Here’s an essay contest, for which I personally will offer a $100 prize. Write 1,000 words on the subject, “Why the Palestinians Deserve an Independent State and the Kurds Do Not.”
Explain why the Kurds should not have an independent state, despite these facts:
1) There are 35 million Kurds, as opposed to perhaps six million Palestinian Arabs by the broadest definition;
2) The Kurds are an ethnic group distinct from Turks, Arabs, or Persians;
3) Perhaps 40,000 Kurdish militants have died at the hands of Turkish security forces during the past twenty years battling against Turkey for an independent Kurdish state;
4) The Kurds speak a distinct language and have a distinct culture;
5) Saddam Hussein killed up to 300,000 Iraqi Kurds, including by poison gas attacks on civilians;
6) The Iraqi Kurds have governed themselves successfully in northern Iraq since Saddam Hussein was overthrown by the American-led coalition in 2003.
Few peoples have suffered more than the Kurds, fought harder to preserve their culture (written Kurdish was outlawed in Turkey for most of the 20th century), showed more tenacity in pursuit of national self-determination, or shown themselves more capable of managing a modern country.
For special credit, answer the following questions:
Why is the human rights establishment so upset about Gaza—whose Hamas-controlled government uses the strip as a terrorist base against Israel—that it is willing to accept Turkish patronage to break the Israeli-Egyptian blockade?
And why has the human rights establishment accepted the patronage of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who vowed that Kurdish rebels will “drown in their own blood.” As noted, the Turkish army has killed up to 40,000 Kurdish rebels (and countless civilians) during the past two decades. Journalists in Turkey are jailed for filing reports on Kurdish militant organizations that would be considered run-of-the-mill reportage in any civilized country.
Satirical essays will not be considered: the case must be made in earnest that Kurds do not deserve an independent state while the Palestinians do. Residents of Circle 8, Bolgia 6 are encouraged to submit essays but will not be eligible for the $100 prize as Charon does not accept checks.
June 21st, 2010 | 4:34 pm
Mr. Goldman,
This isn’t even hard. The answer is “Because less than a century ago, the Palestinians indisputably owned the land to which they lay claim, and the Kurds did not.” That is to say, given your description, a better question would be “Why does Israel deserve an independent state and the Kurds do not?” Both were much aggrieved peoples, and the international community had no problem taking land from an already sovereign people to give it to Israel. Why not do the same for the Kurds?
Note that none of this is to challenge (a) that Israel should continue to exist or (b) that it has the right to defend itself from attacks by the palestinians. It is simply to answer your question — the Palestinians are in the middle of a century long property dispute regarding property in which they have an, at the least, understandable interest and reasonable belief that it is theirs. Giving the Kurds an independent state would be a different matter entirely — and one for which, I think, we have only one precedent.
June 21st, 2010 | 4:51 pm
Chris: Cite, please.
Give examples of deeds or political boundaries to indicate “Palestinian” ownership.
Please provide supplemental documentation for all the immigrants into “Palestine” from other Arab states.
Bonus question 1: Please name all Middle Eastern nations that are willing to grant citizenship to “Palestinians.”
Bonus question 2: Define how the Kurds do not own the land they have occupied for 3000 years.
June 21st, 2010 | 4:53 pm
Chris either you are a Turk or just an ignorant morron. Kurds lives more than 4000 years in what is now Kurdistan we are the children of the Hurrians and the Medes, Turks & Arabs are newcomers to the region, go read some history ignorant !!!!. BY the waY The name Kurdistan was mentioned first by the first turkish ruler in Anatolia in the 14 century. Curdonie (Corduene) in Roman and Greek sources (Kurdochoi), while the Turks were eating grass in central Asia.
June 21st, 2010 | 5:20 pm
Iman,
I don’t bear the burden of proof on this one. If the Palestinians — you know, the people who lived there — did not own the area prior to Britain’s decision to repopulate the area with Jewish refugees immediately following WWII, who did? Name someone. And yes, I know that other Arabic countries do not hold Palestinians in high regard. While that speaks poorly of them and their motives, it is neither here nor there regarding who the international community took land from when it decided to give it to Israel.
Medes — ignorant as charged. I was basing my comments regarding the Kurds solely on David Goldman’s description, by which I do not mean to excuse my ignorance so much as to account for it.
A general question, then — at what point does occupied territory begin to belong to its occupier? Clearly there must be some such point, and it seems terribly relevant to the Palestinian/Israel question, and to the Kurdish question. Even had I known everything you’ve said in your post, I am not sure I would find the two comparable; the Palestinians’ land was taken less than a century ago. Surely this creates an issue that is not present when the relevant occupation began over 1000 years previous.
Or perhaps the distinction has less to do with absolute time and more with degree of integration. I am not sure. But I do know that the issue — when does occupied land begin to belong to its occupier — matters more than Mr. Goldman’s framing of the issue would allow.
June 21st, 2010 | 5:21 pm
I should not have said “when does occupied land begin to belong to its occupier” and should have said “at what point does an occupied people lose the right to form their own independent state?”
June 21st, 2010 | 5:38 pm
Neither of the above comments says what I wanted to get across, so i will try once more.
Mr Goldman, I think, makes the mistake of assuming that the question of whether an oppressed minority group in a sovereign state should be given its own state turns on (a) how sympathetic that minority group is and (b) how badly oppressed they are. And of course this plays into his hand because (a) Israel’s oppression is arguably not even oppressive, and is arguably nothing but a proportionate response to a legitimate threat and (b) the Palestinians, by virtue of a predilection among a minority for suicide bombing, are not particularly sympathetic.
None of this, though, has anything to do with whether the Palestinians should have their own state. Rather, I think the question turns on (a) whether they ever did own the land; (b) if so, how long ago was it taken from them; (c) by what means was it taken from them; and (d) have they been successfully integrated into the Israeli state. The answers, as I understand them, are “yes,” “less than a century ago,” “by international decree,” and “no”, all of which, I think, lend themselves to an answer of “yes, the Palestinians should have their own state, as state of affairs that probably should have occurred back when Israel was first formed.”
