15
April 2004
1. "Leyla Zana condemns EU for putting Kongra-Gel on terrorism list", below is the original text of the joint letter by the imprisoned Kurdish deputy Leyla Zana addressed to United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan, EU Council General Secretary / Joint Foreign Policy and Security Commissioner Javier Solana, EU Commission President Romano Prodi, NATO General Secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and US President George Bush.
2. "Kurdish Peshmerga Militia Face Uncertain Future", Peshmerga fighter Ahmed Ali has spent decades in the service of the Kurdish militia, defending his people against multiple enemies. But now that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power, he faces the prospect of being surplus to requirements.
3. "Turkish Cypriot leader makes plea to EU", the Turkish Cypriot leader who negotiated and accepted the United Nations peace plan for Cyprus yesterday called on the European Union to suspend the island's accession if Greek Cypriots postponed a referendum on the settlement.
4. "Five Kurdish rebels, three soldiers killed in clashes in Turkey", five Kurdish rebels and three Turkish soldiers have been killed in clashes in Turkey's southeast in a major security crackdown, local security sources said Thursday.
5. "Iraq's Kurds: Toward an Historic Compromise?", by International Crisis Group (ICG) - Belgium.
6. "Time to Back Syria's Kurds", in 1982, the Syrian government carried out mass murder against it's own citizens, killing over 20,000 people in the Syrian city of Hama. Since 1976, Syria has occupied its neighbor to the west, Lebanon, viciously suppressing any sparks of freedom. Recently, Syria carried out a new massacre, murdering almost 100 Kurds and arresting thousands, in over a week of fighting.
1. - KNK - "Leyla Zana condemns EU for putting
Kongra-Gel on terrorism list":
Below is the original text of the joint letter by the imprisoned Kurdish
deputy Leyla Zana addressed to United Nations General Secretary Kofi
Annan, EU Council General Secretary / Joint Foreign Policy and Security
Commissioner Javier Solana, EU Commission President Romano Prodi, NATO
General Secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and US President George Bush.
(Translation of Turkish original):
14 April 2004
The terrorist acts associated with Al Qaida, first in the USA on 11 September and then in Turkey, Spain and other European countries, have forced the states of the world to develop new concepts in the fight against terrorism.
States can clearly not be expected to remain indifferent in the face of inhuman attacks which target them and thousands of innocent people. It is inevitable that protective, preventive and pre-emptive measures will be taken at the highest level, and that the perpetrators and the powers behind them will be exposed. There can be no doubt that the taking of these measures is the most natural response. However, for success to be achieved in the fight against terrorism and the effort to rid society from violence, there is a factor which I believe is of great importance and must not be neglected: in determining the coverage and limits of the definitions of ³terrorism² and ³terrorist organisation², scientific, social and political facts must not be overlooked and the definitions must be based on just grounds. I consider it a historic duty to express my concern that decisions reached by states and international bodies without taking this into account and simply on the basis of ³mutual interests² may, in the name of preventing terrorism, cause new waves of undesirable, indeed unpredictable terrorism and violence.
At the European Union Brussels Summit on 25-25 March 2004, the list of terrorist organisations was updated, within the framework of the EU Council Joint Foreign Policy and Security Policies, to include KONGRA-GEL. This, in my view is the most unfortunate decision taken by the EU throughout its history. It is obvious that scientific, social and political facts have been ignored, attempts to achieve peace and democracy have been considered unimportant and worthless, ³international interests² have been the one and only, determining factor. In fact, in terms of its aims and objectives, its form of organisation and ideology, its methods and goals, KONGRA-GEL does not fit the definition of ³terrorist organisation² attributed to it. KONGRA-GEL is a democratic, peaceful people¹s organisation which defends the democratic rights of Kurds who live first of all in Turkey and also in Iran, Syria and Iraq, which respects the territorial integrity of states, which has repeatedly announced to the world that it is prepared to disarm when legal arrangements have been made to ensure its democratic participation in society, and which awaits its legalisation.
The PKK was not included in the EU list of Terrorist Organisations even in the years when an intense war was being fought in Turkey between the PKK and the security forces. The fact that KONGRA-GEL is now seen as the equivalent of Al Qaida and other terrorist organisations is an indication of where this decision finds its source. This unjust decision has saddened, hurt and injured the Kurds. It is also unfortunate that no reference is made to the thousands of villages burnt and razed to the ground in the years of war, to the thousands of ³unsolved² murders, to the tragedy of the million who were forced to migrate. If there is a period free from conflict in Turkey today, if certain steps can be taken towards democratisation, if relations with the EU have gathered speed, if Turkey enjoys an atmosphere of peace and security in which international meetings and conferences can be held, the role played in achieving these gains by Kurdish People¹s Leader Mr. Öcalan must not be forgotten, but acknowledged as important and cherished. Therefore, the only path which leads to peace in Turkey and to the Kurds goes through Mr. Öcalan and the people¹s organisation behind him.
Any other attempts; the search for artificial and virtual people and leaders to negotiate with; attempts to terrorise the organisation and the people; provocations designed to separate, divide and break up; solutions based on eliminating, ignoring or degenerating the Kurds; proposals which ignore the Kurdish question or postpone its solution to an uncertain future; perceptions which see the Kurds¹ enlightenment and renewal projects as simple continuations of the past; all these would promote violence and would represent a loss for the people of the region and particularly Turkey, and for world peace.
Hard as it is for me to utter the words, we may see a second Palestine or Beirut or Balkans. And yet, the Kurds are determined to act as leading force for change, peace and fraternity in the 21st century, to move into the epoch of democratic civilisation as free and equal citizens together with the peoples with whom they share the same lands. And the Kurds hope and expect that this determination is not ignored. That is why I believe it necessary once again to stress that policies which terrorise the Kurds and provoke and encourage them to move to violence are not useful. I believe, therefore, that it is a human duty to remove KONGRA-GEL from the list of terrorist organisations and, thus, to contribute to peace primarily in our country and also in the region and the world.
Respectfully, Leyla Zana, 8 April 2004, Ankara Central
Closed Prison 
2. - Reuters - "Kurdish Peshmerga Militia Face Uncertain Future":
IRBIL / 14 April 2004 / by Seb Walker
Peshmerga fighter Ahmed Ali has spent decades in the service of the Kurdish militia, defending his people against multiple enemies. But now that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power, he faces the prospect of being surplus to requirements.
"I'm not sure about my future, maybe I'll retire -- it's been many years," said Ali, a 52-year-old platoon leader surrounded by junior peshmerga soldiers in their barracks at the Irbil headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
Kurdish leaders have agreed in principle that the peshmerga should be disbanded under the terms of Iraq's interim constitution, signed last month, which stipulates that armed militias must be dissolved or brought under the control of the central government by June 30, when the Americans are due to hand power back to the Iraqis.
Ali, a peshmerga since 1967, thinks it is too early to decide that the peshmerga are no longer needed -- particularly with Iraq's Kurdish minority, which makes up about 20 percent of Iraq's population, still facing enemies from within Iraq.
That said, he believes that if the Kurds are given the autonomy they seek in a three-province swath of northern Iraq, and jobs are provided for ex-peshmerga, then he doesn't see too many difficulties with the disbandment.
Yet that may all be wishful thinking.
"If we get the results we want -- freedom for Kurdistan -- this situation will be no problem," he said. "My three sons (also in the peshmerga) might even be happy to go into civilian jobs."
The peshmerga -- the name means literally "those ready to die" -- was created in 1946 by Iraqi Kurd leader, Mustafa Barzani, to help defend the breakaway Kurdish 'Mahabad republic' founded in Iran. It now numbers around 55,000 active fighters.
These days the militia is a confusing mix of groups, loyal to whichever Kurdish party is paying their salary. Before the recent conflict, members were paid roughly $90 a month, but a peshmerga can now expect to receive around $170 a month for tours of duty lasting two or three months at a time.
There are elite bands such as the Kurdish special forces equipped with modern automatic rifles and blue combat fatigues, while older mountain warriors still wear traditional Kurdish baggy pants and a turban and carry old and rusting Russian AK-47s.
JOBS FOR THE BOYS
Around 25,000 former peshmerga now receive salaries from coalition authorities for employment in the new Iraqi security forces. Some have become border guards, others policemen, and around 4,000 are being trained as part of the new Iraqi army.
According to the minister of peshmerga affairs for the Kurdistan Regional Government in Irbil, thousands more remain to be disbanded and positions need to be found for them.
"We now have around 50,000 without jobs, so we're trying to make agreements with the coalition to find work for them," said minister Hamid Afandi, who joined the peshmerga in 1961. "We can't just send them home."
Afandi said that many would be retained to provide protection for Kurdish party officials -- effectively private security guards. Until other jobs are provided for the rest they will continue to receive their minimal peshmerga salaries.
