Oct 17, 2008

Great work about the Israeli Kurdish Relations


This is a interesting document by an Armenian named Sergey Minasian.



"For centuries the territory of the present-day Northern Iraq has been inhabited
by the peoples that belonged to various religious, ethnic and language groups.
Muslims (Kurds and Turkmen), Christians (Armenians and Assyrians), Yezidi and
Jews resided in this territory together. Whereas the Kurds, Yezidi, and, partially,
the Assyrians and Jews mostly lived in mountainous areas and were engaged in
nomadic husbandry, the Armenians and some Jews were mainly concentrated in
large cities and towns playing a key role in trade, finance and management"

...

"Many aspects of Kurdish and Jewish culture are so interwoven that popular
Jewish legends on the origin of the Kurds regard the latter as Jews. Some argued
that the Kurds originated from one of the break-away tribes of Israel or related
the origin of the Kurds to King Solomon, etc."

...

"This ethnic group of Jews has several names: the Kurdistani Jews, the Jews
of Zakho, and the Assyrian Jews. The Kurdistani Jews often refer to themselves as
the «anshei Targum» or the «people of Targum.» They speak the Eastern dialect of
the Neo-Aramaic language akin to the language of the Babylonian Talmud."

...

"The Parastin, the intelligence service of the Kurdish Democratic Party, was
also established with Mossad’s support in the late 1960s."

...

"According to a former senior Mossad official Eliezer Tsafrir, Israel had military
advisers at the headquarters of Mulla Mustafa Barzani in 1963-1975, trained
and supplied the Kurdish units with fire arms, field and anti-aircraft artillery."

...

"In 2004 the Israeli mass media reported about the meetings of the Israeli
officials with the Kurdish political leaders, Masud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, and
the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon publicly confirmed the good relations
with the Iraqi Kurds."

...

"Nevertheless, the development of the Israeli-Kurdish relations continues to
negatively affect the Israeli-Turkish relations. The invasion of the Israeli army to
Lebanon in the summer of 2006 and the subsequent events, including the possible
deployment of the Turkish peacekeepers in this country, once again attracted the
attention to the possible development of the strategic relations between Turkey
and Israel in the context of the Kurdish problem."

...

"In cooperation with the USA and Shah’s Iran, in the 1950s – early 1980s,
Israel provided comprehensive military and political aid to the Iraqi Kurds, which
played an important role in the continued armed struggle against the Iraqi government.
Signing the Algiers Accord between Iran and Iraq, and the 1979 Islamic
Revolution terminated the support of Kurds by Teheran in Northern Iraq, and as
a result, restricted the Israeli aid to the Kurds since the latter has no common border
with Iraq. Hence, the activity of the Israeli-Kurdish contacts in the militarypolitical
sphere dwindled dramatically up until the early 1990s, which, however,
did not diminish the significance of the Kurdish factor in the general geo-strategy
of Israel in the Near and Middle East."

No comments: