It’s
very ironic that all the noise about the Kurdish independence
referendum; the battles between Kurdish and Iraqi forces; Turkish,
Syrian, and Iranian opposition to Kurdish independence; discussion in
Israel whether the State of Israel should recognize Kurdish
independence; is taking place within a few weeks before and just
after the 16th Yahrtzeit – anniversary of the murder –
of former Israeli Tourism Minister and Moledet
Party founder Rechavam Ze’evi by
PFLP terrorists in 2001.
It's no secret that close relations existed between Israel and the Kurds throughout most of the sixties and into the seventies, until the collapse of the Kurdish revolt in Iraq, in 1975. Ze’evi – as a young military officer – had been to Kurdistan in the 1960s and Iraqi Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani had been to Israel. Reflective of this, the 1996 Moledet Party Platform, Chapter 9: Foreign Policy, paragraph 17, stated “Israel will act against the oppression of peoples like the Kurds...”
Ba’athist
“forced Arabization” of
minorities – Kurds, Yezidis, Assyrian Christians,
Armenians, and
others,
in Kurdistan
– northern
Iraq – began
in the 1960s, and lasted until the early 2000s. The
Kurds, were
brutally suppressed by Saddam Hussein’s
Ba’athist regime, starting
in the late 1970s.
During the 1987-88
Al-Anfal Campaign, an
estimated 180,000 Kurds were killed,
hundreds of thousands
more, were
expelled from their
traditional homeland
in northern
Iraq. During the
campaign, over 3,000
Kurdish villages were
destroyed and
replaced
with Arab settlers, and
chemical weapons were
used against them, as
in the infamous 1988
Halabja Massacre, that killed as many as 5,000 and injured up to
10,000 people.
In
fact, the town of Kirkuk,
in the news a
lot recently, was
originally a Kurdish majority, multi-ethnic city. The Ba’athist
Arabization program
concentrated on moving Arabs to the vicinity of oil fields in
Kurdistan, particularly the ones around Kirkuk. According to Human
Rights Watch, from
1991
–
after the Gulf War – until
2003, the Ba’athist
Iraqi government, systematically expelled over
500,000
Kurds from the Kirkuk region.
The
Kurdish people are the largest, stateless, ethnicity
in the world, estimated between 30-45 million worldwide, with the
majority residing in historic Kurdistan. The
area the Kurds consider Kurdistan includes,
parts of southeastern Turkey (Northern Kurdistan), northern Syria
(Western Kurdistan), northern Iraq (Southern Kurdistan), and
northwestern
Iran (Eastern
Kurdistan).
The
Turks, Syrians, and Iranians, have all oppressed their Kurdish
populations also.
The
Kurds have always looked toward Israel as a role model. The Jews are
the only minority in the middle east – actually the remnant
of the indigenous population of the land of Israel as
the Kurds are in Kurdistan –
that has liberated itself politically
from
the
7th
century Arab
imperialist
invasion,
occupation and oppression
of
the region.
With
this in mind, Israel should actively and
openly revive
the former policy of support for the Kurdish people.
Israel
must
recognize the
State of Kurdistan,
as
soon as they declare independence, establish
diplomatic relations, exchange embassies, work
in international forums and agencies to support their independence,
and at the UN, to have them admitted as a member state.
In
a recent article, Dr. Mordechai Kedar, of Bar-Ilan University in
Israel, raises an important point. Kedar referring to, “Israeli
pundits, army officers and politicians...view the current regional
situation as a golden opportunity that Israel must take advantage of
by accepting the Arab peace proposals, establishing a Palestinian
state and embarking on a new era of cooperation with the ‘moderate
Sunni axis’ in order to bring peace and security to Israel and the
entire area.” He then asks, “Why? Because all these countries
fear Iran as much as, and possibly more, than Israel does.”
Referring
to recent, seemingly warmer relations between Israel and the Sunni
Arab states in the region who feel threatened by Iran, He
then asks, “But
let us suppose that the Iranian threat disappears because Israel
succeeds in an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities...Will the Arab
and Western worlds be grateful to Israel and act to protect Israel’s
interests?”
Kedar
then answers, “What happened to the Kurds
will happen to Israel. The Kurds fought ISIS, sacrificed their
soldiers and people, and were thrown to the wolves once they were not
needed. That is exactly what the world’s nations will do to Israel
once it extricates them from the Iranian problem. Why not? The
immediate interests of each and every country and not the moral
rights of the Kurds and the Israelis are what makes the world go
round.”
