Israel’s cabinet voted unanimously on Sunday to formally recognise the mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, a decision that still requires ratification by the Knesset. The move, proposed by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, drew immediate condemnation from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who dismissed it as “slander” designed to conceal what he called Israel’s “barbarism” in Gaza. In Baku, the Azerbaijani foreign ministry expressed “deep concern” and described the recognition as a distortion of historical facts, while the chief rabbi of Azerbaijan’s Ashkenazi community appealed to Israeli lawmakers to reconsider, warning of repercussions for the Jewish community and bilateral ties.

Viewed from Ankara, the Israeli decision is a politically motivated attempt to divert attention from its military operations against Palestinians. Erdoğan, speaking after a cabinet meeting, accused Israel of being a “murder network” with the blood of 75,000 civilians on its hands and pointed to Turkey’s historical record of sheltering Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. Turkish officials have long rejected the genocide label for the 1915 events, and the foreign ministry characterised the Israeli step as one that serves narrow political ends. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, however, struck a different note, telling journalists that Israel was “using the Armenian genocide as a weapon” and that Yerevan saw no need to respond, given its ongoing efforts to normalise relations with Turkey and pursue peace with Azerbaijan.

The recognition complicates Israel’s strategic architecture in the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan is a major supplier of crude oil to Israel, with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline meeting roughly 40 percent of Israeli demand, and the two countries maintain deep security cooperation. According to analysts in Jerusalem, the move risks alienating Baku at a moment when Israel relies heavily on that partnership. The Ashkenazi chief rabbi’s letter to the Knesset underscored that the Jewish community in Azerbaijan enjoys full religious freedom and security, and that the recognition has caused “pain” among people who consider themselves true friends of Israel. Despite the rhetorical escalation, trade between Turkey and Israel continues through indirect routes, and the oil flow from Azerbaijan via Turkey remains uninterrupted, as the pipeline’s host-government agreement prohibits any party from obstructing transit.

For decades, successive Israeli governments avoided recognising the Armenian genocide to preserve strategic ties with Turkey, once one of Israel’s closest regional partners. That calculus shifted after the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, which sent bilateral relations into a tailspin and saw Erdoğan repeatedly compare Israeli leaders to Nazi officials. Israeli commentators note that the decision, framed by the government as a moral obligation, is widely viewed domestically as a diplomatic gesture shaped by present-day geopolitical interests rather than a sudden historical reckoning. The dossier now moves to the Knesset, where a vote is expected in the coming weeks, and where some lawmakers have signalled they will weigh the concerns raised by Azerbaijan and its Jewish community before deciding whether to ratify the cabinet’s resolution.