I am not sure how this analysis would affect the Kurds; as you noted, I am quite ignorant in that area. I am sure, though, that the factors Mr Goldman posited are irrelevant to whether Palestinians should have their own state. Mr. Goldman, I agree with you: Israeli “oppression” is relatively non-oppressive. And the Palestinians are not sympathetic. And I still think the palestinians should have their own state.
June 21st, 2010 | 8:10 pm
I am very disappointed on the topic you put out here. DOn’t you think those who suffered the longest deserve a state?
Israel suffered for far to long and final got their state, so why should the Kurds not.
LEt me inform you that the Palestinian are recognized as a minority and do have the right to teach int heir language in schools where as just to speak Kurdish in public can get you jailed. Palastian had a chance to declare independence, Israel agreed to give the Palastanians their state, in return the Israelies asked the Palastinians not to have a army. THe Israelies would protect them. Now if you say this can’t be done, just remember the Japanese American war (WWII). The Palastinians did not agree to these. On top of that, none of the other Arab nations want on independent Palastian. If they did they would have supported them a long time ago. Instead they are considered second class citizens in those countries.
Kurds never had a chance of peace. AS you mentioned the Kurds are one of the oldest most suffering people in the world. Your title should be “Why the Kurds deserve an independent state, as well as Palastanians.”
Ofcourse your ignorant, but that does not mean you can learn from your mistakes.
If you wish to understand the Kurdish plight you only have to look couple years back. NOt even 100′s of years. There is a saying among Kurds.
“You will not understand the Kurdish plight, if you have not lived it yourself”.
I am very upset and disappointed on your ignorance and intolerance towards another nation. Kurds deserve their country as well as any other nation out there.
June 21st, 2010 | 9:41 pm
Chris seems confused. Apparently, he has never heard of the Ottoman Empire which occupied “Palestine” for 400 years. That is, until the Brits took it away from them in WWI.
Maybe “Palestine” should be returned to the Turks?
June 21st, 2010 | 10:06 pm
There is one further important point to made here: Namely that “Palestinian” is a fictional ethnicity only created in 1964 after 16 years of repeated failure by Arab states to take from the Jews what the UN had alotted them. This was a mere 10% of the land of the former British Mandate, the other 90% having been awarded to Arabs and now constituting the nation of Jordan. In the 1900′s and through the 1940′s, the term “Palestinian” applied to persons of Jewish, French, English or Arab (or German, Italian, Turkish, etc) ancestry who were residents of the British Mandate. Thus the so-called “Palestinian’s” claim to the land by ancestral right to that land is also a fiction, and a malevolent one at that.
June 22nd, 2010 | 1:25 am
Guys, just forget it. I’m a direct descendant from Adam and hold uncontested title to the Earth.
I’ll be requiring rent from my serfs starting in 2012.
June 22nd, 2010 | 2:19 am
chris, about a century ago the various groups (many of which don’t even intermarry) that later started to call themselves collectively “palestinians” were subjects of the turkish empire.
June 22nd, 2010 | 8:00 am
Don’t forget that Jews lived in Palestine continuously from Biblical times. In 1845 an Ottoman census found Jews the majority ethnic group in Jerusalem. Outside of the cities, Zionist Jews bought land from Arabs for their kibbutzim, decades before there was a state of Israel. They therefore owned it. This added up to a lot of land. No doubt this makes the Jews capitalist pigs or some such thing. Of course, the main reason they came from Europe to buy land in Palestine and settle it was that conditions in some European countries weren’t so hot for Jews, in addition to their desire to return to the land of their ancestors.
June 22nd, 2010 | 8:46 am
Chris, if you want to go by land ownership then do the research on who owned the land 100 years ago (I did). At that time most of it was owned by landlords living in Turkey or Damascus or the Ottoman government. The local Arab population rented or sharecropped from them. When the Jews came they bought much of land from these landlords. A lot of the original kibutzes have old deeds to their land from some rich guy in Turkey.
I don’t know the situation in kurdistan but it may have been similar.
June 22nd, 2010 | 8:47 am
Jonah,
That means you must be a descendant of Cain! I’ve put a call into the Eden police.
Chris also forgets recent history. Given the UN partition in 1949, an independent Palestine should have been created in the West Bank then. After the wars following Israel’s declaration of independence, Jordan kept the West Bank instead of establishing a Palestinian state. But then Jordan is run by a Hashemite Arab minority who had been kicked out of the Hejaz by the Saudi Arabs at the time of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Jordan is majority “Palestinian” Arab. I put Palestinian in quotes because it is location based whereas the Hashemite and Saudi names are family/tribe based. When Israel took the West Bank in the 1967 war, Jordan no longer wanted it back. To the extent that Israelis are occupiers more so are the Hashemite rulers of Jordan.
But then as I am a quarter Yaqui, I insist that all Europeans in the Americas return home. Now, if I can only figure out how to send three quarters of me back to Spain and France.
June 22nd, 2010 | 9:30 am
As several posters have wisely pointed out to the one poster who speaks with no knowledge of the subject: The Palestinians never owned virtually any land in Palestine at all. There were a few notable families (aristocratic clans), among them the Nashashibis and the Nusseibehs, for example, who were property owners. But this was the exception, not the rule.
Arabs came to Palestine in the 7th century as part of the Islamic conquest. They grabbed the land from its Jewish and Christian “owners” through military conquest – nothing more or less than that. It had nothing to do with ownership.
Their claims to ownership, therefore, are no better than those of the British, Crusader, or Turkish conquerers who did the same exact thing.
The Jewish conquerers of the Land of Israel (dating from the 1948 war) were exceptional from all of the 4 other groups mentioned above in that they purchased 92% of post-1948 Israel in land deals during the period 1880 to 1948. The Jewish National Fund was established during this period for exactly that purpose, and the Rothschild family by itself purchased about 40% of the land that became the State of Israel in 1948.
