Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recognized the Armenian Genocide to take revenge on Turkish President Recep Erdogan, Bild reports.

Netanyahu has unexpectedly, for the first time, recognized the Armenian Genocide that took place 110 years ago. During Patrick Bet-David’s podcast, he was asked why Israel had not yet recognized the Turkish Genocide of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks. And Netanyahu had replied: “I just did. Here you go.”

With these words, the Israeli challenges Turkish President Recep Erdogan, for whom the topic of the Armenian Genocide is an absolute “red flag,” Bild notes. Turkey denies that the Ottoman Empire deliberately killed Armenians; it admits the mass killings, but calls them the cause of military operations—although the Armenians practically did not have weapons.

To this day, Israel has not dared to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, as it did not want to jeopardize good relations with Turkey, Bild adds. In 1949, Istanbul was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel as a state. Until the 2000s, the two countries cooperated closely, even holding joint military exercises and exchanging high-tech weapons—such as combat aircraft.

But the aforesaid statement by the Israeli PM means that relations with Erdogan have, in all likelihood, been irrevocably severed, Bild notes. The Turkish president makes anti-Israeli statements on a regular basis, openly befriends Hamas, and hosts and shelters the leaders of this organization. Also, he disseminates their propaganda and accuses the Jewish state of committing the “genocide” of the Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s statement about the real genocide of 1915 is a retaliatory blow that will hardly go unnoticed, Bild states. When, in 2016, the German Bundestag formally recognized the Armenian Genocide, the result was a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Germany.