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Kurdistan, Palestine and '08 elections
31.1.2008
By Marc Zell
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January 31, 2008
Whatever the outcome the 2008 Elections will likely
be a dramatic turning point in the way the United
States conducts its foreign policy, particularly
here in the Middle East.
Throughout most of its term in office, the current
Bush Administration pioneered a bold new direction
in American policy in the region, as it took an
aggressive stance on combating terror and
cultivating democratic values in an area that has
been resistant to Western ideas of democracy.
In the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the
Bush Administration set an important precedent in
calling for the establishment of a Palestinian State
but was careful to do so by stipulating a number of
prerequisites to Palestinian independence.
In his landmark address of June 24, 2002, the
President stated that such a state must embrace true
reform requiring "entirely new political and
economic institutions, based on democracy, market
economics and action against terrorism." Logically,
these reforms cannot be achieved by uttering magic
words or waving a magic wand. They take time,
national commitment, sacrifice and perseverance.
Thus it is amazing to see so many in the
international community, including the recidivist
Clinton-Oslo team and the even more radical Obama
Democrats,www.ekurd.net
the reigning Israeli
Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister, and even,
quite inexplicably, the current US Secretary of
State, maintaining that the key to serenity and
security in the Middle East is the establishment
tutto pronto of a Palestinian State west of the
Jordan River.
Instead of seizing the unprecedented opportunity
extended to them by President Bush, the inhabitants
of the would-be Palestinian state have brought us
Hamas, Islamo-fascism, terror, and repression of
women and non-Moslem populations.
Self-determination for Palestinians in those areas
where they achieved it has come to mean the daily
rocketing of Israeli cities and towns, an unabated
stream of terrorist acts both in and around Gaza and
in the West Bank, the importation of increasingly
sophisticated weaponry at the cost of social and
economic development, and the consistent failure to
create viable democratic institutions in any of the
areas under their control and continued.
It is a tragic fact that Palestinians have had
innumerable opportunities over the last
three-quarters of a century to found their state.
They have such an opportunity today. But for some
reason it just has not happened, is not happening
and is not likely to happen in the near future. Why?
To answer this one must ask a basic question about
the current state of Palestinian nationalism and its
relationship to nation-building. Recently the author
returned from an extended stay in Kurdistan in
Northern Iraq principally in the capital city of
Erbil. Erbil is a city that works in a region that
works.
Massive infrastructure projects are under way
(streets, parks, schools, sewer systems, water
treatment systems, electricity, etc.). A modest but
modern international airport has been built with
regular flights to Europe and Jordan. Even modern
shopping malls have opened stocked with the latest
merchandise and filled with eager consumers. New
five-star hotels are fully booked. New residential
communities are springing up in and around the city.
Consumer goods abound. There is plenty to eat. The
streets are clean. Government services are provided.
The Kurdish militia keeps the peace and makes
development possible so much so that the Iraqi
parliament recently extended their mandate to
strife-torn Kirkuk outside the jurisdiction of the
Kurdistan Regional Government. A middle class is
emerging. People aren't killing one another and
people at all levels of the society are beginning to
enjoy the fruits of economic prosperity. There is
even a primitive but viable democracy at work -
personal liberty is protected and is steadily
increasing. These are developments about which both
Kurds and Americans can be justly proud.
All this progress in a country whose existence is
threatened from all sides: Turkey, Iran, Syria not
to mention fanatic fringes in Iraq itself, like Al-Ansar/al-Qaida.
This the Kurds have done with relatively little
financial assistance from abroad; certainly nothing
like the billions that have been donated and pledged
to the Palestinian Authority.
There is some humanitarian aid and they have
benefitted from US military protection (the No-Fly
Zone) since 1991, but the economic and political
miracle that is happening daily in Kurdistan has
been fueled largely by the Kurds themselves.
The conclusion is inescapable that the Kurds of Iraq
are on the their way to realizing a centuries old
dream of autonomy - may be not true independence,
since the geopolitical realities would not permit
such a step - but a viable, prosperous regional
autonomy - a state in everything but name.
