Israel, Turks, and Jews…Again
My Friends, Dare To Think About What The Future Could Be…
I’ve watched the recent Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan closely.
I have not commented until now because I have written extensively about what’s needed previously.
What I will now say I’ve largely said before, but it’s now time to reassert what I believe to be hard truths to two friends.
I cannot condemn Ankara’s decision to invade Iraqi Kurdistan anymore than I could condemn Israel’s decision to go after Arabs who target Jews from Gaza, Judea and Samaria (renamed only recently in history the “West Bank”), and so forth. I’m glad to see that, for whatever reasons, the Turks have now withdrawn.
The PKK’s refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan was an open invitation for a Turkish invasion. I’m surprised it took so long in the coming. And I wrote that in the Kurdish media itself long ago.
Having said this, there’s another hard series of truths…
Unlike the plight of one fifth of Turkey’s population who are Kurds, Israel’s Arab population (also one fifth of Israel) are the freest Arabs anywhere in the Middle East. Despite many of the latter composing a real fifth column (siding with fellow Arabs who call for Israel’s total destruction), Arab language, culture, political rights, and so forth flourish in the land of the Jews.
Perfection? No…but compared to the plight of non-Arabs in so-called “Arab ” lands–especially those whom the Arabs call “their” kilab yahud (Jew dogs), the Jews who are left (more Jews fled those lands to Israel than Arabs who fled Israel)–Israeli Arabs live in Paradise. Just ask black African Sudanese in Darfur and southern Sudan, for starters (and Copts, Kurds, Assyrians, Amazigh/Berbers, and so forth).
I was pleased to hear that the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) recently invited Turkey to hold talks to resolve differences, while the President of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, Masud Barzani, expressed readiness to contribute to finding a peaceful solution to the problem. This is not the first time they’ve extended these invitations either.
In a statement, the PKK expressed a readiness to seek a peaceful solution to the issue of Kurds in Turkey through mediation by the government of Iraq’s Kurdish Region and supported the KRG’s call for establishing dialogue.
On his part, President Barzani expressed his readiness to “actively participate” in finding a peaceful solution to the PKK-Turkish problem, which he hoped would “end violence in the region and build better relations of cooperation and consolidate security and stability for our people.”
On the surface, this might appear to just be just wishful thinking. But U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s statement openly addressing the need for Ankara to address the real grievances of Turkish Kurds seems to be a welcome new development. I don’t recall an American official vocalizing this as firmly prior to now.
Let’s step back again…
Over the past century in particular, after the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish Empire in the wake of World War I, the Kurds were renamed Mountain Turks, had their language and culture outlawed, etc. and so forth to insure that the new, constricted Turkey which arose with Mustafa Kemal–Ataturk–would suffer no further geographical losses. Understandable, but not a just solution to the problem. After all, long before a Turk or Arab was in that vicinity, Kurds long lived there.
Turkey has been a valuable ally of America and has resisted Islamic extremism better than any other Muslim country. It also has relatively good relations with Israel…especially when its relations with neighboring Syria take a dive.
So, as with my Kurdish friends, I truly wish nothing but good for our Turkish friends as well.
But, as I’ve written often before and will repeat until it sinks in, friends should be able to disagree and still remain friends.
When Israel goes after Hamas terror masters, Ankara is quick to criticize and lecture about the need to create the Arabs’ 22nd state and second, not first, one in “Palestine”–Jordan having surfaced on some 80% of the original April 25, 1920 territory over the past century. Turkey knows full well what the Arabs’ plans are for the Jewish State, yet makes these demands anyway. But talk about the need for justice for 35 million truly stateless Kurds, and Ankara goes ballistic.
Turkey is some forty times as large as Israel geographically and eleven times larger in population.
Despite this, Ankara sees nothing wrong, after demanding the creation of the Arabs’ 22nd state, with telling Kurds–who have been massacred and subjugated in all the lands where they have lived in the new nationalist era–that they must remain forever in that stateless condition because of the potential threat independence in Iraqi Kurdistan might have to Turkey. The Turks fear the effect this will have on their own large, adjacent–and suppressed– Kurdish population.
As we all know, the fear is well founded, and I understand it.
But if a Turkey which dwarfs Israel in size and population has reason to fear this, then what is Israel to say?
