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. •
Read more by the Author
August 12, 2012
On August 9th, Turkey's Islamist government's
Foreign Minister engaged in some mathematical
chutzpah. Follow the excerpts below from Istanbul's
Today's Zaman to get a hint at what I mean…
Ahmet Davutoğlu said Turkey would not be opposed
to a possible autonomous Kurdish region in Syria
following the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
if all groups in the country can agree on it…Stating
that Turkey is not against the improvement of Kurds'
rights in Syria, the foreign minister recalled that
he had met with leaders of the Syrian National
Council (SNC) and the Kurdish National Council (KNC)
during a visit he paid to Arbil…Davutoğlu said, “I
told them, the leader of the SNC chairs the council
as a Syrian Kurd. And you [KNC] are sitting here as
Syrian Kurds. Sit down and come to terms. What we
oppose is the threat of terrorism and the
possibility of one of you claiming possession of
somewhere. Elections should be held in Syria; a
parliament should be formed that includes Kurds,
Turkmens and Arabs. You can come together and say we
will grant autonomy [to the Kurds]. This is up to
you. We would not oppose that"…Turkey announced it
strongly opposes the presence of the terrorist
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Syria's northern
cities along the Turkish border following the
withdrawal of Assad's forces from predominantly
Kurdish-populated areas …Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan earlier warned that Turkey will intervene if
“terrorist formations” emerge along its border.
Sounds reasonable, right? I mean, who could object
to more freedom and rights for people?
Well, I have no objections with what Davutoğlu said.
It's what he didn't say that's the problem.
&n bsp;
Notice, for starters, how the Foreign Minister sits
on his delusional moral high horse speaking of
alleged concern for the improvement of Kurdish
rights…in Syria.
No doubt, this is needed. Ismet Cherif Vanly's book,
The Syrian Mein Kampf Against The Kurds (Amsterdam,
1968) has that title for good reason and is one of
many sources I have used in my research for over
four decades now and in the writing of my book which
includes this subject in depth and detail
(http://q4j-middle-east.com).
In many ways, however, Syrian and Iraqi Arabs merely
copied a page from the Turks' own book.
&n bsp; Among other things, besides the
imprisonments, massacres, and other violence, the
Kurds' language and culture were outlawed to Arabize
them as Ankara did likewise to Turkify them--to the
point of renaming the Kurds "Mountain Turks"
instead. The PKK, mentioned in the above excerpts,
was sired by Ankara's subjugation of almost one half
of the entire Kurdish population of the world (some
35-40 million truly stateless people) who remained
within its post-World War I borders.
Recall that Iraqi Arabs gassed and slaughtered some
two hundred thousand Kurds during the Anfal Campaign
in the 1980s--and many others prior to that.
With the breakup of the age-old Ottoman Turkish
Empire after World War I, and prior to the League of
Nations' Mosul Decision in 1925, Kurds had been
promised independence in at least part of the
Mandate of Mesopotamia. After 1925,www.ekurd.net
a collusion of British petroleum politics and Arab
nationalism secured the entire Mandate solely for
the Arabs' interests instead.
Caught between a reinvigorated, if constricted,
nation of the Turks due to Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk)
and his Iranian counterpart, Reza Shah Pahlavi, the
Kurds' best chance at independence in the new
nationalist age was thus reduced to Mesopotamia--and
the Brits nipped that in the bud. Keep in mind that
Kurdish population is double that of Syria's.
Almost a century later, we are living with the
tragic consequences of this earlier treachery today,
as witnessed by the Turkish Foreign Minister's
comments.
But, I've detoured a bit. The main focus of this
analysis has to do with Turkey and the comments
Ankara's Foreign Minister recently made about the
Kurds. So let's get back on track.
It's always easier to point fingers elsewhere, but
there really is much wisdom in the saying that those
who live in glass houses should not be throwing
stones.