Hence, the whole argument over Palestinian “ownership” is as fraudulent as their fabricated population statistics.
David Goldman is quite correct to make the analogy to the Kurds, then. My own view is that the Kurds will get a state long before the Palestinians will.
June 22nd, 2010 | 10:02 am
It seems that General McCrystal’s comments will result in a hesitation on the part of the US to start wars on behalf of others. Therefore one could guess that for the foreseeable future, regional conflicts will be resolved by players within the region.
Kurds do not deserve an independent state until they acquire nuclear weapons mounted on combat drones to defend their borders. There is no good reason why 35 million Kurdish people could not achieve that goal within the next 5 years, maybe a little longer.
The 6 million Palestinians on the other hand seems to be ready to defend their borders with help from Iran. If Iran’s help were to be diluted then the Palestinians would also not deserve an independent state.
Alternatively the Kurds could ask the Russians to take up their cause. Without the Russians or without nuclear weapons the Kurds are stuck, Palestinians are not.
June 22nd, 2010 | 10:20 am
My prior is that the left doesn’t give a rat’s pajamas about human rights in Gaza, where there is no humanitarian crisis, even if marmalade and cinnamon are scarce. The Muslim nationality subject to the most brutal and systemic repression is the Kurds, about whom the human rights community has little to say. Human Rights Watch has just published a report about female genital mutilation in Iraqi Kurdistan, but has had nothing to say for the past year about Turkish repression of the Kurds (a year ago, HRW had a passing comment about the suppression of a Kurdish political party in Turkey). I didn’t see HRW denouncing female genital mutilation in Egypt, where it is inflicted on the great majority of girls.
Why is there no outcry over the murder of Kurds, or over the 2,000 Uzbeks estimated to have been murdered in Kyrgyzstan during the past month?
The attack on Israel is an ideological exercise masquerading as a human rights campaign. And the focal point of the attack, the Gaza flotilla, was sponsored by Tayyip Erdogan, the man who has done more to murder Muslims than anyone else on earth.
Prove me wrong: produce an argument explaining why the Kurds do not deserve a state while the Palestinians do.
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:02 am
The question of who ‘deserves’ a state is inherently silly, and somewhat tautological. (States deserve statehood.) If history has taught us anything, it’s that those who can muster up the strength (or international support) and will to create a state are the ones that gain legitimacy. Case in point: Kosovo recently decided that it’s its own country, and the US recognized it, so the case is more or less closed. Legitimacy is an imaginary concept that’s just a function of various factors, including the ability to actually secure a piece of land.
This is why, despite my sympathy for the plight of the Kurdish people, I don’t put much weight in their calls for a state. What specifically are they asking for? For the American military to attack Turkey and Iran, and split Iraq in half right down the middle? What would happen next? The same thing that has happened throughout Kurdish history when they’ve come close to unity and autonomy: they quickly dissolve back into their component tribes and clans, and fight against each other for a bigger piece of the pie. They would have had a state years ago if they were able to work together for a common goal. They’re more unified today thanks to Saddam’s ethnic cleansing campaigns, but their leadership is corrupt and the political parties are basically tribes. I’ll believe a Kurdish state when I see one.
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:09 am
The Kurds should have their own state! I propose we give them Vermont or one of the Dakotas.
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:15 am
As for ‘Palestine,’ they are of course less ‘deserving’ of a state than the Kurds are. My point in my previous comment is just that, realistically, who deserves what is irrelevant in our world. What IS relevant is who can muster the international attention and military strength to achieve a state. And, I’m sorry to say, the Palestinian Arabs have far more int’l attention than the Kurds do.
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:16 am
@Chris – Most of the land the Palestinians claim was in present day Jordan. Shouldn’t that be where the Palestinians should all move to?
And do you see any left wing group that supports Palestinians supporting the Kurds in their quest for a homeland? Now if only some Jewish people would live in the Kurdish area then maybe the left would be supportive of the Kurds plight…
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:17 am
I accept PayPal . The Kurds do not deserve a state because they can not take one and hold it .
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:37 am
I should also point out that until 1948, “Palestinian” was only used to refer to the Jewish residents of “Palestine”. The actual name “Palestine” was applied to the land of Judea by the Romans in order to destroy the memory of the Judeans after the revolt of Bar Kochva (a generation after the destruction of the Temple). Jerusalem was also renamed in order to attempt to wipe out its memory.
The name “Palestine” comes from the Philistines who invaded and colonized the area currently called the Gaza strip (after one of their five main cities). In actual fact the wor “Philistine” meant “invader in the language of that time. Thus, the so called “Palestinians” are really calling themselves invadors.
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:37 am
Do you offer direct deposit? The Kurds do not deserve a state because no peoples ever ‘deserve’ a state. Those who take territory by force or other means, create a state and maintain a state are ultimately the ones who have a state. ‘Deserve’ doesn’t enter into it.
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:40 am
There is a simple answer: The Kurds do not lob rockets at the Turks and send their kids into Turkish cities wrapped in explosives. So of course they do not deserve a homeland.
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:50 am
The Maltese, descended from the Phoenicians (northern Canaanites) probably have the strongest claim, if we’re using the “my great-great-great-great-great-ancestor lived here, so I deserve it more than you” line of reasoning.
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:55 am
Chris:
As to the question of who “owned” “Palestine” before the State of Israel was allowed to form independently by the United Nations, the answers are:
1. The British Empire, and before the British,
2. The Ottoman Empire, i.e. the very same Turks that the Arabs fought against for independence and who subjugate the Kurds even today.
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:59 am
Didn’t that gay terrorist Egyptian named Arafat, try to invade and take over Jordan?
June 22nd, 2010 | 12:11 pm
If the Whay (sp) don’t have a state, then the Kurds shouldn’t either. It’s that simple.
