By Halmat Palani
There is no conflict in the Middle East, or arguably in the world, that divides people more than the Israel–Palestine conflict. Everyone seems to have an opinion on this issue, from university students to social media influencers, academics to world leaders. However, few people understand the plight of both Jews and Palestinians better than the Kurds. Kurds, too, have been a scattered and persecuted minority.
The Kurds have a historical connection to Palestine that dates back to the time ofSalah ad-Din, the great Muslim Kurdish leader revered for his role in defeating the Crusaders in the Holy Land. To expand and protect the vastAyyubid sultanatewhich he founded, Salah ad-Din placed many Kurdish settlers in Palestine, Egypt and Syria. The descendants of those Kurdish settlers continue to live in Palestine today, but they have largelyassimilatedinto Arab culture, abandoning their Kurdish roots and language.
Similarly, Jews have lived in Kurdistan for centuries, dating back to the 12th century by some accounts. However, most migrated to Israel with the establishment of the Jewish state and theRight of Returnlaw, which gave all Jews the legal right to immigrate to Israel. Today, there are between 200,000 to 300,000Kurdish Jewsin Israel who continue to celebrate their Kurdish roots but have adopted the Hebrew language.
While the Kurds have a historical connection with the two nations, they are not monolithic in their views on the Israel–Palestine conflict. This has become more evident since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza.
Recently, pictures ofassassinatedHamas leader Ismail Haniyeh have circulated in Kurdish social media. This attention to Haniyeh has alarmed many Kurds, including myself, about the growing number of Kurds who seem to support Hamas. They are expressing solidarity with Hamas due largely to the fact that Kurds and Palestinians share a common Muslim identity. Furthermore, Kurds see their own struggle mirrored in the Palestinian experience.
Yet the Kurdish and Palestinian situation is different. Kurds are a diverse lot. Not all of them are Muslim. Some belong to ancient religious communities like theYezidiand theYarsani, who have facedpersecutionby Muslims seeking religious homogenization.
Islamist Kurdish factions that support Hamas, including some politicalgroupsin the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, add another layer of complexity. Many of these groups havepraisedHaniyeh as a martyr and resistance fighter despite Hamas’s use of terrorist tactics like suicide bombings and itssupportfor leaders like Saddam Hussein, whomurdered countlessKurds. Furthermore, I have searched both in English and Kurdish and found no evidence that these Islamist Kurds expressed any sorrow over the unjust killings of Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. These Islamists do not care about the fact that Human Rights WatchtermedHamas’s actions warcrimes.
Support for Hamas among the more religiously radical Kurds reveals a key tension in Kurdish society. Despite a century of Kurdish nationalism, many Kurds still seem to prioritize their religious identity over their ethnic one. The Kurdish political class has yet to win the hearts and minds of more religious Kurds. For instance,Ali Bapir, the current leader of the Islamic Justice Group, and members of his party were reported to have refused to stand up for the Kurdish nationalanthemdue mainly to a line that reads, “Our faith and religion are our homeland.”
These Islamists oftenalignwith regional powers likeIranor Turkey despite both countries engaging in a silent cultural genocide against Kurds. Clearly, they still put theirreligiousidentity first. This prioritization of religion over ethnic or national identity informs their support for Islamic powers like Iran and Turkey or organizations like Hamas.
These Islamist Kurds are not merely supporting Hamas because they feel for the oppressed Palestinians. They seek what all Islamist groups seek: a strict Islamic state. This is clear if one examines the history of these groups in Kurdish regions. In Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, a radical armed Kurdish Islamist group known as the KurdishHezbollahemerged around the same time as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the 1980s.
This Islamist organization launched a conflict against the PKK and anyone who disagreed with their extremist views. They carried out kidnappings,assassinationsand mass murders. There are now concerns that this terror group has reformed into the Islamist party known as theHuda-Par, which won 4 seats in the Turkish parliament in the 2023 election.
Similarly, in the Kurdistan region in Iraq, long before the Islamic State, secular Kurdish parties like the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) faced severe security challenges in dealing with radical Islamist groups like the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan (IMK). The IMK later morphed intoAnsar al-Islamand many other Islamist groups. These groups sought to establish a strict Wahhabist Islamic state. Before PUK forces drove them out, they evenimposedsharia laws in some villages. These were similar to the laws favored by al-Qaeda and Taliban, who incidentallytrainedmany of the founders of Ansar al-Islam. They fought inAfghanistanalongside both these organizations.
So, support for Hamas by Islamist groups is not just mere support of fellow oppressed people or co-religionists. This support is part of a broader Islamist agenda that spans the Middle East region and poses a serious threat to local, regional and international security.
