Netanyahu attacked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he vehemently denied accusations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
“Erdogan is a tyrant who also hosts the Hamas terror chiefs,” he charged after dozens of delegates walked out in protest. “He has murdered thousands of Kurdish civilians. He denies the Armenian genocide. He jails journalists and opposition leaders … He illegally occupies Northern Cyprus, an EU member, and he regularly transgresses against Greece, a NATO member.”
Ankara was quick to reject Netanyahu’s “outrageous and despicable remarks.” Erdogan’s spokesman, Burhanettin Duran, said they “cannot obscure his massacres, the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza or the legal proceedings against him under international law.”
The remarks came three months after the Israeli cabinet drafted and approved a parliamentary resolution recognizing the deaths of some 1.5 Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire as genocide. However, it failed to push the resolution through Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, reportedly bowing to pressure from Azerbaijan, Turkey’s key ally maintaining close security ties with the Jewish state.
U.S. - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meet in New York, September 24, 2024.
Armenia’s leadership was careful not to hail the proposed resolution, underscoring its conciliatory policy towards Ankara and Baku denounced by its political opponents as well as Armenian Diaspora groups. The latter have for decades campaigned for international recognition of the Armenian genocide.
Successive Israeli governments had opposed Armenian genocide recognition lest it antagonize Turkey, then a security partner of Israel. Turkish-Israeli relations have steadily deteriorated over the past decade. They hit a new low during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Netanyahu first indicated a change in his country’s policy on the Armenian genocide issue in an August 2025 interview with an American podcaster. He said he believes the World War One-era massacres by the Ottoman Turks of Armenians as well as Assyrians and Greeks constituted genocide.