A finger in the eye of an Israel hater: Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar will submit for approval by the government at its upcoming meeting a proposed resolution for the Israeli government's official recognition of the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire, after decades of Israel refraining from doing so for political considerations vis-à-vis Turkey.
The proposed resolution states that, based on moral and historical obligation, Israel will recognize the genocide committed against the Armenian people at the end of the Ottoman Empire.
The proposal further states that denial, minimization, or distortion of the historical truth of these events must be condemned.
From the explanatory notes to the proposal: The Armenian Genocide began in April 1915, with the arrest, deportation, and execution of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, leaders, and intellectuals in Constantinople. After the elimination of the community's leadership, the Ottoman government turned to the systematic extermination of the population. Men were conscripted into forced labor and murdered. Women, children, and the elderly were expelled from their homes and sent on long death marches to the Syrian desert, during which they were exposed to mass murder, rape, intentional starvation, and thirst, which led to the deaths of approximately 1.5 million people and the destruction of a thousand-year-old cultural and historical heritage in the Anatolian region.
Despite the extensive and unambiguous historical documentation, the Armenian Genocide remains to this day the subject of an institutionalized campaign of denial and minimization, including a manipulative rewriting of history books, mainly by Turkey.
So far, 32 countries have recognized the Armenian Genocide in various ways, through parliamentary resolutions, legislation, or declarations.
In light of the moral and historical obligation, it is proposed that the Government of Israel recognize the genocide committed against the Armenian people at the end of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, in light of the attempts to obscure, minimize, or deny the atrocities of the Armenian Genocide, it is proposed to condemn any attempt to distort the historical truth of these events.
The decision will later be submitted to the Knesset for approval.
