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 The Kurdish Statehood Exception.

 Source : New York sun
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The Kurdish Statehood Exception. by HILLEL HALKIN July 6, 2004

 


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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