June 22nd, 2010 | 12:28 pm
I have not read all of your comments, but consider this……NO ONE owns the land. We occupy it while here on this earth. This is such a mistaken notion, that we own land. Nations battle to the end for land, even to the last man. That is the folly of man, which tries to “own” everything. We don’t “own” each other, so why should we think we can own the land?
June 22nd, 2010 | 12:33 pm
“The fifty million Kurds of the Middle East have lived in Kurdistan before record of modern history was kept. The very first mention of the Kurds in history was about 3,000 BC, under the name Gutium, as they fought the Summerians (Spieser). Later around 800 BC, the Indo-European Median tribes settled in the Zagros mountain region and coalesced with the Gutiums, and thus the modern Kurds speak from as Aryan language (Morris). The Kurds are mentioned by Xenaphon, a Greek mercenary, as he retreated from Persia with ten thousand men in 401 BC, he says of the Kurds, “These people, lived in the mountains and were very war-like and not subject to the Persian king. Indeed once a royal army of 120,000 thousand had once invaded their country, and not a man of them came back..(Morris).” (Jensen 1996)
Ancient Gutium was located within the modern Kurdistan, as Easton notes:
” Shoa Opulent, the mountain district lying to the north-east of Babylonia, anciently the land of the Guti, or Kuti, the modern Kurdistan. The plain lying between these mountains and the Tigris was called su-Edina, i.e., “the border of the plain.” This name was sometimes shortened into Suti and Su, and has been regarded as = Shoa (Eze 23:23). Some think it denotes a place in Babylon. (See PEKOD.)” (Easton 1897, entry “Shoa”)
In this regard, Elphinston notes,
“Sumerian inscriptions of 2000 BC, as well as early Assyrian inscriptions of a thousand years later, indicate the existence of a people named Kardaka, Kurtie or Guti in the neighbourhood of Lake Van. These are claimed by some authorities to be the ancestors of the modern Kurds, but it is not until Grecian times that certain identification is possible. Herodotus mentions the inhabitants of what is now Bohtan, and Xenophon refers to the Garduchi, possibly an earlier form of the modern name. Strabo speaks of the country of Courdueni where Bait Kardu is located by Aramaic sources. The modern form ‘Kurdu’ first appears in Arabic writings of the ninth century AD with the plural form ‘Akrad’.” (Elphinstone 1946, p.92)
The reason the kurds don’t have a sovereign state of their own is because the “super powers” denied it and instead used them as tools to shape the middle east according to their “interests”. So it’s obvious that the blood of a kurd who’s most ancient, most oppressed, and most humane, and most peaceful than any other nation in the middle east, is non-worthy since he doesn’t kidnap,behead,IED, and suicide.
June 22nd, 2010 | 12:34 pm
David – I agree that the Kurds should have their own state. Back in 2006, some of them were saying (and I am not sure they were completely joking) that they would like to be the US’ 51st State:
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/theanchoress/2006/03/13/we-want-kurdistan-to-be-the-51st-us-state/
June 22nd, 2010 | 12:34 pm
I think we should withhold the UN’s budget until they give the “palis” Al Anbar, after we build a great big fence around it, with 60 days worth of food and water, on one condition: that all parties agree to officially name it The People’s Republic of Fakeistan.
And they can be known forevermore as the Fakestinians.
June 22nd, 2010 | 12:36 pm
Chris,
Why are you referencing all Palestinian ownership questions to the 1949 era?
Why not start a little earlier–maybe around 1000 BC or before–to calculate your ownership assertions?
But if you’re talking of “Palestinians”–a modern term–they had a state created for them in TransJordan.
You could take up your ownership problems with them, except you probably suspect you’ll get nowhere. Which is why your ilk focus on a democracy like Israel.
June 22nd, 2010 | 12:38 pm
Chris,
Additionally, it was NOT the British government that decided to “repopulate” the area with Jewish refugees.
Read your history. The Zionist movement started in Europe in the late 1800′s and European Jews started moving to British Palestine from that time in order to move back to their ancestral homeland.
My point: There was no “repopulation”. A significant number among the Jewish population of British Palestine had already been there from before the rise of the Nazi Third Reich in Germany. Granted, a large number were indeed refugees from the Nazi impact on Europe, but not all of them.
Additionally, you need to consider that a very large proportion of the Jewish population of Israel today is comprised of emigres and refugees from Arab and other Muslim nations (Turkey, Iran, etc.), as well as from Ethiopia. It is NOT just immigrants (or their descendants) from Western Europe, Eastern Europe and what used to be the former Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc of nations, and from the Americas.
North Africa, the Levant, Turkey, Iran, Yemen, Iraq, ALL had significant and large Jewish populations at one time prior to the existence of the current State of Israel. The overwhelming majorities of those populations left those countries for Israel, Western Europe, and the Americas, as SOON as they could after Israel’s establishment as a state.
Contrary to what Helen Thomas believes, THOSE people have no business “going back” to places like Germany or Poland. And if they didn’t feel the common ancestry, the pull to resettle an ancestral homeland, why would they have gone there at all?
The British didn’t “repopulate” those people, either.
June 22nd, 2010 | 12:40 pm
The simple answer is that once sovereign, Kurdistan would find itself in an existential war with Turkey. Turkey has advanced heavy weapons and their forces are NATO trained.
Wiped out, the Kurds would be. ANd West Asia plunged into a regional war possibly, depending on alliances.
June 22nd, 2010 | 1:29 pm
Chris is merely repeating cliches that he has heard from Helen Thomas. If you want to get your facts, Chris, from an 89 year old “journalist”, so be it, that is your issue. Contrary to what Helen Thomas and Chris believe, there was never a huge Arab population in the land that is now Israel, the West Bank, Gaza or Jordan. There was never a country called Palestine with a flag, a capital, a government, a currency or any semblance of national identity. The local inhabitants were recognized by their clan and identified themselves by their clan. In 1975, an anthropologist from USC made a detailed anthropological investigation into the Arab population of the British mandate of Palestine. He discovered that most “Palestinians” were descendents of immigrants from Egypt in the early 20th century and thereafter. Yasser Arafat was actually Egyptian as was Edward Said. The British allowed a mass immigration from Egypt but prevented Jewish immigration. Interestingly, the first modern census of the population of Jerusalem was taken in 1844 and showed a Jewish majority. I just win I could have a debate with Chris because I would win the debate with him hands down.
