As the latter was an artificial country that was really never meant
to be, consisting of age-old enemies pieced and glued together, for
others interests, with the collapse of an empire after World War I,
so too was Iraq.
You were promised independence back then, when folks were
proclaiming Arabia for the Arabians, Judea for the Jews, Armenia
for the Armenians, and so forth. President Woodrow Wilson
supported your cause. But that was not to be British petroleum
politics acted in collusion with Arab nationalism to abort your
aspirations.
You see, many of the same forces at work to deny your rights--the
rights of some thirty million Kurds who are still stateless today,
never knowing what the morrow will bring , while Arabs proclaim over
six million square miles of territory as purely Arab patrimony--have
been at work to deny the same to your ancient neighbours, the Jews.
The Hebrew Bible speaks of the Hurrians?your ancestors. And those
forces include powerful ones right in my own country.
While our histories are not exactly analogous, there is still much
that is indeed too often tragically similar.
There were times when you joined the Pan Islamic movement to
subjugate your Christian and Jewish neighbours, holding them as
virtual slaves as my friend and scholar, Dr. Andrew Bostom, recently
reminded me. And Salah al-Din became Islam's hero against the
Crusaders.
But what would the latter have said had he lived today, in the very
Syria where his statue is now featured, or in Iraq, where Saddam, on
trial for Anfal, sees himself as the modern day Salah-al-Din?
My dear Kurdish friends, do you not see a similarity between how
Arabs have viewed your aspirations and rights in the age of
nationalism and how they view that of the Jews? Recall that one-half
of Israel's Jewish population are refugee families from that
allegedly purely Arab patrimony, and another million of these folks
fled to France, the Americas, and elsewhere.
Like the Kurdish child forced to sing songs in Syria praising his
Arab identity, Jews also had to consent to a forced Arabization in
order to just survive.
While there was no Holocaust per se in the Arab East (though in
modern times the Mufti of Jerusalem was Hitlers good buddy), the Jew
also frequently never knew what to expect from day to day and there
were plenty of massacres, pogroms, forced conversions, and such to
go around. Not to mention the expected state of dhimmitude
and forced Arabization that was simply expected to be accepted. And
any of whom the Arabs call kilab yahud--Jew dogs--who dared dream
the same dream Arabs proclaim solely for themselves--a life of
dignity and political self expression--paid the ultimate price that
same price hundreds of thousands of your own people have paid for
also dreaming that same exclusively Arab dream.
Long ago I predicted the obvious, while hoping I would be wrong.
As Yugoslavia imploded and exploded with Tito gone, Iraqs days were
numbered as well with the overthrow of the Saddam. Whatever else he
was, he was also the temporary glue. And without him, the age-old
blood feuds were bound to erupt especially with the Big Brother Shia
Ayatollahs to the east.
Call it a civil war or not as of yet, a unified Iraq's days are
numbered. Its a matter of just how much longer America is willing to
bleed its economy and its blood.
And, my Kurdish friends, if you believe the Shia have your own best
interests close to their hearts, guess again. But you are not that
foolish. And we already know quite well what Sunni Arabs think about
your cause. We've had close to a century of those lessons.
I guess I can understand some of you distancing yourselves from
Israel, the Jew of the Nations.
You have to live, after all, amongst those who have already
proclaimed that the birth of Kurdistan would be viewed as that of
another Israel.
And Israel, at times, has also distanced itself from you--largely in
order to appease its powerful on again, off again Muslim
friends, the Turks. I'm not thrilled about that. While the Turks
have no trouble demanding a 22nd state for Arabs--and second one for
them in Palestine (Jordan already created in 1922 from the bulk of
the original 1920 mandate), they expect everyone, including Israel,
to oppose Kurdish aspirations for a sole state of their own.
Now, when the Arabs Anfal campaign to eradicate your people a few
decades past is again at least being mentioned (but certainly not
showcased as it should), the gassed Kurdish children of Anfal and
those of the Jews at Auschwitz share this other nasty thing in
common. They were both targeted for genocide because of who they
were.