Discussions with coalition officials are continuing, according to Afandi, and the Kurds have been told the situation will be solved gradually.
U.S.-led administration officials in the region -- who also receive security protection from peshmerga -- say the plan is to phase out the force slowly, providing civil service jobs to those who do not get work with the security forces.
HONORABLE SOLUTION
New bodies are also being created, such as the "forest police" who will protect the natural environment and take on duties like replanting the landscape. Other schemes involve providing small-business loans for ex-peshmergas seeking a career outside the public sector.
Afandi said that while he would prefer the militia to be given military rather than civilian jobs, he would accept any decision and was not worried about the question of defense.
"If they're called on to fight, all Kurdish people are peshmergas," he said. "They have jobs and stay in their houses, but if told to defend Kurdistan they are ready."
The decision to accept coalition plans to dismantle the peshmergas, who are closely entwined with Kurdish national identity having fought for years against the former government, is viewed by most Kurds as a compromise in the negotiations over the transfer of authority in Iraq.
Kurdish leaders have called for an "honorable solution" to the future of the peshmerga, but for some of the young men crowded around Ali at the KDP headquarters in Irbil an alternative career is hard to contemplate.
"A lot of times we go without salaries, even though we'd get higher pay elsewhere," said Ali's son, Spiya, 28, who expressed confidence that the Kurdish leadership would eventually negotiate an agreement allowing the peshmerga to remain.
"I want to stay as a peshmerga because our leader
(Mustafa Barzani) was a peshmerga," he said.
3. - The Financial Times - "Turkish Cypriot leader makes plea to EU":
BRUSSELS / 15 April 2004 / by Judy Dempsey
The Turkish Cypriot leader who negotiated and accepted the United Nations
peace plan for Cyprus yesterday called on the European Union to suspend
the island's accession if Greek Cypriots postponed a referendum on the
settlement.
Mehmet Ali Talat, prime minister of the unrecognised Turkish Republic of northern Cyprus, said Turkish Cypriots would get nothing if they voted Yes on April 24 while the Greek Cypriots would enter the EU on May 1 even if they voted against the UN plan or postponed the vote. A Yes vote by both communities would mean the Turkish Cypriots could join the EU on May 1.
But Tassos Papadopoulos, Greek Cypriot leader, last week said he would vote against the UN plan while Akel, the largest Greek Cypriot party, wants to postpone the referendum.
"If the Greek Cypriot side postpone the referendum, it will mean they will become a member of the EU and we will be represented by the Greek Cypriots. This is not acceptable to us," said Mr Talat. "There is no reason for a postponement of the referendum. If so Cyprus's entry to the EU should be suspended."
EU diplomats said it would be impossible to suspend the island's accession, admitting they had lost their leverage over the Greek Cypriots last year when the accession treaties were signed.
An EU diplomat said Brussels had lost influence as far back as the 1999 Helsinki summit when leaders agreed to negotiate with Cyprus, saying it could join with or without a settlement. "It seems Mr Papadopoulos did not negotiate in good faith with the UN," he said.
Mr Talat's remarks, made to the European Policy Centre think-tank, reflect growing frustration among Turkish Cypriots who believed their chances of entering the EU might now have to wait until Turkey is ready to join. The main reason why they supported the UN plan was because Turkish Cypriots "wanted to get out of this protracted isolation" by the world, said Mr Talat.
Nevertheless, top diplomats from the UN Security Council, the US, EU and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will today in Brussels try to rescue the peace plan. They will hold a preparatory donors' conference to reassure Greek Cypriots they will not have to pay for compensation or restitution claims for property owners who fled in 1974 after the Turkish army occupied the northern part of the island.
* About 10,000 Turkish Cypriots yesterday staged a rally in north Nicosia to back a Yes vote for the reunification plan at the April 24 referendum, Kerin Hope reports from Nicosia.
Opinion polls suggest around 60 per cent of Turkish Cypriots
would vote in favour of the plan, in spite of a negative campaign led
by Rauf Denktash, the Turkish Cypriot president.
4. - AFP - "Five Kurdish rebels, three soldiers
killed in clashes in Turkey":
DIYARBAKIR / 15 April 2004
Five Kurdish rebels and three Turkish soldiers have been killed in clashes in Turkey's southeast in a major security crackdown, local security sources said Thursday.
Ten soldiers and village guards -- government-paid militiamen -- were also wounded in the fighting in a mountainous area in Sirnak province, bordering Iraq.