June 22nd, 2010 | 1:37 pm
From Ing:
I think we should withhold the UN’s budget until they give the “palis” Al Anbar, after we build a great big fence around it, with 60 days worth of food and water, on one condition: that all parties agree to officially name it The People’s Republic of Fakeistan.
And they can be known forevermore as the Fakestinians.
This should read:
I think we should withhold the UN’s budget .
June 22nd, 2010 | 1:45 pm
It is one thing to say that practical circumstances militate against the establishment of a Kurdish state, and another to say that the Kurds are less deserving of their own state than the Palestinian Arabs. I do not know whether the Kurds will obtain their own state. I advocated a Kurdish state here:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IJ16Ak02.html
with malice aforethought regarding Turkey. If the US supports a Kurdish state in northern Iraq, the Turks won’t be able to anything about it.
However, no-one has answered the essay question in the affirmative, namely, to show why the Kurds do not deserve a state according to the same criteria that are cited in support of a Palestinian Arab state.
Chris’ argument that might makes right does not seem applicable, as the Palestinian Arabs have shown themselves quite incapable of conquering and holding into territory. The Israelis are being asked to hand them a state on a silver platter because they supposedly deserve it.
I should add that I am not in principle against the two-state solution; if there were a Palestinian majority that truly desired a state that would live in peace next to a Jewish state, I would support its foundation. But I think that it is fanciful to expect this condition to be met. In a generation or so when the Palestinian population ages substantially, and today’s young gunmen are supporting families, things might change.
June 22nd, 2010 | 1:56 pm
I dont think its helpful to try finding analogies between different groups of people. Each situation has its own problems and origins and as such has to be addressed on its own, without saying “well, if X people deserves Y, then A should deserve B”. This is not to say that the Kurds haven’t been mistreated and left unprotected by the international community. They have, and something needs to be done there.
What bothers me most about the Israel/Palestine question is this wrongly held assumption that the Palestinians have lived there for thousands of years and this land belongs to them. That is wrong and intellectually misleading. People have lived in Palestine for centuries. That is undisputed. They included all kinds of people of all kinds of religions. They mostly lived in Jerusalem, Yaffa, etc… The people we now know as Palestinians began moving to that land from many Arab and Muslim lands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries looking to work for the newly arrived Zionist Jews who employed them and all the work that was the result of this new migration into this land. Since 1948, they have obviously reproduced at an unimaginable level (strategy that was and has been part of the plan to get rid off Israel), now becoming almost a nation without a land.
Obviously, a day will come when the Palestinians have their own state but it will only happen when they accept Israel as a neighbor and accept the fact that their best interests will be served by a closer relationship with Israel than with the Arab countries, since those countries trade in the Palestinian misery. But please, stop spreading this canard that these Palestinians have been there for thousands of years. It is a complete fabrication that has now been accepted by almost everyone as the truth and does not help anyone.
June 22nd, 2010 | 2:09 pm
I don’t think Chris has got it right, but some of his opponents are engaging in mind-reading and leaping to conclusions in their ideas of how he came by his opinions. A bit offensive.
June 22nd, 2010 | 2:23 pm
That’s too easy. The answer to your question is because Joe Biden said they did, and when has he ever been right about anything!
Kidding aside, yes they deserve a state however the implications with regard to Turkey render the proposition impossible. The Turks would not stand for it. Not they would have 10 years ago, but now that they’re battling Iran for the title of “Worst People in the World,” that goes double.
June 22nd, 2010 | 2:24 pm
The reason that the Kurds are not the darlings of the left and the Palestinians are is because Palestinians and their sponsors would like to make the world Judenfrei, whereas the Kurds are merely fighting for a homeland.A land I might add that like the Jews they have lived on for millenia, despite the silly and ignorant blathering that you see from people like Chris
June 22nd, 2010 | 2:27 pm
Deserving a state is one thing, setting up a workable government and dealing with a war launched by Turkey is another. Nothing that we should have anything to do with, we have our hands full as it is.
June 22nd, 2010 | 2:29 pm
To Chris:
What’s in a name? You are conflating the name Palestinian with the religion of the inhabitants who lived in the area formerly known as Palestine.
Both Jews and Muslims lived in the area formerly known as Palestine. Neither had sovereignty. In fact the Romans named it Palestine to insult the Jews who lived there before Arabs and Muslims even existed. The now Jerusalem Post, a Jewish newspaper, was formerly called the Palestinian Post. There were more Jews in Jerusalem than Muslims.
Why does this matter? Because you seem to believe that the land formerly known as Palestine was Judenrein (Jew free) prior to, as you put it, “the Brits repopulated it after WW2 with Jews.” Wrong on all counts.
1. Jews have always lived in the area formerly known as Palestine. Jews have always lived in Jerusalem.
2. If anything, the Brits limited the number of Jews permitted into the area formerly known as Palestine against the Mandate of the League of Nations and International Law. Never read/saw Exodus?
3. Arabs/Muslims were urged by Jews to stay in Israel in 1948 but urged by the neighboring Arab countries who attacked the nascent State of Israel to leave temporarily while they attacked and crushed Israel. Of course that crush never happened.
4. How many Arabs/Muslims actually fled? EST 700,000, roughly the same number of Jewish citizens forced out of Arab lands by their Arab governments post 1948.
5. How many multi-generational peoples are considered “refugees” by the UN, world opinion, other nations. Just one – the Palestinians. Why do they alone among the peoples of the world get to number third, fourth, fifth, sixth generations as “refugees?”
