Jerusalem – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced support for Kurdish statehood on Sunday, taking a position that appeared to clash with the U.S. preference to keep sectarian war-torn Iraq united.
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Israel has maintained discreet military, intelligence and business ties with the Kurds since the 1960s, seeing in the minority ethnic group a buffer against shared Arab adversaries.
The Kurds have seized on recent sectarian chaos in Iraq to expand their autonomous northern territory to include Kirkuk, which sits on vast oil deposits that could make the independent state many dream of economically viable.
But Iraqi Kurds, who have ethnic compatriots in Iran, Turkey and Syria, have hesitated to declare full independence, one reason being the feared response of neighboring countries.
“We should … support the Kurdish aspiration for independence,” Netanyahu told Tel Aviv University’s INSS think-tank, after outlining what he described as the collapse of Iraq and other Middle East regions under strife between Arab Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims.
Kurds, Netanyahu said, “are a fighting people that has proved its political commitment, political moderation, and deserves political independence”.
Washington wants Iraq’s crumbling unity restored. Last Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Iraqi Kurdish leaders and urged them to seek political integration with Baghdad.
Let him clash with the US. Israel is on its own eitherway..
Israel is now in the position of “The Mouse that roared”.
They are doing a dis-service to the Kurds, because:
1) No other country will really be positively influenced towards the Kurds, just because of Israel’s opinion.
(Netanyahu over-estimates the value of his opinions in the international arena…)
2) If anything, Israel’s support, at this time, for Kurdish independence will actually damage the Kurds.
All those Arabs/Muslims that oppose the Kurds will now use Israel in their slogans “If Israel supports them, then the Kurds must be bad!”.
I bet the Kurds are fidgeting.
I’m sure they appreciate Israel’s support, while at the same time they wish Israel would stop jabbering so much to the world.
Analogy: Imagine a Jewish politician running for office, that gets an endorsement from Hezbollah….
As a soverign nation that has guts and brains, Israel has every right to state what its aspirations and allies are. The Kurds are no angels, but they deserve statehood and would be an ally of the Jewish State. Thank you Bibi…