Category Archives: Kurdistan

FTAC: Responding to an Attempt to Conflate the Kurdish Struggle with the Palestinian Effort

03 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Kurdistan, Middle East, Palestinia

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

Prompt: “Kurdish statehood aspiration is mirror image of Palestinian statehood aspiration. Both will bring regional security and stability.” (Mohammed Dajani Daoudi, leader of the Islamic moderate Wasatia Movement).

Riding somebody’s coattails?

The Kurdish community of about 35 million souls possessed of a unique language and culture has been fighting for decades their division across five states that have been able to militarily dominate them and forestall their developing a seaport (that’s a long way off).

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2014/08/10/impromptu-kurdistan-israel-usa/

Back in the 1970s, the Kurdish liberation story appeared posed similarly by the same Moscow masters in the form of a PKK, which became also a terrorist organization that remains so to this day.  However, Kurdish leadership has been both able to distance itself from the PKK identity (even though it’s still there) by moving its behavior and politics strongly westward in geopolitical courtship while diminishing Moscow’s old role in the formulation of its own independent political culture and its values (reference the Rojava Revolution that it appears to have in it something of communal and liberal value for everyone).

Now, if the Palestinians should wish to dance with the Israelis and the west . . . well that would seem a revolution indeed!

For background:

  • 9/6/2017

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/09/19/the-kurdish-referendum-wont-deliver-independence-heres-why-it-matters-anyway/ – 9/19/2017

http://henryjacksonsociety.org/2017/09/27/iraqi-kurdistans-independence-referendum-and-the-wests-middle-east-strategy/ – 9/27/2017

The feel of the Kurdish struggle: not-ready-for-prime-time democratic coherence — but here they are whether the surrounding powers like it or not.

That’s a good stance for independence but one of questionable character: authoritarian?  Soviet / post-Soviet?  Kleptocracy?  Rojava Revolution Utopia?

Many things have been and remain possible.

However, there comes a place where dreaming must stop and the functional administration of a state of some form must ensue.

Among things certain, however, one should not miss the murderous persecution of the Kurdish People by Turkish forces, nominally bound to NATO but in the realpolitik much influenced by President Putin’s autocratic effects on President Erdogan — and for grease: Turkish Stream.

Addendum

Since composing the response at the top of this post, the Kurdish People have expressed in referendum their desire for a state apart from their generally demeaning hosts who with force keep them from freedom.  One state, however, has supported the Kurdish Liberation struggle:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement ahead of the referendum saying Israel “supports the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to attain a state of its own.”

At a conference on counter-terrorism last month, Israeli Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked added her support, saying, “A free Kurdistan should be established, at least in Iraq. It is in the United States’ and Israel’s interest for this to happen. It is time for the US to support the process.”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/02/middleeast/iraqi-kurdistan-israel-support/index.html – 10/2/2017

Related: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Netanyahu-scoffs-at-Erdogans-claim-that-mossad-behind-Kurdish-referendum-506396 – 10/1/2017

–33–

 

From Kurdistan – “Black Flag Down”

12 Friday May 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Kurdistan

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

https://twitter.com/DefenceUnits/status/862985541834481664

Backgrounder

In the News

AMUDA, Syria — At long last, those of us struggling to maintain a fledgling democracy in Northern Syria have been buoyed by the announcement from the Trump administration that the American military will begin to directly arm the Kurdish men and women who make up the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces. Those forces have been America’s most valued and effective allies in the war against the Islamic State.

This is something we’ve asked for repeatedly during the nearly three years our militias have been fighting the Islamic State and winning, victories achieved despite tough odds and a lack of heavy weapons. We’ve steadily driven the jihadists back hundreds of miles to the brink of defeat at Raqqa. The Islamic State won’t give up its self-styled capital easily. This military aid will be crucial in finishing the job.