Again, one fifth of Israel is Arab…like the fifth of Turkey which is Kurd. Yet the Jews are told by virtually all–including Turks–that they must allow yet another Arab state, dedicated to their very destruction, to be set up in their backyard.
Keep in mind that whatever its flaws may be, the PKK does not seek Turkey’s destruction. The calls for independence by some largely are sired by real, unaddressed grievances–as Secretary Gates acknowledged.
Despite the potential for problems, justice does not demand that Kurds remain forever politically powerless in the nationalist age. A miniscule Israel faces worse problems regarding such things but is expected to allow for the creation of yet another rejectionist Arab state.
So, what’s to be done?
Once again repeating what I’ve written earlier, there is no doubt that the Kurds must do what the Arabs refuse to do…
Iraqi Kurdistan must show Ankara that an independent or highly autonomous Iraqi federal Kurdish region will not be a threat. Had it done so earlier, a Turkish invasion–even with Ankara eying Kurdish oil–would not have occurred or at least wouldn’t have been justified.
As President Barzani (whose late father will forever be a hero of mine) has stated above, there must be serious discussions with the PKK about what the greater good for Kurdistan will require. This means Kurdish leaders must get their own acts together as well…beyond protecting their own virtual fiefdoms–be they Talabani, Barzani, or whomever. If need be, they must use military force to subdue their own extremists.
Hopefully, it will not come to this. And nothing will be expected in this regard if the Turks don’t show that they will be willing to grant Iraqi Kurds the same right to have in one of which they expect Israel to allow Arabs to have almost two dozen of. Ankara must also seriously address the rights of Turkish Kurds as well instead of collaborating with both Syria and Iran in suppression of their respective Kurdish populations.
There is room for coexistence and cooperation if both peoples can get beyond their fears. A brighter future awaits them. Besides problems with the PKK, there are already real benefits materializing for Turks in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Both have a history of opposing Islamic extremism, though some are to be counted amongst both populations.
Kurds from Turkey, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere wanting to live in an independent Kurdish state can have in Iraqi Kurdistan what Jews have in a reborn Israel.
Like formerly truly stateless Jews, Kurds have suffered greatly because of this political powerlessness.
Again, renaming Arabs “Palestinians” (most of whom came from elsewhere) does not change the fact that Arabs have almost two dozen states–conquered from mostly non-Arab peoples. If there is a rough analogy to the Jews, it is the Kurds, not the Arabs. The Turks especially must also understand this since, besides Turkey, there are also a half dozen other Turkish states.
Both Turks and Kurds must examine each others needs and fears.
The future can be a promising one for both peoples.
While Arabs of different stripes blow each other apart, Turks and Kurds have mostly shown that they want no part of this sort of thing. Positive nationalism is better than negative nationalism.
Think of the possibilities which can arise if both peoples can get themselves to grant each other the humanity and respect both deserve.
Turkish Kurds must understand that the realm of the Turks will not see itself geographically split again. But this does not mean that Kurds should continue to be suppressed in Turkey. To insure Turkey’s integrity, the Turks have demanded Turkification of all who live there. This needs to be changed drastically. Imagine the outcry if Israel was doing this sort of thing to Arabs.
Ironically, Kurdish autonomy or independence in Iraqi Kurdistan has the potential to ease these very problems…under the right conditions.
Having the potential to live in a Kurdish-ruled area will give Kurds everywhere less grievance and reason to resort to violence.
Will there be risks and problems?
Of course. There is much that will be needed to be worked out. And all thirty or forty million Kurds will not fit into Iraqi Kurdistan.
But reasonable people can come up with reasonable solutions.
It’s time for both peoples to look ahead for a better future for both of their children…something Arabs who use their kids as human shields and who send them on suicide missions in pursuit of their own one-sided version of justice have proven incapable of doing.
on March 2nd, 2008 at 6:22 pm
I have always supported the right of the Israelis to live freely in the land which was theirs before the Arabs conquered and Anfalised the Middle East and have always been a supporter of the Kurdish-Jewish friendship and brotherhood. I think many Kurds probably the majority of Kurds share this view.
