There is
perhaps no need for proof of the fact that
international relations, and the explanations given
by nations and their diplomats for their policies
and actions, are riddled with hypocrisy. And yet if
proof were wanted, there would be none better than
the current attitude of Europe and America toward
two peoples with similar and yet quite different
problems: the Kurds and the Palestinians.
The Palestinians, we are told by Europe and
America,must have a state of their own. The need for
it is self-evident. The universally accepted
principle of national self-determination demands as
much, as do the historic injustices done to the
Palestinian people and its suffering over the years,
which can be adequately redressed in no other
way.One can argue about a future Palestinian state's
borders or system of government, but not about its
existence. Mere Palestinian autonomy within the
framework of an Arab state like Jordan is
unthinkable. And yet the Kurds, strangely enough,
must not have a state of their own. The universally
accepted principle of self-determination, for some
reason, does not apply to them.
The historic injustices done to them and their
suffering over the years can be adequately redressed
within the framework of a federal Iraq, in which
they will have to make do - subject to the consent
of a central, Arab-dominated government in Baghdad -
with mere autonomy. Full Kurdish statehood is
unthinkable. This, too, is considered to be
self-evident. How can two such contradictory
propositions be upheld with equal conviction without
blushing? Well, that's what diplomats go to school
for. They have to study something besides how to
hold their forks at dinner parties. The truth, of
course, is less diplomatic.
It is that Washington, London, Paris, and
Madrid don't give a hoot for either the Kurds or the
Palestinians. Statesmen, even as the tenderest of
humanitarian phrases drop poignantly from their
lips, don't give a hoot for people in general.
They care about countries, alignments, alliances,
national interests, realpolitik. And their
calculation in this case is clear. The Palestinians
have many friends, the Kurds have none. And so, viva
Palestinian statehood - and down with statehood for
the Kurds. Since principles have nothing to do with
it, it may be beside the point to observe that, in
principle, the Kurds have a far better case for
statehood than do the Palestinians. They have their
own unique language and culture, which the
Palestinians do not have. They have had a sense of
themselves as a distinct people for many centuries,
which the Palestinians have not had. They have been
betrayed repeatedly in the past 100 years by the
international community and its promises, while the
Palestinians have been betrayed only by their fellow
Arabs.
They have suffered greater casualties, more barbaric
treatment, and a greater degree of ethnic cleansing
at the hands of Turkey and Iraq than the
Palestinians have suffered at the hands of Israel.
And they have been far less barbarous in fighting
back. And yet, even on the basis of pure realpolitik,
the Kurds' case is considerably stronger than the
Palestinians'. An
economically unviable Palestinian state on a small
fraction of historic Palestine that cannot possibly
meet Palestinian aspirations is a guarantee of
permanent irredentist sentiment against Israel and
the countries that support it - a sentiment that
will be inevitably whipped up and exploited for its
own purposes by a Palestinian leadership that has
shown itself to be incorrigibly corrupt,
undemocratic, and unable to manage its own
affairs.Contrary, to the prevailing wisdom that
there can be no quiet in the Middle East once the
Palestinians have a state of their own, there will
be no foreseeable quiet once they do have one.
The Kurds of northern Iraq, on the other hand, have
demonstrated great political maturity since the
quasi-independence gained by them in the first Gulf
War. Their leadership has created, according to all
reports, an economically thriving, and humanly
decent society whose members, women no less than
men, enjoy rights and freedoms that exist nowhere in
the Arab world. Permanent Kurdish control of the
vast oil reserves of the area will assure that these
remain under stable pro-Western control and not be
subject to the whims of an unstable Iraq torn
between Sunnis and Shiites and between modernization
and Islamic fundamentalism.
True, the same neighbors of Iraq and Israel that are
vocally for a Palestinian state are all against
Kurdish independence - some, like Jordan and Saudi
Arabia, because of their pan-Arab ideologies, and
others, like Iran, Syria, and Turkey, because of
large Kurdish minorities that have rebelled in the
recent past and whose nationalism they fear. True,
too, in seeking the backing of these countries for
its invasion of Iraq, America promised them that an
independent Kurdistan would not result from it. But
in the realm of realpolitik, promises are meant to
be broken. Jordan and Saudi Arabia have nothing to
fear from a Kurdish state, and Syria and Iran are
countries in whose stability, should it be disturbed
by restive Kurdish minorities, the democratic world
has no interest. This leaves only Turkey, whose
record toward its Kurds has until recently been
disgraceful.
But the Turkish position on a Kurdish state in
northern Iraq, which is that Turkey would use
military force to prevent it, is largely a bluff -
or would turn out to be one if Europe and America
were determined to call it. The Turks, after all, as
much as they fear an independent Kurdistan, are far
too eager to join the European Union and retain
their close ties with America to risk either by
going to war in Iraq. It is, of course, possible to
be for Palestinian statehood without hypocrisy. But
it is impossible to be unhypocritical about it while
opposing statehood for the Kurds. This is something
that supporters of Israel, who should also be
supporters of an independent Kurdistan, need to be
saying vocally.
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