An Israeli diplomat in the Balkans has set off a firestorm of criticism this week, after telling Russian state media that he did not believe that an infamous 1995 massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys constituted a genocide.

Speaking with the Kremlin-controlled Sputnik news agency, Yahel Vilan, Israel’s ambassador to Serbia, stated that calling the mass execution committed by Bosnian Serb troops in the town of Srebrenica a genocide “diminishes the importance of that term, which, in my opinion, should only be used for genocides.”

“And Israel was invited to The Hague because of the alleged genocide in Gaza. For me, Srebrenica should not be called genocide,” Vilan said, referencing the recent South African motion accusing Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice, reads The Times of Israel.

The daily reminds that Vilan’s comments came as Bosnian Muslim politicians push for the passage of a draft UN resolution commemorating the genocide. While the measure is supported by a number of European countries and the United States, the diplomat said that he was unsure how Israel would vote on the matter.

In response, Bosnia's Foreign Minister Elmedin Konakovic decried Vilan’s “shameful statement,” arguing that such claims are “not only deeply wrong, but also insulting to the victims and survivors of the genocide in Srebrenica, as well as to all those who hold to truth and justice in the international community.”

“To remind Ambassador Vilan, the comparison of the Holocaust and the genocide in Srebrenica is not a matter of competition in suffering, but recognition that every victim of crimes against humanity deserves equal honor and justice. Downplaying the crimes in Srebrenica under the guise of ‘importance of terminology’ is not only intellectually dishonest, but also morally questionable.”

Vilan, he continued, is “a disgrace to diplomacy and a human disgrace.”

Srebrenica Genocide Memorial director Emir Suljagic — a massacre survivor who has been subjected to a campaign of antisemitic rhetoric for refusing to condemn Israel following October 7 — also condemned Vilan’s statement, declaring that the latter “does not speak for the [Jewish] people, and especially not for the victims of the Holocaust.”

Speaking by phone from Sarajevo, Jakob Finci, president of the Bosnian Jewish community, argued that Vilan had made things harder for his constituents.

“They are a bit afraid of the final results of Gaza, that some countries will start a case like South Africa [arguing] that this was genocide in Gaza. So it’s better to keep to the other side, to deny any kind of crime [can] be called genocide,” he said.

Such an approach could rebound on Israel, added Vladimir Andrle, the president of the Jewish community’s La Benevolencija philanthropic organization.

“By denying genocide in Srebrenica we are opening the door for Holocaust deniers to use the same logic and to deny verdicts which determine genocide against Jews and courts which brought those verdicts,” he said in a WhatsApp message.

“I do hope that this position is the position of one ambassador [and] not the official stand of [the] State of Israel.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Israeli official with knowledge of the matter told The Times of Israel that “high-level officials from both sides in Bosnia… look forward to seeing how Israel will vote.”

“Our vote is very meaningful due to the context of the Holocaust,” the official noted, adding that Israel’s position on Srebrenica has always been “pretty vague.”

“Only two years ago, Israel was the driving force in getting the UN General Assembly to condemn Holocaust denial. And in 2013, Israel did the legally and morally right thing when it extradited a Bosnian Serb accused of participating in the Srebrenica massacre to stand trial in Bosnia,” argued Menachem Rosensaft, a Cornell law professor and genocide expert.