However, the Israelis who just like us have been persecute for so long and know first hand the cruelty and barbarity of injustice and persecution why they side with the Turks who as a nation any way historically no better than Arabs when it comes to the very existence of the Jews and cooperate with them in bombing our people, villages and bridges and infrastructure?
I know it is all real politick but even on a pragmatic basis it does not serve the Israeli interests on the long run to make an enemy of the Kurds, the only people in the whole greater Middle Ease who genuinely love Jewish people.
I have not heard a single dissenting Jewish voice objecting the Israeli complicity in the Turkish aggression to Kurdistan. It is really ironic when you compare Turkish invasion of Kurdistan to “Israel’s decision to go after Arabs who target Jews from Gaza”. It is a shocking conclusion least to say. Here I think you are doing injustice to Israel before the Kurds: would you justify Nazi pursuit of the persecuted Jews of Germany, say to Poland, and invading the country on such a pretext? Turkish Kemalist racism and persecution of the Kurds (1924 to present) is more akin to Nazi’s persecution of the Jews (1933-45) though the former on a slower pace except few times like Dersim genocide in 1937-38.
It is neither fair nor wise to compare Turkish treatment of Kurds with Israeli treatment of ‘Palestinian’ Arabs unless you find parallels in Israeli laws and practices of the Turkish brutal persecution and racist and humiliating policies against the Kurds and the Kurdish willingness to lay down arms in return of recognition of cultural, linguistic and a very modest rights of political participation within Turkey with its territorial integrity, let alone its own survival, intact.
Srusht Salih, Kurdistan (Iraq).
on March 2nd, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Dear Mr. Salih…
Please read the article again slowly and carefully. I don’t believe you’ll real find disagreement with you here. I don’t say Turkish treatment of Kurds is the same as Israeli treatment of Arabs. I make a drastic contrast between the two…and I call for a drastic revision of Turkish policies as well.
Please see this on Kurdish media (type in url yourself) and open up my archive there also.
http://www.kurdmedia.com/article.aspx?id=14624
All my best…
Jerry Honigman
on March 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 am
Dear Mr. Honigman,
I have always read your articles with interest and care.
I have no doubt that you know perfectly well the difference between the Turkish – Kurdish / Kurdish – Turkish and Israeli – Arab / Arab – Israeli sets of relations and you have articulated that in your article. I agree absolutely with your assessment of and differentiating between the two sets of situations.
However, the irony is you still condone the Turkish invasion by drawing an analogy with Israeli incursion into Gaza: “I cannot condemn Ankara’s decision to invade Iraqi Kurdistan anymore than I could condemn Israel’s decision to go after Arabs who target Jews from Gaza…” This conclusion, let alone it contradicts your own subsequent assessment of the facts, is, with all respect, worrying and unfair.
We expect from our Jewish friends to promote Jewish – Kurdish friendship and to shy away to speak up against the Israeli government’s military and intelligence aid to Turkey in invading Kurdistan. It is not in the interest of Israel, the only democratic country in the region where human rights are truly respected, to become part of, or at least associated with, the Turkey’s systematic persecution and denial of its own Kurdish population.
Kind regards,
Srusht Salih
on March 3rd, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Dear Mr. Salih…
PKK is using another sovereign State–Iraq–to hide in after attacking both civilian and military Turkish targets.
As I pointed out the real grievances which gave birth to the PKK and call for those grievances to be addressed, the fact still remains that a nation is allowed to pursue those who attack it. If the nation which harbors the attackers won’t get a handle on the problem (I call for the KRG to do just that), then the attacked nation has the right to defend itself…like Israel’s incursions into Lebanon, Gaza (not a sovereign state), etc.
That is fair, and I expect that behavior of all nations, It’s called self defense.
That has to be addressed separately from also pressuring the Turks to grant far more cultural and political freedoms to Kurds and others…something that I point out in my articles as well.
All my best…
Jerry
on March 4th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Dear Mr. Honigman,
On a strictly legal point of view, I agree a limited Turkish action against PKK combatants in southern Kurdistan may not be a breach of international law on the ground of self-defence. In addition to the fact that the accuracy of the legality assessment, in the current circumstances is highly doubtful, even if so, the legality would not make the invasion a ‘fair’ one anymore than the legality of, to apply common sense in civil matters, denying an existing debt where the other party for whatever reason lacks strict supporting evidence make a failure to repay a due debt fair.
