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Armenia and Palestine: A Shared Struggle By René Zadoorian

Updated: Oct 29

“Who Remembers the Armenians?”

I remember them

and I ride the nightmare bus with them

each night

and my coffee, this morning

I’m drinking it with them

You, murderer -

Who remembers you?


- Najwan Darwish


In 2024, nearly one year into the most recent genocide in Palestine, my clothing sparked

a politically charged encounter with an older woman at a bookstore. A black t-shirt from Books

to Prisoners, with a quote from Eugene Debs reading “while there is a lower class I am in it.

While there is a criminal element I am of it. While there is a soul in prison I am not free”

followed by a barcode resembling prison. What started off as a conversation about prison

abolition led to Israel, after somewhere in the crossroads I mentioned being Armenian.

“You’re Armenian so you support Israel, right?”

This was the first I had heard of this connection. What made this woman think that my

loyalty was to Israel? Her logic was skewed, but unfortunately, not rare in the modern day of

social activism where solidarity is transactional. The woman assumed, that having been subject

to genocide by the Ottoman Empire in 1915, a genocide which is to this day denied and

unrecognized by many countries, including its perpetrator, that I would cheer at this annihilation

of families, maybe even have a feeling of revenge since the empire which committed the

genocide on “my” people were Muslim. As if Armenians are a monolith of Christianity.


We are taught about our history from a young age. We grow up learning about the

atrocities we inherit, no matter how brutal. We were taught of the marches, and the hunger,

struggle and displacement that men, women and children were forced to carry to other countries

in search of refuge. My family was one of many who took root in Iran, one of the largest

Armenian diasporas. Roughly 60 to 80 thousand Armenians are currently living in Iran, making

the population the largest of Iran’s national minorities.1 Armenians found home in cities such as

Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, and elsewhere. I was born in Tehran, the capital with a

population of nearly ten million people currently being targeted and struck by Israel.2

The Armenian struggle and Palestinian struggle go hand in hand, not only for Armenians

living in Iran. Armenia is a country rooted in deep history and culture, many which take the form

of Christian religious symbols. Our fruits are holy, our pomegranates immortalized in films and

art, our food is shared with insistence. As with the 1947 Nakba, 1915 was far from the final

struggle of the Armenian people. Wars between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan over the

Republic of Artsakh, now called Nagorno-Karabakh, have proven catastrophic. This includes the

44 day war in 2020, also referred to as the Second Nagorno-Karabakh war. Israel’s role of

providing weapons to Azerbaijan aided in the destruction and loss of countless lives, including

soldiers barely old enough to be considered adults. The Genocide Education Project, a resource

focused on providing educators with Armenian Genocide information, stated that “of the major

arms supplied [to Azerbaijan] by Israel, loitering munitions, reconnaissance unmanned aerial

vehicles (UAVs), guided missiles and ballistic missiles were known to have been used in the

2020 war with Armenia as well as during some of the earlier border skirmishes.” It is also no


2

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secret that the United States plays an active role in the annihilation of Palestine. Between 1946

and 2023, Israel received $263bn from the U.S., making it the most significant recipient of U.S.

foreign aid.3 The U.S. involvement in the Palestinian genocide is beyond what people often

describe as “complicit.” It is instead an active and willing participation in genocide.

But let us put the logistics aside. The statistics, the facts, the cold hard truth of it all. What

does it mean to live in a world where the semantics of the occupied are prioritized over the

suffering caused by the occupier? Where chanting “Death to the IDF” is visa revoking4

, yet IDF

soldiers are welcomed home to U.S. and European citizenships after committing war crimes in

occupied Palestine? A world that values the emotional comfort of zionists over the physical

dangers faced by the countless victims of this genocidal ideology? A world where comparing the

IDF to Nazis is gasped at, but images and videos of burnt Palestinian bodies are justified. Where

Armenians, despite our horrific history of displacement, are expected to stand in solidarity with

“Israel.” And what of the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem, thought to be the oldest Armenian

diaspora? The Quarter, which saw a boom of Armenian population in early 20th century as

families fled the genocide, was once seen as a safe haven. Now, it is under threat of demolition,

with residents facing verbal and physical violence from Israeli settlers who refuse to coexist

outside of their religion. What of the Israeli land developers buying out lots that will displace

families who have lived there for decades?

What of, what of, what of?

 
 
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