Azerbaijan pressured Netanyahu to withdraw genocide recognition bill

By Nicholas Castillo

The Israeli government's decision to withdraw a draft law recognizing the Armenian Genocide in recent days came due to pressure from Azerbaijan, the prominent Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Sunday. 

The bill recognizing the genocide had been unanimously approved by the Israeli cabinet in late June after an initiative launched by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar. The recognition bill required passage by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, before becoming officially adopted as law.

The sudden move to recognize the Armenian Genocide was read by many as a diplomatic slight aimed at Turkey, which has labeled Israel’s actions in Gaza since 2023 a genocide.

However, according to an Israeli source with knowledge of the matter, the bill was removed from the Knesset’s agenda after Hikmet Hajiyev, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s foreign policy advisor, contacted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Per Haaretz, the Prime Minister's personal intervention thereafter derailed the process.

The bill was withdrawn shortly before the Knesset went on into its parliamentary recess period last Friday in the run-up to Israel’s national elections, sidelining the issue of recognition for the foreseeable future.

A close partner of both Israel and Turkey, and a longstanding opponent of Armenian Genocide recognition, Baku had expressed displeasure when the Israeli cabinet initially voted to recognize the genocide. Even though ties between Israel and Turkey deteriorated in recent years, Azerbaijan has maintained a positive relationship with the Jewish state. 

Israeli Foreign Minister Sa’ar denied the allegations raised by Haaretz’s reporting, telling the outlet "there is a government decision [to recognize the genocide], and it was approved unanimously… It will not be changed, and that is the important and historic fact."

The report by Haaretz appears to confirm rumors that had been circulating around the role of Azerbaijan in Israel’s decision to withdraw the recognition application. The Azerbaijani state press agency, APA, had reported on such rumors found in the Greek press, though has stopped short of detailing Baku’s intervention itself.

Azerbaijan is not only a close partner to Israel, but also has deep cultural and political ties with Turkey. Baku’s formal alliance with Ankara focused on political, military, and economic cooperation. 

Meanwhile, the majority of Israel’s oil originates in Azerbaijan, crossing through an Azerbaijan–Georgian-Turkish pipeline before being shipped across the Mediterranean Sea. Likewise, Azerbaijan imports Israeli military technology, used to great effect in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. Additionally, CNN reported in June that Israeli forces had operated from within Azerbaijani territory during the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict launched in February.

While both Turkey and Azerbaijan had publicly opposed the Israeli move to recognize the genocide, Azerbaijan’s statement on the matter had a notably more diplomatic tone. 

“The distortion of the historical facts surrounding the events of 1915, and the reduction of a complex historical issue to a political decision without a sound legal or scholarly basis, are unacceptable,” the statement read, “We call on the Israeli government to reconsider this decision.”