Anfal, Arabs, and Auschwitz

An Open Letter To My Dear Kurdish Friends…

By Gerald A. Honigman

For over three decades now, I have admired and staunchly defended you…at times, at detriment to myself.

As a doctoral student in the ‘70s--whose career was nipped in the bud by a tenured anti-Israel professor at Ohio State University, whose only mention of Kurds in any of his courses was when he mocked their cause while telling tales about his travels through Turkey--I, alone, had to bring the plight of your people up in the midst of ceaseless discussions centered around creating a 22nd state for Arabs at the expense of the Jews’ sole, resurrected one. The most advanced doctoral student in the program never got a dissertation advisor.

Today, I take pride in the wonderful progress you have made in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Stay united, my friends--your divisions have repeatedly played into the hands of your surrounding enemies in the past, and many will work to resurrect them in the future.

My country’s overthrow of Saddam was commendable. But with Saddam gone, it was somewhat like the loss of Marshall Tito for Yugoslavia.

As the latter was an artificial country that was really never meant to be, consisting of age-old enemies pieced and glued together, for others’ interests, with the collapse of an empire after World War I, so too was Iraq.

You were promised independence back then, when folks were proclaiming Arabia for the Arabians, Judea for the Jews, Armenia for the Armenians, and so forth. President Woodrow Wilson supported your cause. But that was not to be…British petroleum politics acted in collusion with Arab nationalism to abort your aspirations.

You see, many of the same forces at work to deny your rights--the rights of some thirty million Kurds who are still stateless today, never knowing what the morrow will bring , while Arabs proclaim over six million square miles of territory as purely Arab patrimony--have been at work to deny the same to your ancient neighbors, the Jews. The Hebrew Bible speaks of the Hurrians…your ancestors. And those forces include powerful ones right in my own country.

While our histories are not exactly analogous, there is still much that is indeed too often tragically similar.

There were times when you joined the Pan Islamic movement to subjugate your Christian and Jewish neighbors, holding them as virtual slaves as my friend and scholar, Dr. Andrew Bostom, recently reminded me. And Salah al-Din became Islam’s hero against the Crusaders.

But what would the latter have said had he lived today, in the very Syria where his statue is now featured, or in Iraq, where Saddam, on trial for Anfal, sees himself as the modern day Salah-al-Din?

My dear Kurdish friends, do you not see a similarity between how Arabs have viewed your aspirations and rights in the age of nationalism and how they view that of the Jews? Recall that one-half of Israel’s Jewish population are refugee families from that allegedly “ purely Arab patrimony,” and another million of these folks fled to France, the Americas, and elsewhere.

Like the Kurdish child forced to sing songs in Syria praising his Arab identity, Jews also had to consent to a forced Arabization in order to just survive.

While there was no Holocaust per se in the “Arab“ East (though in modern times the Mufti of Jerusalem was Hitler‘s good buddy), the Jew also frequently knew what to expect from day to day…and there were plenty of massacres, pogroms, forced conversions, and such to go around. Not to mention the expected state of dhimmitude and forced Arabization that was simply expected to be accepted. And any of what the Arabs call kilab yahud--Jew dogs--who dared dream the same dream Arabs proclaim solely for themselves--a life of dignity and political self expression--paid the ultimate price…that same price hundreds of thousands of your own people have paid for also dreaming that same exclusively Arab dream.

Long ago I predicted the obvious, while hoping I would be wrong.

As Yugoslavia imploded and exploded with Tito gone, Iraq’s days were numbered as well with the overthrow of the Saddam. Whatever else he was, he was also the temporary glue. And without him, the age-old blood feuds were bound to erupt…especially with the Big Brother Shi’a Ayatollahs to the east.

Call it a civil war or not as of yet, a unified Iraq’s days are numbered. It’s a matter of just how much longer America is willing to bleed its economy and its blood.

And, my Kurdish friends, if you believe the Shi’a have your own best interests close to their hearts, guess again. But you are not that foolish. And we already know quite well what Sunni Arabs think about your cause. We’ve had close to a century of those lessons.

I guess I can understand some of you distancing yourselves from Israel, the Jew of the Nations.

You have to live, after all, amongst those who have already proclaimed that the birth of Kurdistan would be viewed as that of another Israel.