Some 6,000 troops and village guards, with air cover, took part in the operation, which began at the weekend after the army received intelligence that a group of 60 militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) -- also known as KONGRA-GEL -- had crossed from northern Iraq into Turkey.
Authorities estimate that about 5,000 rebels have found refuge in the mountains of northern Iraq since 1999 when the PKK said it was laying down its arms in favor of a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict in Turkey.
The PKK has waged a bloody 15-year campaign for self-rule
in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast. The confict has claimed more
than 36,000 lives. Turkey is now pressing the United States to clamp
down on the militants hiding in northern Iraq, whom both Ankara and
Washington consider "terrorists."
5. - Reuters - "Iraq's Kurds: Toward an Historic Compromise?":
15 April 2004 / by International Crisis Group (ICG) - Belgium
The removal of the Ba'ath regime in 2003 opened a Pandora's box of long-suppressed aspirations, none as potentially explosive as the Kurds' demand, expressed publicly and with growing impatience, for wide-ranging autonomy in a region of their own, including the oil-rich governorate of Kirkuk. If mismanaged, the Kurdish question could fatally undermine the political transition and lead to renewed violence. Kurdish leaders need to speak more candidly with their followers about the compromises they privately acknowledge are required, and the international community needs to work more proactively to help seal the historic deal.
The Kurdish demand for a unified, ethnically-defined region of their own with significant powers and control over natural resources has run up against vehement opposition from Iraqi Arabs, including parties that, while still in exile, had broadly supported it. The Kurds in turn vigorously objected to the kind of federalism envisaged in the agreement reached in November 2003 by Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the Interim Governing Council, which would have been based on Iraq's eighteen existing governorates, including three individual, predominately Kurdish ones, and have left them without control of Kirkuk.
A series of negotiations produced a compromise in the interim constitution (Transitional Administrative Law, TAL) signed on 8 March 2004 that recognised a single Kurdish region effectively equivalent to what the Kurds have governed in semi-independence since 1991 (that is, without Kirkuk), elevated Kurdish to official language status alongside Arabic and met another Kurdish demand by providing that a census would be held in Kirkuk before its final status was determined. In return, the Kurdish leaders accepted postponement of the knotty Kirkuk question until the constitutional process that begins only sometime in 2005 is complete and a legitimate and sovereign Iraqi government has been established through direct elections.
Meanwhile, away from the give and take of the negotiations in Baghdad, the Kurds are contributing mightily to a volatile atmosphere by creating demographic and administrative facts in Kirkuk, using their numbers and superior organisation to undo decades of Arabisation and stake a strong claim to the area. The Turkoman, Arab and Assyro-Chaldean communities are increasingly worried about Kurdish domination evident in control of key directorates, strength on the provincial council and the steady return of Kurds displaced by past Arabisation campaigns in a process that many see as reverse ethnic cleansing. In March 2004, rising tensions led the Arab and Turkoman members to resign from the Kirkuk provincial council. A pattern, new for Kirkuk, has begun to emerge of sectarian-based protests that erupt into violence.
Significantly, however, the tough bargaining and rhetoric during the TAL negotiations and the friction in Kirkuk mask a profound shift in Kurdish strategy that is yet to be broadcast and understood publicly. The top leadership of the two principal Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), is offering Iraqi Arabs what amounts to an historic compromise: acceptance of an autonomous region as the maximum objective of the Kurdish national movement they represent and, even more importantly, a willingness, expressed in interviews with ICG, to abandon the exclusive claim to Kirkuk in favour of a sharing arrangement under which the city and governorate would receive a special status.
Regrettably, Kurdish leaders have yet to announce their decision or start preparing the Kurdish people for this profound and seemingly genuine strategic shift. Indeed, there is a growing discrepancy between what the Kurds want, what they say they want and what non-Kurds suspect they want. Given strong pro-independence sentiments in both the Kurdish region and Kurdish diaspora, they may encounter large-scale popular opposition to their plan at precisely the time -- the run-up to the constitutional process -- when they will need to persuade a sceptical Arab public, as well as neighbouring states such as Turkey, of their true intentions in order to realise even their reduced aspirations. For their part, Arab leaders have yet to lower their rhetoric and negotiate seriously with their Kurdish counterparts to preserve Iraq's unity by hammering out constitutional guarantees assuring Kurds that the atrocities of the past will not recur.