It is important to note that Islamists do not represent all Kurds. The Kurdish position on the Israel-Palestine conflict is quite varied. Major politicalpartiesacross greater Kurdistan take a neutral position on the Israel-Palestine conflict. They are not completely immune to the strong anti-Israel sentiment in the region. Yet Kurds can sympathize with embattled Israel’s geopolitical position. They recognize that their primary adversaries are Muslim-majority states like Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq. These states, not Israel, have historically oppressed andoccupiedKurdish lands to this day.
It was Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, not an Israeli leader, who used Islamic scripture to justify theAnfal Genocide, which killed some50,000 to 100,000Kurds. He killed5,000more using chemical weapons in the city of Halabja. It isTurkeythat has jailed, killed and tried to erase Kurdish culture and identity for a century. The mere utterance of the words “Kurd” or “Kurdistan” can land you in Turkish jail for a long time, if not forever. Turkey, not Israel, massacres Kurds and calls them “mountain Turks.”
Muslim states like Iran have been handing heavy prison and even death sentences to teachers, activists and protesters advocating Kurdish rights. This bloody crackdown on Kurdish civil society in Iran has been unceasing since the establishment of The Islamic Republic ofIran’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued afatwato kill Kurds advocating for their rights. Recently, Kurdish girls likeJina Aminiwere imprisoned for how they dressed, what they thought or who they were. Even now,teachersare tortured or executed in Evin Prison for teaching the Kurdish language.
It was Syria, not Israel, thatstripped120,000 Kurds of their citizenship and made them foreigners in their own land. These Kurds are now stateless. However, since the Syrian civil war, the Kurds under the PYD and its military forces like the YPG have established their own regional self-administration with the cooperation of local tribes and dealt a major defeat of ISIS. Despite the countless lives given in the war against ISIS, the Turkishgovernmenthas decided to carry out operations that are ongoing against the Kurds in Syria to ethnically cleanse them out of their regions and settle Turkish-backed Islamists and Syrian refugees currently residing in Turkish camps. The gruesomevideosand reports of war crimes and human rights abuses reveal that Turkey’s efforts to create a safe zone in North Syria are motivated largely by its animosity towards the Kurds inhabiting the region.
It is quite shocking then that these very Muslim states that committed and continue to commit crimes against Kurds tell them that “we arebrothers.” These states occupy Kurdish lands and are carrying out a genocide of Kurdish identity and culture that is killing thousands of people gradually and silently continues unopposed by regional and international powers.
Why is it then that these states speak out so vocally against oppression or aggression against Palestinians yet continue to occupy and oppress Kurds in their own backyard? If Palestinians have the right to statehood, so too do Kurds. Yet, thedouble standardreveals the insincerity of these states who claim to be defending the oppressed Palestinians. Narrow national interests, not concern for justice or for the Islamic community, motivate them.
Look at the regional reactions to the 2017 KurdistanReferendumheld in Iraqi Kurdistan. Some 139 out of 193 U.N. member states haverecognizedPalestinian statehood since the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) declared the nationhood of Palestine in 1988. The Kurds received vocal support for their 2017 referendum from Israel alone. Even UN Secretary-General António Guterres called Kurdistan’s move for independence “destabilizing.”
The majority of Muslim states, including the State of Palestine,objectedto Kurdish independence. Yet these same states vocally support Palestinian statehood. PLO Secretary General Saeb ErekatcalledKurdish independence “a poisoned sword against the Arabs.” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khameneicalledthe vote an act of betrayal and accused the US of seeking to create a new Israel in the region by supporting Kurdish independence — even though the US had opposed the referendum.
Countries like Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria typically view bothZionismand Kurdish nationalism as projects of Westernimperialism. This is despite the fact that it was the European imperialist Sykes-Picot Plan that unjustlypartitionedKurdistan between these states.
These states often label Kurdistan asecond Israel, illustrating that an extreme anti-Kurdism, similar to their anti-Jewish/Israeli sentiments, animates their outlook.
Kurds can understand better than most the plight of Palestinians. Yet bitter experience has taught them how shallow so many Muslim states’ support for Palestinians really is. So, they can see through the hypocritical rhetoric. Thus, Kurds are less likely to side with Palestine and oppose Israel in a Pavlovian manner, and many have more balanced views.
All in all, the Kurdish experience provides a unique lens through which to view the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Kurdish struggle for identity, national sovereignty and justice mirrors that of both Jews and Palestinians. Yet they understand that an international community that applies its moral principles selectively will never end the cycle of violence and oppression in the Middle East.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
