February 23, 2010
ERBIL-Hewlêr,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', (ekurd.net) —
According to a report received by ekurd.net from
EuroKurd Human Rights-EHR, the editor-in-chief of
Israel-Kurd magazine, Dawood Baghestani, has been
brutally attacked by a unknown group of armed men on
Thursday, in Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan region.
Meanwhile the anti-Israel (the Iranian presstv.ir)
website reported that Baghestani was drunk and was
beaten at the bar located in the Iraqi Kurdistan's
city of Erbil. The news cannot be confirmed by other
independent sources. It is still unclear the real
reason behind the attack.
Baghestani, 62-year-old, the editor of the
Kurdish-and English-language publication
"Israel-Kurd"
called on Jews
to 'come home' to Iraqi Kurdistan. "We to help
solve the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict
by convincing more than 150,000 Kurdish Jews living
in Israel to return to Iraqi Kurdistan, Baghestani told
AFP last August.
The latest edition of the 52-page magazine, which
has a circulation of around 1,500 copies, features a
woman draped in an Israeli flag on the cover.
Like Jews, Kurds are a non-Arab indigenous Middle
Eastern people seeking independence in their
ancestral homeland. Active Israeli support towards a
free Kurdistan is seen as a natural policy by many
as well as a pragmatic one. “By aligning with the
Kurds, Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq and
Syria,” a former Israeli intelligence officer told
the New Yorker.
Iraqi Kurdistan does have a warmer history with
the Jewish state, however. Many of the current
crop of Kurdish leaders have visited Israel in
past decades.
Jews lived in Kurdistan for centuries, working
as traders, farmers and artisans.
But the creation of Israel and the rise of Arab
nationalism in the mid-twentieth century
dramatically altered the situation, spurring
most of Kurdistan's Jews to leave.
Israel has a longstanding relationship
with the Kurdish people. In the early 1960’s,
Mustafa Barzani and his Peshmerga fighters
received training and support in the Jewish
State.
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Dawood Baghestani. Kurdish editor-in-chief of
Israel-Kurd, after the brutal attack by unknown
gunmen. Photo: EuroKurd Human Rights-EHR,
Eurokurd.net
Dawood Baghestani, Iraqi Kurdish editor-in-chief of
Israel-Kurd, holds a copy of the magazine |
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