6. Israel’s existence does not require the ethnic and religious cleansing that has been sanctioned by the world in creation of a Palestinian State. Why must all Jews leave a Muslim country?
7. Please show me the borders and the leaders of the Palestinian State that the Jews displaced by the creation of Israel?
8. What was Jordan under the Palestinian Mandate? Where were the Muslims/Arabs supposed to live under the Palestinian Mandate?
You need to learn history, and by that I mean the facts, not just the talking points from Middle East Studies departments.
June 22nd, 2010 | 2:38 pm
Historicaly, pre-historicaly, bibliclay, land belongs to whom-ever can take it for as long as they can hold it.
From the beginning of time until the end of the world, land ownership is determined by the strength of the conqueror or the weakness of the conquered.
June 22nd, 2010 | 2:39 pm
Sabba Hillel:
In addition the Arabs can not even pronounce ‘P’alestine. The ‘p’ sound is not in their vocabulary. Thus they say ‘F’ilistine and Na’b'lus for Na’p'les.
So they are a people whose name is not even in their vocabulary. Funny.
June 22nd, 2010 | 3:02 pm
The main argument against a Kurdish state anywhere (eg. northern Iraq, eastern Turkey, northeastern Syria) has always been that our friends, the goody-two-shoe Turks, wouldn’t stand for it.
Well, that’s a fine how-do-you-do. Why should we give a rat’s pajamas worth of concern to what the Turks think, now that they have an Islamist government in power overturning the secular, proWestern, proIsrael policies that Turkey had espoused for generations.
In the adolescent spirit of Mr. Erdogan, I would say we should give the Kurds a state, just to spite the Islamists. So what if it turns out to be nonviable? The government of Turkey under Erdogan may turn out to be nonviable, as might the current government of Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, the nonviable Palestinian state is being blocked by the very viable Israeli state, so the moral here is – viability trumps all, in the end.
June 22nd, 2010 | 4:29 pm
Just a side note. It’s not just the Turks against the Kurds but also the Iraqi Arabs and the Iranian Persians. The Kurdish ethnic area spans all three. And, in a certain sense, the Kurds have a sovereign nation, controlling their provinces within Iraq with some authority not to mention doing better economically than the rest of Iraq. It is true that Iraqi Kurdistan is just a fraction of the Kurdish ethnic area, but the current rulers are wise enough not to take on either Turkey or Iran.
OTOH, as a number have pointed to, Arab Palestine is the construction of a U.N. mandate, not a cohesive nation. But then the PLF and Hamas demonstrate that rather conclusively.
As to TransJordan, I suggest those unfamiliar with the history of the area look up “Black September in Jordan” in Wikipedia. (Chris, that includes you.)
June 23rd, 2010 | 12:37 pm
It might not be necessary to consider the Kurds, Palestinians and others when taking steps to rebuild the Kingdom of Armenia. Armenians deserve a larger independent state.
June 23rd, 2010 | 6:40 pm
The more important question is why are the Jewish people so much despised by their neighbors no manner where they lived? Be it Germany, Spain , Russia, the Middle East you name it. Perhaps the advocates for Israel should start to look inward and confront what their personality or political characteristics are that are so difficult for others to accept.
June 24th, 2010 | 12:23 am
Chris — The land now known as Israel became recognizably Jewish (in language, history, ritual, even genetically) about 1500 BCE. It was the nation of the Jewish people. It was conquered by various empires but its people did not assimilate. Everyone in the ancient world knew that the Jews lived in Israel/Judea, that was their country. The Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians knew it. In fact it was the Jews’ independent attitude that brought down the wrath of the Roman empire and ethnically cleansed them from their country. The Temple was destroyed and Jerusalem laid waste. The Romans named it Palestina, the last act of ethnic cleansing which even erased the name of the upstarts who had to be put down.
From that time until 1948, there was no nation there. No other group moved in and set up a new country. The only people who sang songs about it and prayed about it and longed to return to it, and whose spiritual literature revered it — were the Jews. To the extent that Christians felt this way, it was because their founder was a Jew and his story took place in Jerusalem, its capital city. It was only militarily contested because it had religious value to Christian Europe, which wanted to take it back from the Arabs. (It had the most religious value to the Jews, of course, but they had no temporal power.)
Everyone who lived there was a “Palestinian” because that was the name of the area and that’s where they lived. But the Jews were the only ones who kept trying to emigrate there specifically because they wanted to return to their homeland. From the time of the destruction of the 2nd Temple to now, there have been very few short periods of time when there weren’t Jews living there. There is an unbroken line of not only culture in exile, but actual habitation, in spite of repeated ethnic cleansing.
And Europe also knew that Israel/Judea/Palestine had been the Jewish nation. In addition to being persecuted for supposedly killing Jesus and rejecting Christianity, they were persecuted for being migrant Levantine strangers, not proper Europeans. So for someone to tell them to “go back to Poland” is a sick joke. The Poles never thought the Jews were from Poland.
The people who now call themselves “Palestinians” started thinking of themselves as a nation in reaction to the rebirth of Israel. In fact, the UN partitioned the area with one state for the Jews and one for the Arabs, and the Arabs immediately went to war to take over the Jewish one. So the Palestinians were offered a state of equal size in part of what is now Israel, but they didn’t want peaceful co-existence then and they don’t now.
The only reason the Jewish connection to Israel doesn’t jump out at you bright as day is because of 2000 years of exile and persecution has obscured it. You wouldn’t question that people who are for example ethnically Irish have a connection to Ireland, even if their last relative who lived there was their great-grandmother. They like many ethnic groups – including the Kurds – have a recognizable ancestral language, mythology, culture…
Well, there’s another reason: the concerted disinformation campaign on the part of the Arab world, and their friends the Leftists, to convince you the Jewish connection to Israel never existed. But they all know the Jews were there before they were, and they can’t stand it. (Literally. The Muslim holy city of Medina was a Jewish town when Mohammed arrived to start his new religion. “Medina” means “state” or “district” in Hebrew and Aramaic. The local Jews didn’t want to join his new religion so he massacred them, setting the tone for Muslim/Jewish relations ever since.)
