Netanyahu's Armenian Genocide Statement Shocks Turkey
In a U.S. podcast interview, the Israeli prime minister broke decades of cautious silence, calling the Ottoman-era mass killings genocide, a step long avoided for fear of Ankara’s backlash.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ignited a diplomatic earthquake by recognizing the Armenian genocide for the first time, a move Israel had carefully avoided for decades.
Speaking on the popular American podcast hosted by Patrick Bet-David, Netanyahu was pressed on why Israel had never formally recognized the Ottoman Empire’s slaughter of more than a million Armenians between 1915 and 1923.
“The Holocaust was recognized by 193 nations. But when it comes to the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides, Israel is absent from that list,” Bet-David challenged.
Netanyahu responded: “I think we did recognize it, the Knesset passed a resolution.” When the host insisted he wanted to hear it from the prime minister himself, Netanyahu added: “Well, it just happened.”
The exchange was brief, but its weight was historic.
For decades, Israeli governments refrained from formally using the word “genocide” to describe the Armenian massacres, wary of Turkish retaliation. Ankara, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has consistently bristled at any suggestion of culpability.
Breaking a taboo
Turkey acknowledges mass killings occurred during World War I but denies systematic extermination, insisting deaths came amid wartime chaos.
Israel, while often urged by historians and activists to acknowledge the genocide, avoided confrontation, especially as security ties with Ankara swung between crises and rapprochement.
Now, Netanyahu’s on-the-record statement risks igniting a furious reaction from Ankara. Analysts say it could destabilize the fragile working relationship the two countries have maintained on trade, energy, and regional security.
The recognition also places Israel alongside the United States, which formally acknowledged the genocide in 2019, sparking a diplomatic row with Turkey. For Armenian communities worldwide, Netanyahu’s statement marks a powerful symbolic victory.