In
my recent article, “North Korea: The
Israeli Connection” I made a similar
point, “As the saying goes, ‘countries
don’t have friends, just interests.’ There
are close parallels
between the US, South Korea and Japan, vis-à-vis
North Korea, and the US and Israel, vis-à-vis Iran.
So Jews and Israel should be watching
closely how the Trump administration ‘protects’ its allies. One
can get a picture of just how well America would cover Israel under
its ‘security umbrella,’ when pushing
Israel to take a ‘chance for peace’ as
has been suggested, in any future Middle
East peace deal, by watching the Korean
crisis unfold. And, it will give a clue as
to how much Israel can count on the US in dealing with Iran’s
nuclear program.” One could now add to
that, watch how the Trump administration has abandoned the Kurds.
Israel should pro-actively support the legitimate aspirations of the oppressed minorities – the indigenous peoples – of the Middle East and North Africa, like the Kurds and Berbers, and build alliances with them. It should be a corner stone of Israeli Foreign Policy.
In 2014, PM Netanyahu said that, “It is upon us to support the Kurds’ aspiration for independence,” and called them a “fighting people that have proven political commitment and political moderation, and they’re also worthy of their own political independence.”
In August of this year, Netanyahu told a visiting delegation of 33 Republican Congressmen from the US, that he was in favor of an independent state for the Kurds, “a brave, pro-Western people who share our values.”
And again, speaking at the state memorial ceremony for Ze’evi, just recently, Netanyahu said, “The Kurds demonstrate national maturity and international maturity...We have very great sympathy for their desires and the world needs to concern itself with their safety and with their future.”
Till now, Israel has been the only country to openly support Kurdish independence, with Netanyahu last month backing “the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to attain a state of its own.” But, he did not specify how and where such a state should come into being.
Well,
now that they’ve voted for independence, you have to put your words
into action!
The
State of Israel must recognize the State of Kurdistan as
soon as they declare independence.
Popular
former
Likud MK Gideon Sa’ar –
and a potential challenger to Netanyahu – has
also
urged
Israel support Kurdish independence, saying in June that, “they
have proven themselves over decades to be a reliable strategic
partner for us.” And
again, on the day of the referendum in late September, “I
hope that if there is a majority for independence, Israel will be the
first country to recognize Iraqi Kurdistan.”
Finally,
Israeli
Middle East expert Dr. Eddy Cohen
– as
reported in Arutz
Sheva
recently
– said that
if the Kurds are dislodged from their positions by Iran it could
endanger Israel and therefore Israel has a strategic interest in
helping the Kurds.
Israel
has always had a strategic interest in the success of the Kurds.
That’s why Israel has
supported them since the 1960s, and why I’ve
been calling for Israel to support Kurdish independence since the
early 2000s.
I
think the Americans blew it in
2003, they should have
carved Iraq into three areas –
or states on the way – approximately,
a Kurdish north, Sunni center, and Shiite south. They should have
offered the Kurds independence almost immediately, they then would
have had a strong regional ally and
bulwark against Iran
much earlier.
A de-Ba’athification
program for the Sunni center should have been implemented, similar to
de-Nazification in Germany after WWII.
The
Shiite south, by
having their own area, might not have become as radical as
they did. Without the
power struggle with the Sunnis; in the “unified” Iraq, that
the Americans attempted
to maintain; the
Shiites might not have drawn closer to Iran, being that they were
Arabs and not Persians. The
two other areas both
under American military occupation, could have been offered a
performance based track toward eventual independence, and
seeing what the Americans did with the Kurds, would have proven the
Americans
trustworthy.
The
Americans seem to be missing the
boat of opportunity
again, with regards to the Kurds.
But Israel shouldn’t,
it’s about time
that Israel recognize
an independent State of
Kurdistan!
Ariel
Natan Pasko, an independent analyst and consultant, has a Master's
Degree specializing in International Relations, Political Economy &
Policy Analysis. His articles appear regularly on numerous
news/views and think-tank websites and in newspapers.
His
latest articles can also be read on his archive: The
Think Tank by Ariel Natan Pasko.
(c) 2017/5778 Pasko
Published at: BreakingIsraelNews.com, ManhigutYehudit-JewishLeadership, IntellectualConservative.com, JewishPress.com, etc.
