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Kurdish studies program in Tel Aviv
illustrates growing relations with Israel
16.5.2012 |
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The Ben-Gurion University campus in Beersheba,
Israel. Photo timesofisrael.com
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May 16, 2012
LONDON, — A Kurdish Studies Program was
established at the Moshe Dayan Centre in Tel Aviv
two years ago. The research center, which focuses on
Middle Eastern and African studies, says the program
was set up because the Kurds have “grown in
importance as a political power to reckon with in
the Middle East and all aspects of Kurdish issues --
political, cultural and historical alike -- have
emerged as the subject of remarkable scholarly
interest.”
Professor Ofra Bengio, a senior research fellow at
the Moshe Dayan Centre and head of the Kurdish
Studies Program, has been working on the Kurdish
issue for more than 30 years and supervising
students researching the subject for 15 years. She
told Rudaw that the center has students studying
both Kurdish dialects, Sorani and Kurmanji, but that
the program is not well-known due to a lack of
publicity.
"Part of the program is to convene forums and bring
speakers in to discuss various aspects. Another part
of the program which was started this year is to
have a course on the Kurdish language which Ceng
Sagnic is leading now. We started with around 10
students, some of whom were lecturers themselves. A
third part of the program is to launch a series of
Kurdish Studies publications. This series will be
published by the Moshe Dayan Centre," she told Rudaw.
The center has held several seminars with guests
such Dr. Mordechai Zaken speaking about the Kurds
and tribalism in Kurdistan, former Mossad official
Eliezer Tzafrir talking on Israeli-Kurdish
relations, Dr. Denise Natali speaking about Kurdish
nationalism and Dr. Sherko Kirmanji, an expert on
the Kurdistan Region in post-war Iraq.
Ceng Sagnic, an M.A. candidate at Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev in Middle Eastern politics
and history, teaches Kurdish at the center. He told
Rudaw that most students are Israelis who are
researching Kurdistan and the Kurds.
"All of my students are Israelis except for one
Kurdish young man studying for his master’s here,”
Sagnic said. “He did not have a chance to learn
Kurdish in northern Kurdistan or Turkey, but is
doing so here in Israel. They have made huge
progress in Kurdish although they do not believe
when I tell them this. You know, any language
student will not believe that he or she is
progressing unless he or she starts using the
language in daily life."
Sagnic added that he is not only teaching Kurmanji.
“In my course, I am showing them samples from both
classical and modern Kurdish literature and examples
from Sorani as well. That's why the course is not a
simple language course but … becomes the door to
Kurdish discourse, terminology, geography,
literature and even politics. For instance, I
receive so much attention when it comes to the
Kurdish names of cities that they read the Turkish
or Arabic versions of them.”
Bengio says that the center want to further develop
language courses and cultural activities, and to
establish relations with universities in the
Kurdistan Region.
“We have made great efforts to develop such
relations but unfortunately so far there has not
been a positive response from any,” she says of
Kurdish universities. “Also, as far as I know, there
does not exist a course about the Jews or Israel in
any of the universities.”
The professor hopes that one university in the KRG
will respond to this “challenge.”
“It seems to me that political inhibitions should
not prevent cultural cooperation and the expansion
of knowledge of the two societies,” she concluded.
As recently as last Saturday, speculation about
Israeli-Kurdish relations was rampant as the
Kurdistan Regional Government KRG rejected claims
that they were to host Israeli intelligence
officers.
The claims came from Iranian officials and show how
the Kurdistan Region has unwillingly become
implicated in the Israeli-Iranian dispute over
Iran’s nuclear program. There have been accusations
that intelligence services from both counties
operate in the Kurdistan Region.
In the past, Jews lived in the Kurdistan Region as
traders, farmers and artisans, but left Iraq after
1948 when they began to be persecuted by Baghdad and
headed to Israel. Due to Israel’s policy of
supporting ethnic minorities in the Middle East,
they established military and political relations
with Iraqi Kurds after the 1950s. Israelis supported
the Kurds after the uprising in 1991 was crushed,
and today there is still a vibrant Kurdish community
in Israel.
According to a poll published in the Israeli
newspaper Ma’ariv in 2009, 66.9 percent of Iraqi
Kurds say they support relations with Israel.
Turkish Kurds, however, have been less positive
about relations with Israel. It was, after all,
Israel that helped Turkey locate and capture
Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK), in 1999.
Furthermore, Palestinian-Kurdish relations have
improved after the fall of Saddam Hussein, who
initially supported the Palestinians against Israel.
Last year, Palestine opened a consulate in Erbil,
and a football team from the Kurdistan Region will
participate in the Palestine International
Championship in May.
Report by Wladimir van Wilgenburg - Rudaw
Copyright ©, respective
author or news agency,
rudaw.net
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