One cannot help but contrast the success of the
Kurds in Northern Iraq with the situation in the
Palestinian territories. The Palestinians have
orchestrated over the decades a hugely successful
public relations effort designed to call their
plight to the world's attention.
Yet despite the fact that the Palestinians have had
the opportunity to build their own state for some 70
years and despite the fact that they have been the
recipients of billions of dollars in international
aid,www.ekurd.net
the Palestinians have
failed utterly to create the social, economic and
political institutions necessary for a modern
national state to function.
Indeed, the Palestinians have had more opportunities
handed to them to build their state than any other
community on the planet, yet they have consistently
missed the boat. When one looks around the
Palestinian territories from Gaza to Shchem (Nablus),
it is the same sad affair. There is little if any
building of infrastructure, even the most modest
attributes of future independence are lacking.
There is, to be sure, much demagoguery and
propaganda, blaming Israel, the Jews and the
Americans. But no tangible progress.
In stark contrast to the unfortunate Kurds, the
Palestinians are perhaps the most educated, most
affluent group in the Arab world.
The Palestinians are quantum levels ahead of the
Kurds in terms of their personal wealth, experience,
and educational opportunities.
Palestinians enjoy a privileged diplomatic status at
the United Nations and are the darlings of the
international community. Yet notwithstanding all the
international attention and support and a history of
political support that has lasted for about a
century, all that can be seen in the Palestinian
world is destruction, chaos and corruption.
The financial contributions have been squandered or
pocketed by the Palestinian leadership. Weapons
intended to fight terror have been turned over to
the terrorists. Raw materials and technology have
been perverted to produce missiles and anti-tank
weapons. Children are used as human shields, while
hundreds of thousands of civilians have been
exploited by their leaders as mere pawns as they
tear down Egyptian border fences and flood the Sinai
in pursuit of new terror objectives.
How then can the tragic failure of the Palestinian
to build even rudimentary foundations for statehood
be explained in light of the enormous success the
Kurds have achieved in this area in a far shorter
span of time?
The answer given anonymously by many in the
Palestinian community is that the Palestinians have
yet to come to see themselves as a cohesive national
community. What knits them together is a firmly
grounded disdain for Israel and a desire to
dismantle or supplant the Jewish State.
Beyond this there is no consensus; there is no
common vision; there is no sense of common destiny;
there is no sense of nationhood. There is not even
the elementary desire to build the rudimentary
structures of self-governance. This is not to say
that this self-awareness and national yearning will
not occur.
President Bush in his recent trip to Israel
described his vision for a Palestinian State, but
for that vision to become a reality, true reform
must first occur.
There must be fundamental transformation of the
Palestinian consciousness from a community held
together by hate and the wish for destruction to
one, such as the Kurds have nurtured for millennia,
which strives for the establishment of a national
community that is based on principles of
self-expression, economic independence, social
justice and liberty.
American voters, particularly Jewish and other
concerned friends of Israel and supporters of
democracy, should keep these facts in mind as they
weigh their vote in 2008.
While the Presidential race in both parties is far
from being resolved and as Super Tuesday approaches,
these voters must ask themselves whether the
candidates understand the realities of Middle East
politics and Arab-Israeli conflict in particular, or
whether those candidates are captives of
anachronistic thinking that views the establishment
of a failed Palestinian State that cannot and
chooses not to build stable institutions of
government, west of the Jordan as a cure-all for the
regions ills.
This is a kind of litmus test for a candidate's
foreign policy acumen. In today's increasingly
multi-polar world, the stakes are simply too high
for the kind of naive approach to terror and foreign
policy that characterized the Carter and Clinton
Administrations.
President George W. Bush had it right when he said
in June 2002, the United States will not support the
establishment of a Palestinian state until its
leaders engage in a sustained fight against the
terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure and
until the Palestinian people adopt true democratic
reform aimed at bettering their future through
construction and not destruction, just as the Kurds
are doing in northern Iraq.
When these factors are considered, voters will
understand the importance of returning a competent
Republican to the White House.
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