The Israeli government has unanimously approved Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s proposal to recognize the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. The official statement repeatedly invokes Israel’s moral obligation. That immediately raises a simple question. If this was indeed a moral obligation, why did it suddenly become one only now?
For decades, successive Israeli governments declined to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Politicians from across the political spectrum proposed doing so, yet every government ultimately chose not to, citing strategic and diplomatic considerations.
The moral question, however, never changed. If recognizing the Armenian tragedy is a moral imperative today, why was it not one in 2006, or in 1996?
The answer has never been about morality.
According to longstanding reports, Israel’s public broadcaster prepared a documentary in the 1980s about the mass killings of Armenians in 1915. The film was never aired. The reported reason was pressure from the government and the security establishment after Turkey, then one of Israel’s closest regional partners, allegedly warned that broadcasting it could jeopardize a sensitive security operation. Whether every detail of that account is accurate is almost beside the point. What matters is that, for decades, Israeli governments openly treated this issue as one of national interest rather than moral principle.
Today, that strategic reality has changed.
National interests have always shaped the decision
There is nothing unusual about that. States shape foreign policy according to national interests every day. But if that is what happened here, it would be more honest to describe this decision as a diplomatic gesture dressed in moral language rather than as the fulfillment of a moral obligation.
Supporters of the government’s decision may argue that timing is irrelevant. Doing the right thing late, they might say, is still better than never doing it at all.
That argument raises another difficult question. If recognition is truly based on an unchanging moral principle, would a future Israeli government ever be justified in reversing it if relations with Turkey were one day fully restored? Imagine a future Turkish leader committed to fully restoring the strategic partnership with Israel who asks Jerusalem to revoke its recognition as part of a broader reconciliation. Would Israel refuse because moral principles cannot be negotiated? Or would the political calculus change once again?
If the answer depends on the geopolitical circumstances of the day, then morality is no longer guiding policy. Policy is guiding morality.
History should be left to historians
This is precisely why questions surrounding the events of 1915 should remain primarily in the hands of historians rather than politicians. Historians work with archival documents, eyewitness testimony, military records, and competing interpretations. Their responsibility is to follow the evidence wherever it leads. Governments, by contrast, inevitably make decisions through the lens of present-day diplomatic interests.
Important aspects of the events of 1915 remain the subject of historical debate, including the wartime context, the role of Armenian paramilitary forces, Russian financial and military involvement, the Russian Empire’s displacement and ethnic cleansing of Muslim populations in the Caucasus, and the decisions taken by the Ottoman authorities. These questions belong in archives, universities, and scholarly journals, not in cabinet resolutions shaped by the diplomatic priorities of the moment.
Once governments begin issuing official judgments on historical controversies more than a century after the fact, where does the process end? Should elected officials determine the accepted interpretation of every disputed historical tragedy? Or should they leave those questions to historians whose profession is to study the past?
Supporters of the government’s decision often point to Holocaust recognition as a precedent. At first glance, the comparison appears persuasive. Yet the two cases are fundamentally different.
When European states recognize the Holocaust and criminalize its denial, they are not simply expressing an opinion about history. In many cases, they are confronting their own historical responsibility. Nazi Germany planned and carried out the systematic extermination of the Jewish people, while numerous European governments, institutions, and collaborators participated directly or indirectly in that crime. In such cases, recognition is inseparable from accepting responsibility.
Israel’s recognition of events that took place in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 is fundamentally different. Israel bears no historical responsibility for those events. The same is true for many other countries whose parliaments periodically vote on the issue. Honoring the memory of Armenian victims, supporting historical research, preserving memorials, and encouraging open academic discussion do not require transforming a century-old historical tragedy into an instrument of contemporary political messaging. This is especially true at a time when Armenia itself is moving closer to normalization with Turkey, and when its leadership has made clear that it does not want the events of 1915 to be weaponized by other countries for their own political purposes.
Principle or political timing?
History deserves careful scholarship. Diplomacy requires difficult choices.
Confusing one with the other ultimately weakens both.
When governments discover their conscience only after the geopolitical risks have disappeared, what they are celebrating is not morality.
It is convenience.
Dr. Elina Bardach-Yalov is a former member of Knesset, a former advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a research associate at Jerusalem Multidisciplinary College, and head of the Antisemitism Watch NGO.
Source:
www.jpost.com
