People lay flowers at a memorial to Armenians killed by the Ottoman Turks, as they mark the centenary of the mass killings, in Yerevan, Armenia. Armenians on Friday marked the centenary of what historians estimate to be the slaughter of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks, an event widely viewed by scholars as genocide.Sergei Grits/The Associated Press
Friday, April 24, marked the 100th anniversary of the "Armenian Genocide" in which as many as 1.5 million people were reportedly killed by Ottoman Turks. Many representatives from around the world gathered in Yerevan, capital of the modern-day state of Armenia, to mark the occasion; they included members of some of Israel's major political parties.
Back home, however, the Jewish state refuses to acknowledge the mass killings as genocide. Israeli officials express sympathy for "the tragic events," even talk about the large number of Armenians killed, but never mention the "G" word.
This strikes many people, including a lot of Israelis, as hypocritical.
Earlier this month, on April 16, Israel held its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, in which it marks the killing of some six million Jews by the Nazis three quarters of a century ago. Israel spares no effort in its public relations to ensure that the entire world learns about the Holocaust, that its memory is kept alive, and that any who deny the existence of this great mass murder or doubt the scale of these events are ostracized and treated as miscreants.
"Never again," Israel says, and the words are echoed by people around the world – rightly so.
Yet when it comes to acknowledging the apparent genocide that befell the Armenian people, the Jewish state is officially silent.
To be fair, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, addressing the United Nations earlier this year on the subject of the Holocaust went to great pains to speak of the killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians between 1915 and 1923. He stressed that no one in the land of Israel then or now denies that a massacre took place, and spoke derisively of what he called "one hundred years of hesitation and denial" of the Armenian events.
But even he never acknowledged that those events were "genocide."
This was viewed by many Armenians as betrayal because, as a member of Knesset and even as Speaker of the Knesset, Mr. Rivlin had been an outspoken advocate of recognizing the Armenian killings as genocide.
As President, however, he has been forced to bite his tongue, since Israel steadfastly refuses to join the ranks of those 26 countries, including Canada, that recognize the Armenian Genocide.
To some, the reason for this refusal lies in not wanting to diminish the significance of the Jewish Holocaust.
In 2001, then foreign minister Shimon Peres denounced Armenian efforts to create a parallel between Armenian events and the Holocaust. "Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred," he said. "What the Armenians went through is a tragedy, but not genocide."
That strikes many Israelis as disingenuous.
"We Jews, as principal victims of murderous hatred, are doubly obligated to be sensitive, to identify with other victims," said Yossi Sarid, former leader of the leftist Meretz party, and a former minister of education. As minister, Mr. Sarid pledged to add the Armenian story to Israeli schools' curricula. It never happened.
Israel hasn't been willing to forgo what he calls "its monopoly on victimhood," he wrote this week, or to share "its exclusive right to be the persecuted."
"It always has its cost-benefit analyses and global interests to consider."
One such consideration has been Turkey, the perpetrator of the Armenian genocide and, until recently, a close ally of Israel. To recognize the genocide at this time, would only make reconciliation with Turkey that much more difficult.
Another thing that receives even greater consideration is Israel's burgeoning relationship with Azerbaijan. Israel doesn't have many friends in the Muslim world, and Azerbaijan, a Shia Muslim nation, is a moderate state that shares Israel's suspicion of Iran and enjoys healthy trade with the Jewish state.
Azerbaijan, however, has had a lingering conflict with Armenia, principally over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, and even accuses Armenia of carrying out genocidal attacks on Azeris. To stay on Azerbaijan's good side, it's best if Israel ignores the question of the Armenian genocide.
It is noteworthy that the massacres of 1915-23 in eastern Turkey prodded many Armenians to move to the Holy Land once the Ottomans had surrendered Palestine to the British in 1917.
At that time, some of the Armenian craftsmen took on the task of refurbishing the ceramic tiles that adorn the outside of the Muslim Dome of the Rock, perhaps Jerusalem's best known iconic image.
Over the years, the artisanship of Armenian ceramicists became one of Israel's most popular art forms, and the shops of the Armenian quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem are go-to destinations for many visitors.
Yet, Israel's refusal to recognize the Armenian Genocide leaves many of its own Armenian residents feeling like strangers.