Israel and Kurdistan - time for an alliance of the
ages.
Victor Sharpe, 15/10/19 15:05
Sometime ago, before Turkey
chose first to lurch further into the deadly embrace of
Islamism and later under the growing dictatorship of Recep Tayip Erdogan,
I received a plea from a highly educated Kurdish friend who was
supportive of Israel's epic struggle to survive among its hostile Arab
neighbors. He was devoted to the Jewish people for he knew of both the
shared values and even ethnicities existing between Jews and
Kurds dating back millennia.
Here is some of my Kurdish friend's impassioned
letter from ten years ago, which was in reply to my American
Thinker article of June 2010 titled, In his reply,
he uncannily warned against the then alliance of
Israel with Turkey:
"I wish the Jews in Israel and abroad would
know better about the policy of their leaders concerning the Kurds, because it
happens in the name of Israel, and that should matter to all Jews. Turkish
oppression of the Kurds is unknown to most Israelis. It is hard for me to understand
how Israel's cooperation with Turkey does not take into account the misery that
it imposes upon the Kurdish people who yearn, as the Jews have for centuries,
to be free from terror and persecution?
"Not so long ago,
the Jews in Europe endured the Shoah and they know better than anyone else the
horrors of that experience.”
He went on to add the following:
"Of course it's not
only Israel but the whole world that is pro-Turkish and anti-Kurdish. It is not
fair to criticize Israel only, but given the history of the Jewish people,
there should be a heightened sensitivity towards Kurdish suffering.
"We Kurds have
shared so much culture together and we still remember fondly the Jews who lived
with us for centuries. But the Turks waxed and waned in their attitude towards
the Jews; sometimes they were tolerant and sometimes hostile. There are many
Turks today who share Islamist ideas and proclaim hostility towards the Jewish
state. Within Turkey lies the same anti-Jewish pestilence that exists
throughout the Arab and Persian world.
Now in hindsight, it is glaringly obvious how
correct my Kurdish friend's warning those ten years ago was. Erdogan
has sought every opportunity to break Turkey’s erstwhile friendship with the
Jewish state and now he seeks a veritable caliphate in the Islamic world while
garnering to himself those, like Hamas, who harbor deep hostility towards Israel.
Turkey is an enemy of both Israel and the
Kurdish people. He pointed out that, "the legitimate arguments and
rights Israel has are the same rights and truths it denies in its official
policy towards the Kurds. For now and for the future, everything looks black. I
fear the worst for us. The whole world is against us, and on the Turkish side
there is no change...."
From 1961, the Jewish state was the only nation
to actively support Kurdish aspirations. According to Mordechai Nisan in his
book, “Minorities in the Middle East”, the Kurdish leader in 1966, Mustafa
Barzani, told a visiting Israeli emissary, Arieh Lova Eliav, that. “In truth,
only the Jews cared about the Kurds.”
I remember an article in the New
York Sun on 6 July, 2004 titled "The Kurdish Statehood
Exception," in which Hillel Halkin exposed the discrimination and double
standards employed against Kurdish aspirations of statehood. He wrote:
"The Kurds have a far better case for
statehood than do the Palestinians. Kurdish people have their own unique
language and culture, which the Palestinian Arabs do not have. They have had a
sense of themselves as a distinct people for many centuries, which the
Palestinian Arabs have never had. They have been betrayed repeatedly in the
past 100 years by the international community and its promises, while the
Palestinian Arabs have been betrayed only by their fellow Arabs."
The Kurdish experiment, in at least the
territory's current quasi-independence, has shown the world a decent society
where all its inhabitants, men and women, enjoy far greater freedoms than can
be found anywhere else in the Arab and Muslim world.
The Jewish state must now, more than ever,
not ignore the 35-40 million Kurds, who remain stateless and shunned
by the world and who seek, at last, the historic justice they have craved for
centuries, nay millennia, but have been denied; an
independent Kurdish state of their own.
Turkey has now chosen to break its alliance with
Israel and instead has sought alliances with rogue states such as Iran and
Syria, along with the Hamas occupied and terrorist infested Gaza
Strip. Under Erdogan it has turned on Israel with a viciousness that
is quite desolating. It is sliding remorsefully back to the
7th century mindset and cesspit that so many of its neighbors wallow in.
Israel should advance the restoration
of a profoundly just, moral and enduring pact with the Kurdish people, and
assistance towards creating a future independent State of Kurdistan. An
enduring alliance between Israel and Kurdistan would be a vindication of
history, a recognition of the shared sufferings of both peoples, and bring
closer the advent of a brighter and strategically stronger future for both
non-Arab nations.
2 comments:
I am regular reader, how are you everybody? This article
posted at this site is really fastidious.
Much as I genuinely sympathise with the plight of the Kurds I do ask myself when, if ever, they have raised their voices in protest at the attacks on Israel over the decades? When have they spoken up for the right of Israelis to live in peace in OUR ancient homeland?
I can't personally remember a single occasion.
A "pact" is a two way agreement.
The Kurds certainly have never once actively come to our aid. So why on earth should we even consider putting our brave Israel soldiers at risk for this unsupportive foreign entity? I think tour young people have enough to do trying to ensure the survival of OUR nation.
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