If the U.S.-designed political transition comes unstuck in the face of continuing Sunni alienation and insurgency and escalating Shiite discontent, as the events of April 2004's first week threaten, Kurdish leaders may alter their stance again and be tempted to protect the gains they have made since 1991 by asserting unilateral control over claimed territories, including Kirkuk. That would likely cross a Turkish red line and risk a grave regional confrontation. Even if matters calm down and the political transition is able to proceed more or less as planned, however, the Kurdish question will require sustained international engagement.
The occupying powers, and the international community more generally, should pay heed to the Kurds' fair demands. Continuing instability, the Kurds' high expectations and their ability not only to express but possibly to realise long-standing aspirations by institutional power or violence make it imperative for non-Iraqi actors, including the UN, to step in and mediate a fair resolution of competing claims. Failure to quench the Kurdish thirst, after 80 years of betrayals, discrimination and state-sponsored violence, for a broad margin of freedom within a unitary Iraq could well pave the way for more radical elements to gain the upper hand in the Kurdish community and press a separatist agenda -- with possibly disastrous consequences for Iraq and the region.
The report is available in full at http://www.crisisweb.org/
Contacts: Andrew Stroehlein (Brussels) +32 (0) 485 555 946 Jennifer
Leonard (Washington) +1-202-785 1601
6. - Frontpage Magazine - "Time to Back Syria's Kurds":
15 April 2004 / by By Ariel Natan Pasko
In 1982, the Syrian government carried out mass murder against it's own citizens, killing over 20,000 people in the Syrian city of Hama. Since 1976, Syria has occupied its neighbor to the west, Lebanon, viciously suppressing any sparks of freedom. Recently, Syria carried out a new massacre, murdering almost 100 Kurds and arresting thousands, in over a week of fighting.
According to Kurdish sources, the arrests and suppression are continuing. "Syrian authorities have not stopped their nighttime raids, arrests, and oppression of safe Kurds in their homes, continuing the policy of persecution against the Kurdish people," said Abdel Baki Youssef, leader of the Kurdish Yekiti Party.
Amnesty International - the human rights monitor - in a recent statement, urged Syria to launch an independent judicial inquiry into the clashes and called on Syrian authorities to end repressive measures against its Kurdish minority. The Amnesty statement called on authorities to release hundreds of Syrian Kurds it said were still detained.
Israel too should speak out loudly about these Syrian atrocities, and support the Kurdish minority against Syrian Arab violence.
It all started several weeks ago as riots between Arabs and Kurds at a soccer game in Qamishli - in the northern Kurdish region of Syria or what Kurds call Western Kurdistan - but quickly spread to several northern cities. Pro-Assad, Baath Party loyalists responded by murdering Kurds in several towns. It's been reported that Syrian security services conducted mass arrests. Kurdish sources claim that some 2000 people have been detained in Damascus and Aleppo, and that in Damascus, almost every male Kurd over the age of 16 has been arrested.
The Kurds in Syria, Iran and in Turkey are severely repressed. In Turkey, even their identity as Kurds is still denied; they are called Mountain Turks. In Syria, they are denied most civil and political rights. About 2 million Kurds live in Syria. But the seething anger that exploded in Qamishli is generated most, by the fact that almost 200,000 Kurds are denied citizenship outright. They cannot vote, own property, go to state schools or get government jobs. Kurds in Iran live under similar repressive conditions. With the rise of an autonomous region in a post-Saddam federated Iraq, the question of Kurdish rights in other parts of the region looms large.
As the discussion of "democratization" of the Middle East continues, an important point that must be made time and time again, is the importance in building structures that liberate the minorities of the region from oppression.
Non-Arab and Non-Muslim minorities live throughout North
Africa and the Middle East. Contrary to the propaganda that the region
is Arab/Muslim, these minorities are remnants of the indigenous peoples,
before the great Arab imperialist wars of the 7th century, and "Islamicization
process" that followed. Non-Arab Muslims like the Kurds in Iraq,
Syria, Turkey, and Iran; the Berbers - known as Amazighes - in Morocco,
Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, have all resisted "Arabization"
for over 1,000 years. Non-Muslims like the Assyrian Christians in Iraq
- who argue that they are not Arabs - the Copts in Egypt, Christian
Lebanese - many who claim not to be Arab but Phoenician - the Christians
in Sudan, and other Christians throughout the region, have been persecuted
minorities, since the rise of Islam. Others like the Druze and Jews
have also been persecuted by Arab/Muslim regimes throughout history.
And we can now see, from the recent Sunni terror attacks on Shiites
in Iraq - and Bin La
den's recent statements that Shiites are heretics - that even some Muslims
- Shiites and other non-Sunnis - are persecuted minorities in parts
of the Middle East.
