In a message written by Jerusalem Armenian Patriarch Nourhan Manougian that was read on Sunday at the Hebrew University in Israel, the church leader said that he could not understand Israel's ongoing refusal to recognize the Turkish massacre of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide.

Manougian's message was read at an event where Prof. Michael Stone, the founder of the Armenian Studies program at the university's Institute of Asian and African Studies, annually conducts a symposium and commemoration of the Armenian genocide.

In his message to Israeli Armenians and Jews at the event, Manougian wrote, "For 98 years, so many efforts have been invested in getting the Turks to admit that they committed genocide and the Turks continue to deny." Each year, the message continued, people repeat "never again," and each year human rights organizations repeat the same report about human rights abuses, genocide, hunger and torture.