYRENOV KREH
They use it, we should try to benefit from it. Find a way to make it beneficial For out purpose rather than go on the offensive. Jews sell drones to Azeris, we shoot it down, we should try to take it apart and reverse engineer for our own use and put our flag it.