Lecture | Book Talk
Book Talk: Israeli-Turkish Relations at the End of the Cold War: The Geopolitics of Denying the Armenian Genocide
- Date
- Wednesday 13 May 2026
- Time
- Location
-
Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden - Room
- 0.04
About the Book
In the shadows of Cold War politics, Israel quietly aligned itself with Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide. Why, and at what cost?
Israeli–Turkish Relations at the End of the Cold War is the first book to pull back the curtain on the pivotal 1980s, revealing a period of clandestine diplomacy, strategic bargaining and calculated international memory trade-offs that reshaped Middle Eastern alliances.
Eldad Ben Aharon 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 challenges the conventional wisdom that credits American Jewish organisations and Turkish Jews with shaping Ankara–Jerusalem relations and influencing Washington’s policies. Ultimately, he shows how individual diplomats, operating in the shadows, forged an alliance that redefined Israeli–Turkish relations for decades to come.
Israeli-Turkish Relations at the End of the Cold War: The Geopolitics of Denying the Armenian Genocide was published by Edinburgh University Press in November 2025.
Alp Yenen invites you to this book talk by Eldad Ben Aharon on one of the most intriguing topics in the political history of the Middle East in the 20th century.
About the Author
Eldad Ben Aharon is a Senior Researcher at PRIF's Research Department Local Peace Orders. He holds an MA in Modern History from University of Amsterdam and a PhD in History from Royal Holloway, University of London. He was a university lecturer at Leiden and Groningen and an Irish Research Council (IRC) Post-Doctoral Fellow in International Security at Dublin City University. Dr. Ben Aharon’s areas of interest include security and memory, transnationalism, securitization theory, foreign policy analysis, public and digital diplomacy, and elite interviews.