For people who don’t know any Jewish history I like to recommend Barnavi’s “Historical Atlas of the Jewish People.” Lots of maps and charts. Armed with knowledge you can write a very good essay.
June 24th, 2010 | 1:33 am
Gunderson:
Of course. I think Blacks should ask look inward and confront what personality or political characteristics made others enslave them.
And the Rwandan Tutsi’s should question why they were chosen for genocide.
And as Ben Hecht said, when you are the victim of a robbery you should question why you deserved it.
June 24th, 2010 | 10:13 am
the Kurds are deserving to live in independant Kurdistan as the Jewish ,we both had same bloody history & suffered from occupation, but the Jewish now proclaimed thier own tiny state of Israel ,while the Kurds are still suffers from occupation by Arabs ,Turks & Iranian,for obvious reasons ,first we are unfortunatley follwoing Islam with its backwardness regarding human rights ,democracy and all our occupiers are moslem too ,whom crying from “human right violation by Israel against thier brothers in Palastine “while themselves violating human rights of kurds ,turkeya do not allow the kurds to speak with thier own language.we the kurds never regard ourself as Iraqis ,Iranians or Turks,, infact we call those countries as occupiers ,they are occupying our country(kurdistan)
June 24th, 2010 | 3:14 pm
1. First of all i disagree with the question if the question wants to doubt or denies the right of KURDs to have their nation.
2.I think there are many reasons behind the situation in which KURDs live. There are internal factors concerning KURDs and external factors that concern the neighboring nations and international communities back to the imperialist and occupiers from 1700 of British and French …etc.
3.KURDS live in Kurdistan which is one of the richest areas of the world,geographically and naturally, strategically, economically…etc
This has been an ambition to all occupying nations in these regions.
4. The strategic place of KURDISTAN between different conflicting countries or empires this required from the KURDs to be either stronger than them or to become the victim, which was the worst inevitable choice.
5. Historically deep rooted hatred from Christian countries like Britian, French,…etc, and also Persians because of SALAHADDIN AYYUBY has caused the KURDs suffer too much from them.
6. Britians with the aid of other nations for their benefit specially for Britain divided KURDISTAN into 4 parts.
7.Successive bad regimes from these 4 countries have practiced policies of making the KURDs illiterate and out of services and depriving them from their different rights, so as to stay under their rule.
8.Naivety of KURDs believing the foreigners and other nations fake attitudes also was and still is one of the great obstacles in the way of their state.
9. The alturism that KURDs have against other nations also is another internal problem.
10. Lacking support from other nations, being mixed with other nations, leading in wars specially back to 1000 years ago has caused depopulation of KURDs and also caused them to migrate and live in different countries from Sudan, Egypt, Lebanon, Gorgia, Chechnya… etc
all of these didnt help KURDs to become a highly populated nation to reach 100 million which is a great number and a great power.
11. Conflicting interests between KURDs , Turks, Arabs, Persians and International community plays a hypocrite on the basis of their interest so not only they do not support KURDs but they betray them and support other nations.
12. Absence of moral in politics of neighboring countries also increases the torture and tyranny on KURDs.
These are some factors behind the situation. There are other factors of course not mentioned.
But to understand a phenomenon its better to search for the reasons and to go beyond curtains.
June 24th, 2010 | 3:18 pm
before colonialism there was not any state in the middle east , Kurds one of the nations fight for their rights to have independent state and they did their best to achieve that and now continue doing but due to aggression of Ataturk that day and other Turkish politicians later that dream did not achieved . Turkish government defend on Gaza and say they are not terrorist but for any Kurdish rights to have an independent state even in moon ! they say : its terror !!
June 24th, 2010 | 7:19 pm
kurdistan is rich???!!!
we have OIL, AGRICULTURE, IRON, WATER, MOUNTAIN, and too many LEADERS with no brain……
we can TALK no body listening, when everybody listening we are SILENT…
shwan husseini
from KURDISTAN in UK
June 25th, 2010 | 5:10 am
Simply because Palestine is occupied by a brutal civilized occupier backed by the hypocrite civilized West, while Kurdistan is occupied by brutal barbaric occupiers favored by hypocrite civilized West!
June 25th, 2010 | 5:19 am
Neither Kurds nor Palestinian Arabs deserve to “have a state” as Kurds or Palestinians.
As human beings, they deserve to be citizens of states ruled by governments which are responsible to all citizens living in their territories, including any Kurds or Palestinian Arabs.
Iraqi Kurds have this – they are citizens of Iraq, vote in Iraqi elections, and are represented in Iraq’s parliament. Turkish Kurds are citizens of vote in Turkish elections, and are represented in Turkey’s parliament (though there is some interference from the Turkish nmajority). Syrian and Iranian Kurds are screwed, but that’s because Syria and Iran are tyrannies, not because their rulers are not Kurds.
Palestinian Arabs do not have this. They are citizens of “Palestine”, but most of Palestine’s territory (the West Bank) and citizens are subject to Israeli authority, without representation in Israel’s government. That needs to change, eventually. (When Palestinians abandon their mad-dog hostility to Israel.) But unfortunately there are Israelis who want Israel to retain this control of the West Bank indefinitely.
June 26th, 2010 | 8:10 am
hey everyone!
after the dividing kurdish big state in the early of last century in 1920 by the british empire, the kurds lost there hope to have an independant sate like Turks, Arab and iranian,though our job was being harder and harder till today. because today the brutal turkish goverment is much more stronger the the past, and it is more brutal than the past as well as Iran and Syria,that is why i belive our job is more defficult in compare to 25 years before. however in Sougthern kurdistan we have got a kind of semi-independant situation, but we must have had more, as you now today more than 35 million kurds are living in there land in kurdistan , and some of them flew there land towards europe and another places for the political reasons…!! we deserve an independant kurdish state and we are trying to obtain it in the future!!
