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ISRAEL NEEDS A NEW KURDISH POLICY
Evelyn Gordon
Commentary
Sept 12 2011
Israel quite properly moved quickly to quash reports that in response
to worsening ties with Turkey, it planned to start helping the PKK.
Jerusalem has tried for years to persuade the world there's no such
thing as a "good" terrorist organization, and adopting a pet terrorist
group of its own would completely destroy this argument.
Moreover, Turkey would justifiably consider it an act of war, just
as Israel does when other countries arm Hamas or Hezbollah, and the
last thing Israel needs is for its cold war with Turkey to degenerate
into a hot war.
But there's no reason whatsoever for Israel not to launch a diplomatic
campaign on behalf of the Kurds, focusing on both their justified
demand for independence and Ankara's gross human rights violations
against Kurds in both Turkey and Iraq (where Turkey frequently bombs
Kurdish areas). It should also start lobbying for international
recognition of the Armenian genocide, and urge American Jewish
organizations to do so as well.
For years, the alliance with Turkey confronted Israel with an
uncomfortable choice between morality and realpolitik. It was always
problematic for a country founded by survivors of history's worst
genocide to tacitly acquiesce in denying another people's genocide,
especially since the world's indifference to the Armenian genocide
is thought to have encouraged Hitler's (correct) belief that he
could massacre Jews with impunity. It was also problematic for a
country founded on a stateless, persecuted people's yearning for a
home of their own to tacitly acquiesce in the suppression of another
stateless, persecuted people's identical yearning -especially after
Israel began supporting the Palestinians' demand for statehood, which
is incomparably less justified than that of the Kurds. (Unlike Kurds,
Palestinians are ethnically and linguistically indistinguishable from
their Arab neighbors, and have suffered far less: For instance, they
were never barred from using their own language, as Turkey's Kurds
were, and many fewer have been killed). One can question whether
Jerusalem was right to have made these compromises, but successive
governments all concluded that given Israel's nasty neighborhood,
the benefits of the Turkish alliance were too great to forgo.
Now, however, this alliance is dead, and it is unlikely ever to revive:
Ankara's state-sponsored anti-Semitism (see here, here, or here,
for instance) is indoctrinating young Turks to loathe Israel, while
the Turkish opposition's main gripe against the government's Israel
policy seems to be that it isn't anti-Israel enough. After a UN inquiry
largely exculpated Israel's raid on last year's flotilla to Gaza, for
instance, the opposition lambasted the government for enabling such a
"pro-Israeli" report and for not suspending all trade with Israel.
So, for the first time in decades, morality and realpolitik align
rather than conflict: By doing what is right on the Kurdish and
Armenian issues, not only would Israel not lose anything, but it would
bolster its own deterrence by showing Turkey cannot wage diplomatic
warfare against it with impunity. In short, it's a win-win situation.
All that's needed is for Israel's government to finally face the fact
the Turkish alliance is history.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/09/12/israel-new-kurdish-policy/
Evelyn Gordon
Commentary
Sept 12 2011
Israel quite properly moved quickly to quash reports that in response
to worsening ties with Turkey, it planned to start helping the PKK.
Jerusalem has tried for years to persuade the world there's no such
thing as a "good" terrorist organization, and adopting a pet terrorist
group of its own would completely destroy this argument.
Moreover, Turkey would justifiably consider it an act of war, just
as Israel does when other countries arm Hamas or Hezbollah, and the
last thing Israel needs is for its cold war with Turkey to degenerate
into a hot war.
But there's no reason whatsoever for Israel not to launch a diplomatic
campaign on behalf of the Kurds, focusing on both their justified
demand for independence and Ankara's gross human rights violations
against Kurds in both Turkey and Iraq (where Turkey frequently bombs
Kurdish areas). It should also start lobbying for international
recognition of the Armenian genocide, and urge American Jewish
organizations to do so as well.
For years, the alliance with Turkey confronted Israel with an
uncomfortable choice between morality and realpolitik. It was always
problematic for a country founded by survivors of history's worst
genocide to tacitly acquiesce in denying another people's genocide,
especially since the world's indifference to the Armenian genocide
is thought to have encouraged Hitler's (correct) belief that he
could massacre Jews with impunity. It was also problematic for a
country founded on a stateless, persecuted people's yearning for a
home of their own to tacitly acquiesce in the suppression of another
stateless, persecuted people's identical yearning -especially after
Israel began supporting the Palestinians' demand for statehood, which
is incomparably less justified than that of the Kurds. (Unlike Kurds,
Palestinians are ethnically and linguistically indistinguishable from
their Arab neighbors, and have suffered far less: For instance, they
were never barred from using their own language, as Turkey's Kurds
were, and many fewer have been killed). One can question whether
Jerusalem was right to have made these compromises, but successive
governments all concluded that given Israel's nasty neighborhood,
the benefits of the Turkish alliance were too great to forgo.
Now, however, this alliance is dead, and it is unlikely ever to revive:
Ankara's state-sponsored anti-Semitism (see here, here, or here,
for instance) is indoctrinating young Turks to loathe Israel, while
the Turkish opposition's main gripe against the government's Israel
policy seems to be that it isn't anti-Israel enough. After a UN inquiry
largely exculpated Israel's raid on last year's flotilla to Gaza, for
instance, the opposition lambasted the government for enabling such a
"pro-Israeli" report and for not suspending all trade with Israel.
So, for the first time in decades, morality and realpolitik align
rather than conflict: By doing what is right on the Kurdish and
Armenian issues, not only would Israel not lose anything, but it would
bolster its own deterrence by showing Turkey cannot wage diplomatic
warfare against it with impunity. In short, it's a win-win situation.
All that's needed is for Israel's government to finally face the fact
the Turkish alliance is history.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/09/12/israel-new-kurdish-policy/