It's great that the Turks now express alleged
positive concern about Syria's three million
Kurds--but what about the plight of some17-20
million of these same people in Ankara's own
southeastern provinces? Had the Turks' subjugation
of these folks not existed, there would be no PKK
nor support for it.
Speaking of glass houses…
Ankara organizes "relief" flotillas to support Hamas
in Ga za--an Arab group totally dedicated to murder
Jews and their sole, tiny state--but expects no one
anywhere to give sympathy to the cause of the PKK.
Unlike Hamas, the PKK does not seek the destruction
of Turkey--just political and cultural rights for
the Kurdish people. And while Arabs already have
almost two dozen states--including one, Jordan,
formed from almost 80% of the original April 25,
1920 Mandate of Palestine, Kurds still have no state
at all.
Related to this mathematical reality, let's next
consider the following…
The CIA's Fact Book on Israel shows it to have a
population of roughly 7. 5 million people, of whom
about 20% are Arab. Among the latter are some very
hostile elements. Israel's territory is about 20,770
sq Km.
Turkey has a population of about 80 million people,
of whom about 20% are Kurds. Turkey's territory is
about 780,580 sq Km.
About thirty-eight Israels would fit into Turkey.
Despite Israel's minuscule size, Ankara (and its
friends elsewhere--like the American State
Department ) has no problem demanding that Israel
allow the creation of another Arab state, dedicated
to its destruction, right in the Jews' backyard. The
Turks simply ignore proclamations by even so-called
Arab "moderates" that all negotiations and other
such "peace initiatives" are but Trojan Horses,
steps along the way in the Arabs' post-'67
destruction in phases strategy for Israel.
&nbs p; Now, how will the one-fifth of Israel's
population that is Arab react to this adjacent
potential hostile development which the Turks insist
upon? And how will the majority of Hashemite Jordan,
which is also mostly Palestinian Arab (however you
define that since many, if not most, "Palestinians"
entered the Mandate of Palestine after 1920 from
elsewhere in the region ), react to this?
The Arafatians had already tried a takeover of
Jordan in 1970. They were crushed in King Hussein's
"Black September." And Israel's mobilization in the
north sent a message to the PLO's Syrian allies at
the time as well. Yet, neither the Turks, nor hardly
anyone else, seem to be worried about any
destablizing effects that the creation of a Hamastan
or Fatahland will likely cause.
But, more to the point, the same Turkish hypocrites
n ow crying crocodile tears for Syrian Kurds, and
who declare that Israel must grossly endanger itself
so that yet another Arab state might be born, insist
that Kurds must remain forever stateless because of
some problems that their freedom might cause to a
Turkey nearly forty times Israel's size in territory
and about eleven times its size in population--and
with the same roughly 80% to 20% mix of potential
"headaches."
Recall Davutoğlu's earlier comment to the Kurds,
"what we oppose is the threat of terrorism and the
possibility of one of you claiming possession of
somewhere."
Keep in mind that, besides Turkey, Turkic peoples
have about another half dozen states in Central
Asia, but how dare some forty million Kurds--who
pre-date both Arabs and Turks in Syria, Iraq, and
Turkey by millennia--dream to have a n ation of
their own.
In the wake of the Islamist and so-called Arab
Spring, a new Middle East must be born…one in which
all of its diverse peoples finally get a slice of
the relative justice pie. And that's precisely what
is meant by the subtitle of my own book, The Quest
For Justice In The Middle East...The Arab-Israeli
Conflict In Greater Perspective.
It's that greater perspective, you see, that's far
too often deliberately ignored…and not only by the
Turks.
By Gerald A. Honigman for EKurd.net, August 12, 2012. You may reach the
author via email at: honigman6 (at) msn.com.
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. Visit his
website at
http://www.geraldahonigman.com/
Gerald A. Honigman, a longtime contributing writer
and columnist
for Ekurd.net. Honigman has published a major book,
"The
Quest For Justice In The Middle East--The
Arab-Israeli Conflict In Greater Perspective."
Copyright © 2012 Ekurd.net.
All rights reserved
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