In the shadows of Cold War politics, Israel quietly aligned itself with Turkey's denial of the Armenian Genocide. Why, and at what cost?
Eldad Ben Aharon's Israeli-Turkish Relations at the End of the Cold War traces Israel's diplomatic maneuvering through key geopolitical events, including Iran's Islamic Revolution, the July 1980 Jerusalem Law, Turkey's September 1980 military coup, and the 1982 First
Lebanon War, alongside its secret dealings with Ankara. He situates these developments within broader regional and global shifts, such as Turkey's 1987 bid to join the European Economic Community, U.S. foreign policy under Ronald Reagan and the early stages of the American "war on terror."
Ben Aharon uncovers how divisions within Israel's diplomatic corps reflected broader dilemmas over supporting Turkey's denial of the Armenian Genocide
while protecting Jerusalem's strategic interests in Washington and Brussels. Ultimately, he shows how individual diplomats, operating in the shadows, forged an alliance that reshaped Israeli-Turkish relations for decades.