The government of Armenia is trying to warm its formerly tense relationship with Israel in an effort to overhaul its foreign policy, but its overtures are being met with outrage from the public.
Israel cultivated a close relationship with Azerbaijan shortly after its independence, with the duo soon becoming one of each other’s most important allies. Jerusalem’s critical support for Azerbaijan in the war over the formerly majority-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region has deeply embittered Armenian society against Israel, fostering a feeling of betrayal, given the presumed natural kinship between the groups, who both experienced genocide in the 20th century.
The Armenian government’s sudden moves over the past year to boost its relationship with Israel were predictably met with outrage from many Armenians.
Israeli Independence Day well wishes and backlash
On Tuesday, Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a message of congratulations to Israel to commemorate the 78th anniversary of its independence. The message concluded with a pledge that Armenia was ready to expand the two countries’ ties and “explore new opportunities for cooperation.”
The response on social media was less than welcoming. Armenians at home and in the diaspora voiced their outrage at the friendly message, drawing up grievances and cursing the government, often with expletives. Alex Galitsky, the policy director for the Armenian National Committee of America, one of the leading Armenian advocacy groups in the United States, described the message as “F***ing pathetic.”
“You are congratulating them while they spitting on armenian priests in Jerusalem and trying to occupy the armenian quarter?” Armenian journalist Pyotr Babayan said in response to the post.
Ana Kasparian, an Armenian American host of the liberal news organization the Young Turks, had the most viral response, with over 32,000 likes, compared to the government post’s 5,000.
“Are you guys f***ing insane?” she said.
Media in Armenia, especially independent and opposition outlets, were similarly critical of the message.
Aravot, one of the country’s leading independent outlets, published critical remarks on the statement by Iranian expert Ehsan Movahedian. Armenia has enjoyed warm relations with Iran in recent years, with Tehran backing Armenia to counterbalance Jerusalem’s backing of Azerbaijan.
“What a bitter irony! While the whole world condemns Israel’s crimes, the Armenian government lives in a different reality,” Movahedian said of the government’s congratulatory message. “This congratulation comes against the backdrop of property issues in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem, attempts to seize it, and the aggressive attitude of radical Jews towards the Armenian clergy.”
Other media outlets featured similarly critical remarks from Vahe Hovhannisyan, a member of the Armenian Alternative Projects think tank.
“A few years ago, our settlements were being bombed with Israeli weapons, and Israel greatly supported Azerbaijan. Well, state thinking aside, don’t you have basic human qualities?” he said, noting that Armenia’s congratulatory message went much further than Azerbaijan’s courteous message, despite the latter being one of Israel’s closest allies.
Hovhannisyan argued that the congratulatory message was a strategic blunder that angered Armenia’s “friend,” Iran, which is one of its most valuable partners in the region.
Why Armenians are so embittered toward Israel
ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian told the Washington Examiner that he’s seen widespread backlash from Armenians online and in person, due to Israel’s “hostile” stance toward Armenia. Israel’s refusal to recognize the Armenian genocide (the U.S. has also not recognized the genocide over fears of alienating its ally Turkey), property disputes and the mistreatment of Armenian priests in Jerusalem, and Israel’s arming of Azerbaijan have all contributed to cultivating a negative image of Israel among Armenians, he said.
“Before we see any meaningful diasporan support for boosting Armenia-Israel ties, Israel will first need to answer for its decadeslong complicity in Turkey’s denial of the Armenian genocide, its arming and abetting of Azerbaijan’s ethnic-cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, and its mounting pressure threatening the survival of Jerusalem’s Armenian Christian Quarter,” he said.
The cherry on top for many came this week with Israel’s appointment of George Deek as its first special envoy to the Christian world. Deek’s appointment led to widespread outcry in the world’s first Christian country, as he had previously served as Israel’s ambassador to Azerbaijan from 2019 to 2025, the period during which Azerbaijan defeated Armenia and took control of Nagorno-Karabakh.
“He’s somebody who actually has a record of complicity in anti-Christian persecution, and the last person who should have been appointed to that job,” Hamparian said.
Armenian bitterness toward Israel doesn’t extend to the Jewish community more broadly, he argued, pinning all the blame on the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I think among Jewish Americans and even a majority of pro-Israel voices in America, there’s great sympathy for the Armenians. We’re both genocide survivor peoples, genocide survivor states. We’re in a tough neighborhood. We have so very much in common. I think the alignment between Jews and Armenians is very high. But where the disjoint comes is with the Netanyahu government,” Hamparian said.
The reinvention of Armenia’s foreign policy
Despite the apparent unpopularity of warming ties with Israel, the pro-Western government of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan believes that weathering the backlash is a fair trade-off in its quest to reinvent the country’s foreign policy. Armenia was reliant on its close alliance with Russia for the first three decades of its existence, ensuring its protection against Azerbaijani attempts to take Nagorno-Karabakh, which was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but under the de facto control of Armenia. Pashinyan’s pro-Western stance led to a deterioration of relations with Moscow, clearing the way for Azerbaijan’s seizure of the territory in 2020-2023.
In the aftermath of the disastrous war, Pashinyan has tried to wean Armenia off its relationship with Russia, cultivating ties with the U.S. and the West. This culminated in last year’s Washington peace treaty, in which Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met with President Donald Trump to sign a preliminary agreement to end the over three-decade-long war over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Analysts are interpreting Armenia’s new overtures toward Israel as closely connected to Pashinyan’s overtures toward the U.S.
“This sudden push with the state of Israel has everything to do with President Trump’s so-called peace initiative in the South Caucasus. Don’t underestimate Trump’s role in these efforts … Pashinyan will do whatever it takes to curry favor with this administration — even if that makes playing nice with Israel, a key ally of both the U.S. and Azerbaijan,” Armenian American communications strategist Stephan Pechdimaldji told the Washington Examiner.
He added that many Armenians feel that Trump is “just propping Pashinyan up as he sees him as a lackey in trying to make Armenia a vassal state for Azerbaijan’s oil under the guise of peace.”
“Instead of extolling the government of Israel, Armenia should be holding them accountable for their role in helping Azerbaijan ethnically cleanse 120,000 Armenians from their ancestral homeland of Artsakh,” Pechmaldi said, using the Armenian term for Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Armenian government’s new embrace of Israel is just the latest move that could help doom the increasingly unpopular Pashinyan government, which first came to power in a pro-democracy revolution in 2018. Despite surviving an electoral challenge in 2021 after he lost the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Pashinyan has grown increasingly unpopular since and faces his worst chances yet in the June 7 elections, the first normal parliamentary election in Armenia since 2017.
“I think [Pashinyan] just has just sort of one gear, which is reverse and just retreat, retreat, retreat,” Harapian said, adding that Pashinyan “has made concessions on every front, including the remembrance of the Armenian genocide, including the right of Armenians to live in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
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“He’s just in constant concession mode. And these are unilateral concessions. I think that won’t sit well with voters in Armenia,” he continued.
An opposition party taking back control of the government would likely see the abandonment of a warming of relations with Israel and the West more broadly. Most opposition leaders favor either pragmatic engagement with the West and Russia or a full return to Russia.