At the end of June, the Israeli government decided on a historic step: for the first time, the Armenian genocide was to be officially recognized. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar spoke of a moral obligation and declared: “It is never too late to do the right thing.” But just a few days later, the proposal disappeared from the Knesset’s agenda.
What at first glance appeared to be a political zigzag course by the Netanyahu government turned out, on closer inspection, to be a security policy dilemma in which historical responsibility and national interests clashed. It was not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who stopped the vote. Rather, the decisive factor was the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, after representatives from Azerbaijan and the Jewish community there had issued strong warnings about the consequences of parliamentary recognition.
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