3 min read
Why has the West been so supportive of Palestinian nationalism, yet so reluctant to support the Kurds, the largest nation in the world without a state?
The Kurds have been instrumental in fighting Daesh; they have accepted millions of refugees fleeing the terror movement for the protection of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG); and they embrace Western values such as gender equality, religious freedom and human rights.
They are an ancient people with an ethnic and linguistic identity stretching back millennia and have faced decades of brutal oppression as a minority. Yet they cannot seem to get sufficient support from the West for their political aspirations.
The Palestinians, by contrast, claimed a distinct national identity relatively recently; are less than one-third fewer in number (in 2013, the global Palestinian population was estimated by the Palestinian Authority to be 11.6 million); control land that is less than 1/15th the size of the KRG territory; and have not developed their civil society or economy with nearly as much success as the Kurds.
Yet the UN, the EU, the Arab League, and other international bodies have all but ignored Kurdish statehood dreams while regularly prioritising Palestinian ambitions over countless other global crises.
In 2014, the UK and Sweden joined much of the rest of the world in recognising a Palestinian state. There has been no similar global support for a Kurdish homeland. Moreover, Kurdish statehood has been hobbled by US reluctance to see the Iraqi state dismantled and by regional powers like Turkey, which worries that a Kurdish state will stir up separatist feelings among Turkish Kurds.
With an estimated worldwide population of about 35 million (including about 28 million in the KRG or adjacent areas), the Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East (after the Arabs, Persians and Turks), and have faced decades of persecution as a minority in Turkey, Iran and Iraq.
The Kurds in Turkey have also suffered oppression dating back to Ottoman times, when the Turkish army killed tens of thousands of Kurds in the Dersim and Zilan massacres.
The drive for Kurdish rights and separatism in Iran extends back to 1918 and, during its most violent chapter, cost the lives of over 30,000 Kurds.
A 2007 study notes that 300,000 Kurdish lives were lost just in the 1980s and 1990s. The same study states that 51,000 Jews and Arabs were killed in the Arab-Israeli conflict from 1950 until 2007 (and, because that total includes wars with Israel's Arab neighbours, Palestinians are a fraction of the Arab death toll).
Perhaps because of the Kurds' own painful history, the KRG is exceptionally tolerant towards religious minorities and refugees. It has embraced its tiny community of Jews, and in 2014, the Kurds rescued about 5,000 Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar after fleeing attempted genocide by Daesh.
The KRG absorbed 1.8 million refugees as of December, representing a population increase of about 30 per cent. It reportedly needs $1.4 to $2.4 billion to stabilise the internally displaced people in its territory.
The Kurdish commitment to gender equality is yet another reason why Kurdish statehood merits Western support. There is no gender discrimination in the Kurdish army: their women fight (and get beheaded) alongside the men.
The Kurds are also the only credible ground-force fighting Daesh, which "would have totally controlled the Baji oil field and all of Kirkuk had the [Kurdish] Peshmerga not defended it," according to Jay Garner, a retired US army general.
Because the Kurds are religiously diverse moderates who prioritise their ethno-linguistic identity over religion, a Kurdish state would help to balance out the radical Middle East forces in both the Shiite and Sunni camps. The Kurds are already very pro-American.
A Kurdish state would also have excellent relations with Israel, another moderate, pro-Western democracy in the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed Kurdish independence in 2014, and Syrian Kurds - after recently declaring their autonomy - expressed an interest in developing relations with Israel.
By almost any measure, a Kurdish state deserves far more support from the West. Helping the Kurds should be a major priority for the EU, which absorbs countless new refugees every day that Daesh is not defeated. If the EU were to fund the KRG's refugee relief efforts and support their military operations against the terror movement, far fewer refugees would end up on their shores.
Noah Beck is the author of 'The Last Israelis'
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