Think of the charges that have been brought against Israel because
of its war against Hizbullah--an organization which hijacked a
nation and which is dedicated to Israel's destruction.
Disproportionate force we have constantly heard.
Truth be told, if killing Arabs was all that Israel wanted to do,
with the amount of bombs and such dropped, there would not be one
Arab left by now in the targeted areas. Israel tried as hard as
possible--given the fact that Hizbullah, like Hamas & Co.,
habitually uses their own people as human shields--to limit the loss
of innocent life. But I believe you already know this.
So, what's next?
Demand your rights when the inevitable comes. Do not settle for less
this time.
The hard-won autonomy you have must be solidified.
Hopefully, my own country will come to its senses--despite the
Arabists too often in control at the State Department--and realize
that the one best shot at furthering American values in the region
lies with the creation of a strong Kurdish state, willing to live in
peace with its neighbors, but also able to deflect their aggression.
As Israel has been a haven for Jews seeking freedom and safety, open
your even larger doors to your own oppressed brethren elsewhere.
Don't foment turmoil amid Kurdish populations in Iran, Turkey, and
Syria, for this will backfire both on yourselves in Iraq and your
brothers across the borders. Having said this, you should not shy
away for demanding civil rights for those folks. Those who seek to
live in an independent Kurdish state will have--like Jews with
Israel--a place to go to.
While Ahmadinejad sets up cartoon exhibitions denying the Holocaust
and demanding Israel's destruction allegedly for Arab rights, he
continues to butcher Azeris, Kurds, Baluchis, and Arabs in his own
country for the crime of demanding their own rights in Iran.
I dare dream a dream Are you ready? Here it goes?
America sets up bases in the Kurdish north--with your consent, of
course. Like Incerlik in Turkey.
It trains and equips a powerful Kurdish military, equipped with the
same state of the art weapons it supplies to Arab despots.
While the Arabs blow each other apart to the south and Iran plots
its long-awaited revenge, an economically, politically, and
militarily secure Kurdish state emerges in the only area in Iraq
that has any real chance at stability your own.
I see a future alliance between the forces of peace and tolerance
Israel and Free Kurdistan.
While I would like to include others in this as well, the sad fact
is that even in the so-called moderate Arab countries, most are
still just biding their time and have still not reconciled to the
fact that other peoples, besides Arabs, are entitled to a slice of
national dignity in the region especially since those folks have
suffered under Arab rule. And for those who claim that all was well
for Jews until they dared dream that dream spoken of earlier, I have
not one but two bridges to sell you. The Sorbonnes Tunisian Jewish
professor, Albert Memmi, and the Egyptian Jewess, Bat Yeor (dhimmitude),
are essential reading on this topic. As with Kurds, Jews were simply
expected to submit and accept Arab subjugation and Arabization.
Together our peoples hold the promise for a better future for all in
the region. Hopefully, others will eventually join us in building
that better tomorrow for all.
Impossible, you say? The Jew's King Solomon had an alliance with
Hiram from Phoenicia--Lebanon--millennia before the Arabs Caliphal
imperialist armies conquered both lands (around the same time they
took yours as well). The Temple of Jerusalem was built from Hirams
cedars.
An Israeli child is born with the expectation that he or she will
help heal and bring good to the world including to those who seek
only to destroy. I wish I could say the same for the Arab child. Too
often the latter is seen as a potential human bomb to blow up those
who simply want a small slice of the same rights Arabs demand so
much of for themselves. Arafat loved to call the Arab mother his
best weapon.
Sadly, for the Arab, there are too many Darfurs, Anfals, and
such--in both the past and the present--for this self-centered,
subjugating, intolerant behavior to be mere coincidence.
And, my dear Kurdish friends, both of our peoples deserve something
better.
Think of the potential in the days, months, and years which lie
ahead.
Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has done
extensive doctoral studies in Middle Eastern Affairs. He has created
and conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth,
has lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has
publicly debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have
been published in dozens of newspapers, magazines, academic journals
and websites all around the world. Top |
® 