But as President Trump prepares to meet next week with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey — no friend to the Kurds in Syria or in his own country — we ask the American president and people to be mindful of the enormous sacrifice the Kurdish people have made in this fight, and the importance of the unique democratic system we have worked hard to build in the area of Northern Syria known as Rojava.

https://www.i24news.tv/en/tv/replay/crossroads/x5lt7gn

https://dailymotion.com/video/x5lt7gn

–33–

Also in Media — The objectives of operation “Euphrates Shield” | Katehon think tank. Geopolitics & Tradition

29 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Islamic Small Wars, Kurdistan, Russia, Syria, Turkey

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

The composition of the Free Syrian Army is the most sensitive issue at this moment because we have been very critical about it. I think these troops are somehow controllable, but there is no guarantee for the future. Experience shows that, in the end, these kinds of groups are steered by global forces. Yet, Turkey considers these groups as moderate opponents to the regime, but we know that Syria and the countries supporting it like Russia consider these groups to be terrorist organizations. So, I believe this is the most difficult issue for Turkey to deal with in cooperation with neighboring countries and Russia. I think that in the upcoming stages of the operation in Syria, this issue will be coordinated in detail with regional countries as well as with Russia. This problem should be solved if we want to create a united front against terrorist groups and the countries supporting them.

Source: The objectives of operation “Euphrates Shield” | Katehon think tank. Geopolitics & Tradition – 8/29/2016.

Impromptu – “Kurdistan! Israel! USA!”

10 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Kurdistan, Middle East, Politics, Regions

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

(Posted 8/10/2014; Event: 8/9/2014)

Israel-Kurd Magazine, Issue No. 1 – 2009

There is some horrible news out of Kurdistan today. Ekurd.net reports that Mawloud Afand, editor of an Israel-Kurdish magazine called Israel Kurd “disappeared ten days ago in [the] Kurdistan region of Iraq.” Israeli news sources say he was kidnapped by Iranian intelligence in the city of Sulaimaniyah. Ekurd.net claims that Iran had told the Kurdish government to shut Israel Kurd down and it refused.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/06/25/iran-kidnaps-pro-israeli-kurd-iraq-mawloud-afand/ – 6/25/2012

Related: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/topic/israel-kurd-magazine/ – 7/16/2012.

ERBIL-Hewlêr, Kurdistan region ‘Iraq’, — A number of Israeli political experts say Israel will be among the countries that would support Iraqi Kurdistan if it declared independence. They also suggest that Kurdistan not make the decision hastily and ensure the grounds are properly prepared first, Rudaw reported

http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/5/state6172.htm 5/1/2012.

Furthermore, with their initial sale last week of a tanker full of oil, to Israel no less, the Kurds have shown that they are willing not just to cleave themselves from Baghdad but to stand as a magnanimous force for stability in the region.

According to numerous reports by Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, the tanker SCF Altai transferred a cargo of Kurdish oil from another tanker United Emblem, which had been plying the Mediterranean for two weeks after loading at the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The SCF Altai then docked at the Israeli city of Ashkelon and off-loaded its crude.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2014/06/23/iraqs-kurds-sell-oil-to-israel-move-closer-to-independence/ – 6/23/2014.

In 1966, Iraqi defense minister Abd al-Aziz al-Uqayli blamed the Kurds of Iraq for seeking to establish “a second Israel” in the Middle East. He also claimed that “the West and the East are supporting the rebels to create [khalq] a new Israeli state in the north of the homeland as they had done in 1948 when they created Israel. It is as if history is repeating itself.”

http://www.meforum.org/3838/israel-kurds – Summer 2014.

What attracts me to a story like this one is the possibility of encouraging and securing ethnic self-determination for a true ethnic minority.  In that regard, Kurds and Israelis may understand one another.  The above scholarly piece by Ofra Bengio goes into detail on the history of the Kurdish-Israeli relationship, and that in turn informs just a little bit how it has turned out that members of the Kurdish community seeing an Israeli group in Lafayette Park (in front of the White House) would (naturally) join them in solidarity.

Update November 12, 2014

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/11/10/canadian-israeli-woman-fighting-with-kurds-against-isis-audio/ – 11/10/2014

# # #