BACK TO THE ORIGINAL RELATIONS, BACK TO THE ISRAELI RELATIONS
by Nabaz Goran

Iraqi Kurdistan National Democratic Union newspaper Midya, Arbil, Iraq
14 Feb 07 p 8

This is the third time I write about Kurdish-Israeli relations. My
aim in these writings is to instil some courage in the hearts of our
writers so that they would not be intimidated by political Islam to
avoid talking about our relationship with Israel. Today we, the Kurds,
need to have our own state. In the Middle East there is only one gate
through which the sun of Kurdish state can shine and it is the broad
gate of Israel. We must again go to this gate to make friends with
a great power and open ourselves to the outside world.

Some time ago, when the Kurdish revolutionary leader Mustafa Barzani
felt that this is a gate through which the Kurds could enter towards
the prospect of nationhood, the Israelis then opened their door for
him. But this relationship did not become a strong long-term strategic
relationship for the Kurds. Today we must again follow the steps of
Mustafa Barzani in order to renew this relationship and consolidate
our future gains.

The Arabs are all, behind their rhetoric, friends with Israel. They
do not want to abort this friendship. They are aware of the fact that
to lose Israel is to lose [the support of] half of the world. The war
that some Arabs pursue against Israel on the pages of newspapers is a
nationalistic war that has nothing to do with Islam and religion. But
the Arab media aim to attract the sympathy of the people of the East
and give a [religious] legitimacy to their [nationalist] wars. In
fact, Jerusalem, which the nationalist Arabs consider their land,
is the native land of the Jews. It is similar to how the Turks and
Arabs claim that Kirkuk, which is a Kurdish land, is theirs. But the
Jews were much stronger than us and they were able to throw out the
occupiers of their land.

Kurdish Islamic politicians must acknowledge that sometimes we
must put many things aside in order to ensure the liberation of our
country. Those who give up their homeland for their faith, have in
fact become faithless. They have lost all faith. Authentic faith lies
in having your own homeland, not an occupied homeland.

Often I feel like laughing at those failed politicians who consider
Barzani’s relationship with the Israelis was shameful. These people
have such a myopic view that they do not deserve to become members
of Hamas, let alone a Kurdish party, because the war that is waged by
Hamas against the Israelis is a war that again reveals the despotic and
aggressive nature of Arabs’ occupation of the lands of other peoples.

I do not wish our writers to be so feeble as to be influenced by the
discourse of political Islam. We must work together to ensure our
survival and rediscover our old friend Israel, the friend that is
happy with the existence of Kurds in the Middle East as a state. Our
lack of awareness should not lead us to take pride in Salah-al-Din,
the man who only thought about his religion not his nation, the man
who could occupy a country through the swords of Arabs.

Salah-al-Din for us the Kurds was no different from an Arab caliph.

He was the Arabs’ man, the Arabs’ hero. We cannot be proud of a
man who ignored all the oppression suffered by his own nation and
went on to occupy and oppress another nation. Until this moment the
religious brothers of Salah-al-Din have not stopped oppressing the
Kurdish people. They never became friends of the people of the East:
the Kurds, the Jews and the Armenians. To depend on the Arabs for
establishing our national state is an act of ignorance and a disastrous
road which we must not take again.

In the Middle East, the Kurds, the Jews and the Armenians are the
three nations whom the Arabs, relying on their religious texts,
have always oppressed. That is why we need to seek and rely on those
forces that are outside the Arab circle so that we will not suffer
from their aggression again. The Armenians are not as strong as the
Jews to become our allies. However, the original road of our salvation
is the road taken by the Jews. We must follow this road to reach our
dreams. Except for the Israeli gate, we do not have a gate of hope
anywhere else. We should be happy to see the Israeli flags flying in
our country – this flag which already exists in many Arab countries
but has been made a heresy for us; this [Israeli] flag under which
we have not suffered from genocide.

Whenever the emirs of Qatar and the Egyptian president deny the
existence of the Israeli state and its flag, then let our failed
half-politicians find a fault with our relationship with Israel.