A wake-up call about extensive Kurdish human rights violations.
Uninformed savants across the political spectrum have pilloried President Trump for his eminently rational decision to draw down the U.S. troop commitment (initially, only 25, as it turns out!) to the Syrian morass (whose “dynamic” has remained largely unchanged since the late 1940s).
Most of the ire directed at Mr. Trump has to do with hand-wringing over our “Kurdish allies,” even after the President warned Turkey not to engage in its habitual behaviors — since Ataturk created his ethno-racst state — towards the Kurds. Regardless, here are a few salient points one should bear in mind about the Kurds which the hand-wringers conveniently ignore in their hagiographies:Kurdish predatory mass killings of Christians and Yazidis are well-characterized and went on for centuries. Grinding persecution continues to this day, as can be gleaned from detailed reports by both Assyrian and Yazidi organizations (here; here; here)
[*] Kurdish “region(s)” were ethnically cleansed of Jews by the late 19th/early 20th centuries in a series a pogroms, compounded by constant grinding persecution including enslavement of Jewish families handed over between generations of Kurds as “family property”. (p. 658; p. 108)
[*] The Kurds of Turkey, brutally oppressed (here) by Ataturk’s ugly ethno-racist Turkish supremacist state (here), since the 1920s, ongoing, evolved their own brutal (here) Marxist terror organization, the PKK, to combat this oppression. Those Marxist PKK elements are the fighting backbone of the Syrian Kurds whom the U.S. is now claimed to be “abandoning”.
[*] Kurds of Iraqi “Kurdistan” have enshrined the Sharia (“This Constitution confirms and respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the people of Iraqi Kurdistan. It considers the principles of Islamic Sharia as one of the main sources of legislation… It is not allowed to enact a law inconsistent with the provisions of the fundamentals of Islam,” Articles 6 & 7) and even apply it to Kurdish conscientious objectors to Islam who escape their Kurdish Muslim paradise and flee to the West. (here; here)
[*] 50% of Kurdistan’s women undergo FGM, sanctioned by the Sharia.
Johny Messo is head of the World Council of Arameans. In 2014 Messo issued this statement when Israel’s Minister of Interior, H.E. Gideon Sa‘ar, signed a document that recognizes “Aramean” as a distinct national identity in Israel’s population registry:
We greatly commend Israel for being the first state in the world to recognize our people in keeping with international law. This fantastic news has had a major impact on the global Aramean population. It encourages us to continue our legal struggle for recognition by our home countries of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon”
Messo, was quoted from this story published today (10/10/19) from about the depredations and duplicity of the Kurdish Marxist brigades operating within Northern Syria:
“The PYD/YPG is threatening Syriacs and still forcibly detaining some children to join them,” Johny Messo, head of the World Council of Arameans (Syriacs), told Anadolu Agency on Thursday. Telling how the terrorist PYD/YPG fought other terrorist groups only to pursue its own territorial aims, he explained: “The aim of the PYD/YPG in its struggle against Daesh was to seize their territories and integrate them as part of the autonomous Kurdish region envisaged by them.” The U.S. had enlisted the PYD/YPG to fight Daesh, while Turkey objected that using one terror group to fight another makes no sense. Messo said the PYD/YPG and Daesh are both terror groups, differing only in aims, and sometimes even working together. “For example, the BBC showed that the PYD/YPG signed an agreement with Daesh. And, according to our own sources, the PYD/YPG took former Daesh members with them,” he added. Messo said it is the PYD/YPG — the Syrian branch of the [MARXIST] terrorist PKK….
The British “abandoned” the Jews of Palestine (the British term) in 1948 — not just to one neighboring power, but to several. The result is the modern State of Israel, a good outcome. The Jews had to fight for their own independence, like most peoples of the world, and there is no reason for the Kurds to be treated differently. President Trump has left the Syrian Kurds in a far stronger position, in fact, than they had before we stepped in to help them a few years ago.
I used to support Kurdish statehood. Now it’s a matter of complete indifference. Neither Israel nor America should expend any blood or treasure towards that end. They are like all the rest.
Actual Kurdish Muslim treatment of Jews today and in the past
First-hand accounts of the oppression and antisemitism experienced by Jewish communities under Kurdish dominion.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/24595
Article is an attempt to paint all Kurds with one brush in an ugly color. Those of us who know Kurds will tend to disagree. Kurds in general actually have been one of the few Muslim groups that have been accepting of others.
The Kurds have gotten along with the Israelis.
The Kurds (yes legitimate tough guys) have fought hard as partners with the USA. Vilifying them by some is the reason to clean up Trumps betrayal of the SDF and Kurds.
Bostom’s article is unfair in a number of respects. The only source he cites for many of his accusations about Kurds is his own book. He lumps together the treatment of Jews in all of “Anatolia” (Turkey) with their treatment by Kurds. He describes the results an ADL poll of all Iraqis, of all sects and faiths, as reflective of the attitudes of Iraqi Kurds. He makes no effort to identify and report the responses specifically of Kurdish respondents to the poll.
The article from Rudaw, which reports an interview with the leader of the small Kurdish community, is accurate as far as it goes. The community leader reports that Kurdish Jews prefer not to publicly identify themselves as Jews or worship in synagogues, for fear of persecution by their neighbors. However, he does not quote from those parts of the interview that reveal that the Kurdish Jews are more afraid of the Arab Shi’ite government in Baghdad, and the Iranians and pro-Iranian militias operating in the Arab-ruled areas bordering on the Kurdish region, then they are of their fellow Kurds.
I know from my personal correspondence with Bostum that he does not believe there is such a thing as a “good Muslim.” He referred to a Muslim imam who has been outspoken in support of Israel (there are a few of these in various parts of the world, and even one in Jerusalem), as “Provolone,” rather than his actual name. While Bostum’s books do contain much legitimate documentary evidence of Muslim oppression of Jews down through the ages, he fails to report on those periods of history in some Muslim countries where Jews were generally treated with respect, prospered, and even occasionally held positions in the ruler’s courts. He does not acknowledge that Muslim persecution of Jews was not continuous in every Muslim country. As in Christian Europe, not all Jews were oppressed all the time in all Muslim countries.