At a special Knesset session on Tuesday marking 100 years since the start of the Armenian genocide, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein urged the Israeli government on Tuesday to re-examine its official position on the matter. With Armenian dignitaries looking on from the Knesset gallery, Edelstein said, "It is no secret that Israel has taken an ambivalent position on the genocide of the Armenian people. As Jews whose skin is still scorched by the Holocaust carried out by the Nazis against us not many years later, we cannot remain silent. We cannot turn a blind eye or diminish the importance of the Armenian tragedy." Meretz leader Zehava Galon, who initiated the session, said, "The government is a partner in the denial of the Armenian genocide. The feeble labeling of the Armenian genocide as a 'tragedy' accentuates just how much the issue of recognizing of the Armenian genocide is still used as a pawn in Israel's foreign policy."