Only Israel, the Jewish State, has fully liberated itself - in the political sense - from this Arab/Muslim oppression, although it still suffers from physical violence against her people. Israel should take the lead - in it's foreign policy - to support "democratization" and "regime change" throughout the region. Israel shouldn't wait until countries of the region "reform," but should pro-actively support the legitimate aspirations of the oppressed minorities of North Africa and the Middle East, and build alliances with them.
Kurds were brutally suppressed by Saddam's Baathist regime in Iraq through his "Arabization" program, expelling Kurds from their traditional areas and replacing them with Arab settlers. It's no secret that close relations existed between Israel and the Kurds throughout most of the sixties and into the seventies, until the collapse of the Kurdish revolt in Iraq, in 1975. Reflective of this, and that Moledet Party founder and former leader Rechavam Ze'evi was involved in Israeli-Kurdish relations, the 1996 Moledet Party Platform, Chapter 9: Foreign Policy, paragraph 17, states "Israel will act against the oppression of peoples like the Kurds..." Ze'evi - as a military officer - had been to Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani had even been to Israel. With this in mind, Israel should actively revive the former policy of support for the Kurdish people.
The idea of reviving this relationship hasn't been missed by Kurds themselves, as Kawa Bradosti wrote - in Kurdish Media - back in Sept. 2003, "...the potential is there for Israel and the Kurds to have a much closer relationship especially when considering the often hostile attitude of the neighboring countries in the region both to Israel and to the Kurds. It would be good common sense for the two nations to support each other and to forge an alliance together."
Some might ask about Israel's relationship with Turkey, and how will active support for the Kurds, be seen in Ankara - since Turkey also oppresses upwards of 15 million Kurds. I believe that Israel's relationship with Turkey is mature enough to weather the storm. I don't see Turkey throwing tantrums at the US for its role in Iraq, helping the Kurds there. Turkey, I believe in the long run, will come to see the benefits of a re-structured Middle East, where the threat of Islamic radicalism and terror - also directed at Turkey - is greatly reduced.
Turkey also has its problems with Syria. If the Kurds, Israelis, and Turks (along with a democratic Iraq?), could come together, Syria - the bad boy of the neighborhood - could be put in her place for good.
For a while now, I've written about Syria's oppression of the Lebanese (see my article, "Lebanon's Real Economic Woes Are Syrian Induced"). I've written about Syria's help for the former Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq (see my article, "Syria, UN resolution 520, and the Security Council"). I've written about how Syria has pushed drugs, supported terror, and needs to be forced back to its "natural" size and influence in the region (see my articles, "Free Lebanon Now" and "Israel, Don't Hit Hizbollah, Hit Syria!"). And in a recent article, I've called on the Israeli government to say ("It's time for Syria to get out of Lebanon"). Now we need to turn a magnifying glass onto their behavior towards their Kurdish minority.
In the past I've written a survey article, "Democracy in the Middle East," about the oppression of minorities in the region. Now I'm calling on the Israeli government to make a policy decision to actively support the Kurds and other minority groups, to build a non-Arab and non-Muslim regional alliance for change.
Till now, I haven't mentioned the so-called "Palestinians,"
and I won't beyond saying, that they are part of the problem, not part
of the solution. Aren't they an oppressed minority? No, as Arabs, they
are part of the greater Arab Nation who since the 7th century has conquered,
oppressed, and occupied everyone else in the Middle East and North Africa.
As radical Muslims, everyone can see that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and
the other terror groups are continuing down the same path as Bin Laden.
In fact recently, not long before his assassination, Hamas "spiritual
leader" Sheikh Yassin had begun speaking about the "Global
Jihad" in Bin Laden and al-Qaeda type terms. Hezbollah has also
been working in the "Palestinian" administered territories
for a while already, as evidenced by Israel's recent capture of a Hezbollah
cell in Gaza. So, they are part of the regional oppression network,
not the future liberty and freedom alliance that Israel should work
to build with other minorities i
n the area.
Israel's Foreign Policy toward Syria should be built on the demands that it leave Lebanon unconditionally, end it's support for Hezbollah and "Palestinian" terror groups, dismantle it's Weapons of Mass Destruction, and keep it's hands off the Kurds. Israel's greater regional policy should be based on supporting the rights of minorities in the area. Only that way, based on democratization, liberation from oppressive regimes, and encouraging freedom, will the Middle East and North Africa be transformed into a region worthy its millennia old history.