June 28th, 2010 | 1:52 pm
So now you jews are so concerned about Kurds. It’s funny how you became so concerned since the flotilla massacre! Jews care about no one but jews! We have heard for decades how you are so concerned about Black people and the need to defend Blacks from evil White racists. Code for all White people. Why don’t jews fess up and tell Blacks about the part your ancestors played in the slave trade. If you like I can come back with the names of jewish owned slave ships. No takers! I thought not!
For all of you non-jews reading this, do a little research on the jews religious book the talmud. You want to see a book of hate. It teaches that non-jews are beasts in human form. Check it out for yourself. It also refers to Jesus Christ as a bastard, and his mother as a prostitute.
I notice Steven Spielberg didn’t mention the jewish role in the slave industry, in his slave ship movie. I wonder why!
July 9th, 2010 | 4:02 pm
Dear Mr Goldman
The answer to your question and this subject is not easy as there is things has to be explained first, and a thousand word cannot explain it, I will try to point a few facts and I hope these facts lead to the answer.
This subject became an argument about israeil state, which is not the subject, Israel is a country and recognised by UN, the subject is about kurdistan
Since the first world war and after Lausanne agreement Kurdish nation divided among Islamic Fascist country.
-East is Iran which is an Islamic Dictatorship
-West is an Arab racist government and again Islamic nation “Syria”
-South in the past was an Arab Fascist Dictatorship “Saddam” and now Sunny In middle of Iraq which gets support from other Sunni Arab Islamic country, and Shiia In South Iraq which supported by Iranian State of terror.
-North is by an Islamic Racist country “Turkey” (They have a barbarian history)
The fact is this, governments who established and based on Religion especially Islam do not belive Freedom of any kind under any circumstances, they do not belive Democracy and Human rights, including woman and children rights, we hear from news how many people in these Islamic countries get killed, butchered and raped in their prison, and hanged or beheaded etc….(if you don’t hear it from news because it is not in English)
These four countries do not look at Kurdish as part of their own people and do all they can to wipe out Kurdish in the region the same way Hitler did to Jews in the WWII. As Saddam used Chemical gas attack as soon as he had it and killed thousands of Kurdish in Iraq.
There was many Kurdish uprising and arm struggle in these four countries to get their rights or separate from them, but they were not successful as the war is not between two nations or two country, it is among one nation and four powerful country. Similar to one boxer fight four other very strong boxers at the same time in the ring, and audience “the rest of the world” watching and cheering for the other four boxers, the one boxer doesn’t have anyone to cheer to him and do not have the muscle “weapon”. But amazingly he has the mental power and courage to keep fighting the other four and still standing against four of them.
If Kurdish nation were living in Europe region or any other Democratic region they would have their own state a long time ago, but what do you expect from Middle East which is ruled by a stone age Religion”Islam” and barbarian Dictatorship governments, which none of these governments were elected by people in a democratic fashion. In Turkey there is election but the military have power over the government and run the Turkish government, therefore there is similarity among Turkey and the other three country. Iran’s last election brought big demonstration to the country but Iranian armed forces killed a few and put thousands to prison, this is the situation.
All the world powerful country never helped Kurdish until recently in Iraqi Kurdistan they gave them some protection, (not help only protection) but helped Kurdish enemy for the past century and still NATO help Turkey to kill Kurdish using NATO weapon. with out NATO and USA support Turkey is nothing except a bunch of middle age people.
Israel have strong media world wide and they controlled it, some how they never let world media to concentrate on Kurdish issue, because thy thought if Kurdish have a state then that lead Palestine to have a state too in the past, but I am not sure if this will change now or in the future.
Kurdish nation have rights like the rest of other nations to have their own state, they lived in this region they are now for over 4000 years.
It is a big shame on mankind in 21 century over 30 million Kurdish suffer on daily bases and don’t have a country.
Why shame on mankind?
We as Mankind are the only intelligent being who live on the planet Earth, Kurdish are humans and have rights just like every other human on this planet.
I have to make this clear at the end, only barbarian or Islamic fanatic terrorist or racist people would not like this truth. their mentality cannot let them to digest what i am telling, for this reason I know how they react to what i wrote here.
Success Story in Iraqi Kurdistan
Since Saddam moved from power Iraqi Kurdish put a massive effort to write a new Iraqi constitution and build a new Federal government in Iraq and leading shitta and Sunny to involve in the Iraqi new Government also preventing Sunny and Sitta from killing eachother while when Sunni were in power killed over half a million Kurdish, but the Kurdish did not want to revenge from them they chose friendship with them, Iraqi Kurdistan is a big success story in the middle east, just because they had some little protection from USA and UK since 1992. but they paid over half a million victim during the time Saddam was in power and around 5000 villages were destroyed by Old Iraqi army, now the Kurdish people rebuilding these villages and over 1200 foreign company are working in the region to rebuild this part of Iraq. Democratic elected Kurdish parliament and president for the Kurdistan Regional Government. managed to produce 100000 barrel oil a day and planing to reach one million barrel a day by 2015. build new cement and Iron, factory, planing to build over 500 small dams 16 medium dams, and four big dams all finish in next ten years, build many highway, under pass over pass, new skyscrapers the highest in Iraq , build three big power plants producing 1200 Megawatt electricity and planing to build three more to generate another 1200 Megawatt. build two international Airports one of them are the longest airport runway in the middle east and fifth in the world builds in the city of Erbil “capital of Iraqi Kurdistan” . also build over 45000 housing unit in the past three years and planing to build 120000 housing unit in the next few years, $15 billion invested in the region in the past three years only, the Arab media call them the second Israel in the middle east because the success is unacceptable by the Arab world.
Note: I am not writing to get some money I am writing to tell the truth.
Thanks,
Kurdistan
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