Denounce Zionism all you want. Without it, the Jews would share Armenia's tragic fate. In 1914, both nations stood on the same precipice before their twin cataclysms. The starkly different outcomes owes everything to the very movement the world still condemns. A comparative🧵:
2/ In 2025 Armenia is the mirror opposite of Israel: weak and dysfunctional, occupying a landlocked fraction of its historic land. Armenia has one of the highest emigration rates in the world, making the diaspora its financial & cultural lifeline. Why the divergence?
3/ Both ancient minorities were scapegoated as traitors during WWI. While the Russian army massacred Jews in a harbinger of the Holocaust, the Ottomans launched the Armenian genocide annihilating most of the western Armenia population.
4/ After the genocide, Armenia achieved what can only be described as a premature independence. As an economy of peasants, it couldn’t absorb refugees or repel invasions. Americans donated $110M to Armenians genocide survivors, but it didn't go towards nation state building.
5/ After the US Senate rejected President Wilson’s idea of a mandate for a “Greater Armenia” in 1920, Armenia was swallowed into the Soviet Union. Not only did the Armenian diaspora remain scattered, but Armenian religion and culture was stifled under decades of communist rule.
6/ Armenia became independent again in 1991, but inherited Soviet bureaucracy & corruption. It approached its diaspora as benefactors, not partners in state building & repatriation. There was no equivalent to the Jewish Agency, JNF, Israel Bonds, Magen David Adom, or ulpanim.
7/ Like Israel, Armenia allows any ethnic Armenian to gain citizenship regardless of birthplace or ancestral connection to present-day Armenia. The country’s first President was born in Syria and its first Foreign Minister came from Fresno. But the Armenian diaspora didn't come.
8/ Armenia never had the equivalent of a Zionist movement. America’s second largest philanthropic effort during WW1 (after the Armenian one), was the Joint Distribution Committee for Jewish Aid. It focused on institutions in Europe & Palestine, the type that would build a nation.
9/ Both Armenia and Israel were born into war without the aid of allies. But only Israel was strong enough to absorb millions of refugees while simultaneously defending itself. Due to Zionism, Israel had the benefit of time to prepare for independence, but that’s not all.
10/ Zionism succeeded where Armenian nationalism did not. It emphasized strong foundations, facilitating mass immigration, forging a common culture & partnering with the diaspora. It emphasized foresight, patience & self-agency.
11/ Zionists had foresight. They saw the need for a homeland well before the Holocaust and built institutions, infrastructure & diplomatic capital in anticipation. Before the genocide, Armenian nationalism focused on autonomy, and was too fragmented and weak to build a state.
12/ Zionists were patient. They avoided premature statehood declarations, refrained from fighting the British, let the Arabs reject every partition, & slowly rallied the Jewish diaspora. Armenian independence came too early, without diaspora organization, with no real defenses.
13/ Zionists had agency. Armenian nationalists and Zionists were both given foreign backing and then quickly abandoned. But the Zionists built the means to survive without Western promises, found ways to sidestep immigration restrictions and to build a defense capability.
14/ In an alternate universe, Israel looks like the 1937 Peel map. Too small, poor & disorganized to defend itself from invading Arab armies. Like Armenia, it exists as a fragile enclave with a shrinking population, dependent on donations & foreign guarantees.
15/ Today, the prospect of peace between Armenia & Azerbaijan along with the severely ruptured relations between Israel & Turkey are reasons for Israel & Armenia to restore diplomatic relations. Jews and Armenians instinctively recognize one another’s suffering and always have.
16/ Two Jews helped the world grasp the Armenian Genocide, implicitly warning their own people. Ambassador Morgenthau exposed it as it happened; novelist Franz Werfel’s "Forty Days of Musa Dagh" immortalized Armenian bravery and inspired Jewish resistance fighters in the ghettos.
17/ Israel & Armenia are rooted in mighty fallen kingdoms and the tragedy of genocide. There are no more Armenians in Cilicia or Jews in Galicia, but only Israel can protect its citizens & rescue and provide for those who might return. That’s thanks to Zionism.
18/ Condemn Zionism all you want. Strip away Zionism from the Jewish people, and our renaissance becomes a requiem for a second time. No thanks.