I believe you should not presume the legality of the Turkish action so readily either. Unlike the fanatic Arabs, the PKK, who never sought to annihilate the Turks, do not launch rocket attacks from the Iraqi borders. The KRG on its part has always called for good neighbourly relations with Turkey; encouraged the PKK to lay down arms; and to the dismay of most Kurds the KRG has few times engaged in cooperation with the Turkish army in fighting the PKK to force them leave the mountains which have been under the PKK control since late 1980s.
If not merely seeking a pretext to interfere in the Iraqi political issues, Turkey, which boasts having the NATO’s second largest army, instead of violating Iraqi sovereignty could tighten the security over its international borders to prevent any alleged PKK infiltration to its side of the border. Given the size of its army and the limited length of the international Iraqi – Turkish border this is manageable and as such it is a reasonable first step.
Another point against the Turkish self-defence argument is that Turkey driven by a racist paranoia against the Kurds has forfeited such a right by constantly and publicly interfering in Iraqi issues and threatening Iraqi Kurds that Turkey would not let them to push for Iraqi federalism and currently threatening the Kurds that Turkey would intervene if they incorporate Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region according to the 2005 Iraqi Constitution. You will appreciate that on a purely international legal point of view if Iraqi Kurds or any part Iraqi population want even manage to break up the country whether peacefully or by force, just like what happened not long ago in former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, the neighbouring countries have no right under the UN Charter to intervene by force. They may only push for a UN action if there were valid reasons warranted such action.
Accordingly I think you are mistaken when you assert so unreservedly the legality of Turkish incursion. Even if you assume such a controversial legality on reserved terms you should, as a friend of Kurds which I think you still are, immediately qualify the incursion per se as being unfair, e.g., by the reason that the whole unfortunate affair in the first place has been brought about by the Turkish determination to deny the very existence of the Kurds in Turkey and any political rights for the Kurds anywhere on the face of the earth.
Kind regards,
Srusht Salih
on March 4th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Dear Mr. Salih,
I haven’t mentioned the word “legality” at all in my article, so am puzzled by your comments…
Regardless, if I allow folks to take refuge in my backyard after they cross into my neighbor’s yard to attack them, I can expect to have to answer for that.
All that you’ve written here I wrote in the very article you’re commenting about. So I don’t disagree with you…and thus still don’t understand your point.
Please read my article again and then look at what you’ve just written. The Turks don’t get a free pass from me at all.
All my best…Jerry
on March 5th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Dear Mr. Honigman,
You are right you have not mentioned the word ‘legality’, but you base a Turkish right to “pursue those who attack it” on legality argument, though not mentioning the word, and more specifically on the “self defense” ground.
I agree with all the points you have raised and explained in your article and I really appreciate the fact that the “Turks don’t get a free pass from [you] at all”. My only quarrel is with the conclusion you have drawn early in your article: “I cannot condemn Ankara’s decision to invade Iraqi Kurdistan anymore than I could condemn Israel’s decision to go after Arabs who target Jews from Gaza…”
My point is since the circumstances of Turkish aggression differ so fundamentally from the Israeli incursions, as you have explained so eloquently and persuasively in the remainder of your article, one should not hesitate to condemn the former simply because he, and rightly, cannot condemn the latter.
Allow me to disagree with you on one factual scenario where you say: “if I allow folks to take refuge in my backyard after they cross into my neighbor’s yard to attack them…” I think in reality the PKK presence in Kurdistan Iraq is not that simple. The KRG has not ‘allowed’ the PKK to take refuge there. The PKK has been in the southern Kurdistani mountains since 1984, long before the KRG was established. Turkey which had bilateral agreement with Saddam Hussein conducted, to no avail, a number of cross-border incursions to root out the PKK during the reign of Saddam. The KRG has similarly tried its luck too in 1992 and 1997 to force the PKK out.
In fact, KRG wants to see the back of PKK and PKK to KRG is but a headache and Turkey knows that well. It is not the KRG who uses the PKK card against Turkey but it is quite the opposite. Turkey is exploiting the PKK presence to destabilise Kurdistan Iraq. That is why, unlike the Israeli incursion which is truly base on the right to self-defence ground, the Turkish aggression can and should be condemned.
Best regards,
Srusht.