Netanyahu's 'I just did' moment was never about justice for the past; it was about performance in the present.
When confronted in a podcast interview with Armenian Assyrian American host Patrick Bet-David, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked whether he would recognize the mass killings of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks in 1915–1917 as genocide, a question Israel's leaders have consistently sought to dodge.
His answer was startlingly brief: 'I just did. Here you go.' At first glance, this seemed like a historic moment. Yet the recognition was shallow, symbolic, and misleading.First, it was a surprising and awkward exchange, because everyone expected to hear a clear and factual formulation of what exactly he was recognizing, as is customary when heads of state or parliaments issue such recognition, where the facts and terminology are explicitly spelled out. His answer was startlingly brief: 'I just did. Here you go.'At first glance, this seemed like a historic moment. Yet the recognition was shallow, symbolic, and misleading.First, it was a surprising and awkward exchange, because everyone expected to hear a clear and factual formulation of what exactly he was recognizing, as is customary when heads of state or parliaments issue such recognition, where the facts and terminology are explicitly spelled out.Even more strikingly, Netanyahu falsely claimed that the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, had already passed a bill recognizing the Armenian genocide—a statement that is entirely untrue. In fact, such bills have been introduced repeatedly over the past three decades, only to be blocked time and again by Netanyahu and others. While Netanyahu is ageing, his memory is not at fault here. Rather, this was a deliberate rhetorical maneuver: dropping a plainly false claim in a casual tone that makes it sound plausible, when in fact it never happened, distracting from what came next—the 'I just did' moment.This is not the first time Netanyahu has revised history.In 2015, he said that the Palestinian Grand Mufti had inspired Hitler's decision to carry out the Holocaust, prompting widespread criticism following his remarks at the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem. Yad Vashem's chief historian, Professor Dina Porat, dismissed the claim outright: 'You cannot say that it was the mufti who gave Hitler the idea to kill or burn Jews. It's not true.'Netanyahu's recent revision of history, claiming that the Knesset had already recognized the Armenian genocide, shows how little importance he attaches to the topic. Some observers view this awkward remark as a sign that Israel may eventually shift its position. In reality, for decades Netanyahu has upheld Israel's policy of ambiguity. As deputy foreign minister and in other Washington-based roles during the 1980s, he was one of the key figures linking the deepening of Ankara–Jerusalem ties to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs' efforts to support Turkey's denial of the 1915 Armenian genocide.So why now? As Bet-David recounted in a follow-up interview a day later, he was eager to extract a recognition from Netanyahu. That context is important for understanding why it happened now.But another explanation lies in Netanyahu's calculated use of social media and podcasts to serve his legacy. With elections scheduled for October 2026, Netanyahu remains focused on staying in power, but also on shaping how history will remember him. By offering a passing recognition on a podcast—not in the Knesset and not in an official capacity—he reaps the benefit of headlines declaring that he 'recognized' the Armenian genocide, without paying the political price at home or abroad.Crucially, Netanyahu also left himself an escape hatch for his domestic audience. He never actually said the word 'genocide'—not in English, and not in any formal Israeli political context. That word is not only deeply contested; today it carries an explosive charge, as Israel itself is repeatedly accused of committing genocide in Gaza.But this episode also speaks to a larger trend: Podcasts and social media have become the new brokers of political legacy, allowing leaders to shape history on their own terms. Unlike formal speeches or parliamentary votes, a podcast answer can be easily downplayed or disowned. Netanyahu can tell international audiences that he 'just did' recognize the Armenian-Assyrian-Greek genocide, while reassuring his domestic base that it was only an offhand remark in a long interview, not an official act of state.As a medium of legacy politics, the podcast created a win-win for both Netanyahu and Bet-David. Bet-David can present himself as having extracted a long-sought recognition, while Netanyahu can claim to have jabbed Turkey—one of Hamas' strongest backers—in a sensitive spot. Turkey responded predictably with formal condemnation and symbolic restrictions, which did little to alter the already strained reality of its relations with Israel.For Armenians worldwide, it is certainly not a moment of glory either. The crumbs of Netanyahu's so-called recognition cannot erase Israel's record of supplying arms to Azerbaijan during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and the ethnic cleansing of 2023 that followed. These events ensured Azerbaijan's victory and were formalized in the peace accord signed in Washington last month.Netanyahu's 'I just did' moment was never about justice for the past; it was about performance in the present. It shows how, in contemporary politics, recognition can generate headlines without accountability.Dr. Eldad Ben Aharon is a senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. He is the author of the book Israeli-Turkish Relations at the End of the Cold War: The Geopolitics of Denying the Armenian Genocide, to be published by Edinburgh University Press in November 2025.The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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