And Israel, at times, has also distanced itself from you--largely in order to appease its powerful on again, off again Muslim friends, the Turks. I’m not thrilled about that. While the Turks have no trouble demanding a 22nd state for Arabs--and second one for them in “Palestine” (Jordan already created in 1922 from the bulk of the original 1920 mandate), they expect everyone, including Israel, to oppose Kurdish aspirations for a sole state of your own.

Now, when the Arabs’ Anfal campaign to eradicate your people a few decades past is again at least being mentioned (but certainly not showcased as it should), the gassed Kurdish children of Anfal and those of the Jews at Auschwitz share this other nasty thing in common. They were both targeted for genocide because of who they were.

Think of the charges that have been brought against Israel because of its war against Hizbullah--an organization which hijacked a nation and which is dedicated to Israel’s destruction.

Disproportionate force we have constantly heard.

Truth be told, if killing Arabs was all that Israel wanted to do, with the amount of bombs and such dropped, there would not be one Arab left by now in the targeted areas. Israel tried as hard as possible--given the fact that Hizbullah like Hamas & Co. habitually use their own people as human shields--to limit the loss of innocent life. But I believe you already know this.

So, what’s next?

Demand your rights when the inevitable comes. Do not settle for less this time.

The hard-won autonomy you have must be solidified.

Hopefully, my own country will come to its senses--despite the Arabists too often in control at the State Department--and realize that the one best shot at furthering American values in the region lies with the creation of a strong Kurdish state, willing to live in peace with its neighbors, but also able to deflect their aggression. As Israel has been a haven for Jews seeking freedom and safety, open your even larger doors to your own oppressed brethren elsewhere.

Don’t foment turmoil amid Kurdish populations in Iran, Turkey, and Syria, for this will backfire both on yourselves in Iraq and your brothers across the borders. Having said this, you should not shy away for demanding civil rights for those folks. Those who seek to live in an independent Kurdish state will have--like Jews with Israel--a place to go to.

While Ahmadinejad sets up cartoon exhibitions denying the Holocaust and demanding Israel’s destruction allegedly for Arab rights, he continues to butcher Azeris, Kurds, Baluchis, and Arabs in his own country for the crime of demanding their own rights in Iran.

I dare dream a dream…Are you ready? Here it goes…

America sets up bases in the Kurdish north--with your consent, of course. Like Incerlik in Turkey.

It trains and equips a powerful Kurdish military, equipped with the same state of the art weapons it supplies to Arab despots.

While the Arabs blow each other apart to the south and Iran plots its long-awaited revenge, an economically, politically, and militarily secure Kurdish state emerges in the only area in Iraq that has any real chance at stability…your own.

I see a future alliance between the forces of peace and tolerance…Israel and Free Kurdistan.

While I would like to include others in this as well, the sad fact is that even in the so-called moderate Arab countries, most are still just biding their time and have still not reconciled to the fact that other peoples, besides Arabs, are entitled to a slice of national dignity in the region…especially since those folks have suffered under Arab rule. And for those who claim that all was well for Jews until they dared dream that dream spoken of earlier, I have not one but two bridges to sell you. The Sorbonne’s Tunisian Jewish professor, Albert Memmi, and the Egyptian Jewess, Bat Ye’or (dhimmitude), are essential reading on this topic. As with Kurds, Jews were simply expected to submit and accept Arab subjugation and Arabization.

Together our peoples hold the promise for a better future for all in the region. Hopefully, others will eventually join us in building that better tomorrow for all.

Impossible, you say? The Jew’s King Solomon had an alliance with Hiram from Phoenicia--Lebanon--millennia before the Arabs’ Caliphal imperialist armies conquered both lands (around the same time they took yours as well). The Temple of Jerusalem was built from Hiram’s cedars.

An Israeli child is born with the expectation that he or she will help heal and bring good to the world…including to those who seek only to destroy. I wish I could say the same for the Arab child. Too often the latter is seen as a potential human bomb to blow up those who simply want a small slice of the same rights Arabs demand so much of for themselves. Arafat loved to call the Arab mother his best weapon.

Sadly, for the Arab, there are too many Darfurs, Anfals, and such--in both the past and the present--for this self-centered, subjugating, intolerant behavior to be mere coincidence.

And, my dear Kurdish friends, both of our peoples deserve something better.

Think of the potential in the days, months, and years which lie ahead.

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