The region known as Kurdistan spans portions of Northern Iraq, Eastern Turkey, Western Iran and Northern Syria. Iran has a province named, “Kurdistan” which is primarily populated by Kurds.

On August 12, 2009, Radio Netherlands announced, “New Israel-Kurd magazine surprises Arab world“. The article is republished below for the reader’s convenience. Axis of Logic correspondent, analyst and writer, Cherifa Sirry writes from Egypt:

“Why the new magazine, ‘Israel-Kurd’ has been created for “building bridges between Israel and Kurdistan” to promote ‘Israeli emigration to Iraq’ is the obvous question. This is quite strange considering the amount of money spent by “the Jewish state” on attracting Jews and now even ‘converts’ to immigrate to the ‘Jewish state’. Demography is one of Israel’s worst enemies. So what is the objective of this new magazine?”

Cherifa raises a good question. Perhaps the following conditions provide some context for understanding this push to build “Israeli-Kurd bridges”:

• The U.S./Israel war objective to break up and remap Iraq into 3 entities which gives the Kurds U.S.-controlled “autonomy” in Northern Iraq.
• The Kurds’ cross-border raids from Northern Iraq into Southern Turkey and Turkey’s bombing of PKK targets inside Northern Iraq.
• The push for Turkey to open trade with Northern Iraq and their reluctance to do so.

We can’t be sure what the specific goals of the U.S. and Israel are for the new magazine, immigration of Jews into Northern Iraq or the pretext of strengthening relations between Israel and the Kurds. As Cherifa says, there are reasons to doubt their pretext of sending Kurdish Jews in Israel back to Kurdistan. The argument in the article – that this move is meant to protect Israel from Arabs turning the Kurds against Israel – also begs credibility.

More probable explanations for sending a few Kurdish Jews from Israel into Northern Iraq involve military objectives and money:

• This migration plan allows Israel to create cover for Mossad’s covert operations in Northern Iraq and eventually, an overt military presence in the region.
• The Israelis seeks to gain control of the petroleum in Northern Iraq and to position themselves for doing business in the region. “Business” would include one of their most lucrative exports – weapons.

The Turkish government has always been unprincipled in choosing it’s trading partners, motivated by greed for the ruling elite. It has been a whore for trade with Israel since they signed a trade pact in 2000 and between 2002 and 2008 their trade volume with Israel went from $1.4 billion to $3.3 billion, increasing 36% in 2008. Israeli-Turkish trade was launched with a contract for Israel to modernize M-60 tanks for $668 million, 300 military helicopters for $57 million. Three other contracts to modernize Turkey’s war jets landed Israel $850 million.

The problem Turkey has with this Faustian pact can be summed up in “the people”. Like all capitalist governments, Ankara operates not in the interest of the Turkish people but in the interest of their leaders and corporate-led special interest groups. Ankara criticized Israel’s slaughter in Gaza in 2008-2009 and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan stormed out of the Gaza session in Davos for one reason only – to pacify the vast majority of Turks who support the Palestinians and flatly reject doing business with the Jewish state. In 2006, 50,000 Turks rose up in protest against one Israeli assault on Gaza in which 12 Palestinians were killed and many more wounded. On January 2, 2009, thousands of Turks again protested Israel’s killing of over 1,300 defenseless Gazans. The general population, some opposition party members, intellectuals, 19 bar associations and other groups demanded that Turkey cut military and trade relations with Israel. Their government responded with empty words of condemnation but no concrete action against Israel, ignoring the demands and simply telling their people that cutting military and trade ties would not stop Israel’s attacks on Paestinians.

The new Jewish migration scheme gives Israel an official, overt presence in Northern Iraq, seeping into Turkish Kurdistan and Iranian Kurdistan, threatening Turkey, destabilising the region and building military and economic power for the Jewish state. Meanwhile, Radio Netherlands, namesake of a Mossad stronghold in Europe, wraps the new “Israel-Kurd” magazine in worn out slogans of “freedom of expression … interest in the history of Kurdish Jews … building bridges” and of course, with a mission to save the Jewish State, known for its narcissism-victim syndrome, from persecution by those nasty Arabs.

– Les Blough, Editor

The new magazine “Israel-Kurd” has caused a stir in northern Iraq. To the surprise of many in the Arab world, the second edition also recently made it into the kiosks.

Although there are many who argue for a return of Iraqi Jews to Iraq, the subject has always been a taboo in the printed media. In Iraq, and also in the surrounding Arab world, the launch of Israel-Kurd was greeted with surprise. And even more astonishing was the appearance of a second edition on 22 July. Has press freedom in Kurdistan entered a new phase? Or is this magazine a political stunt designed for foreign consumption?

Building bridges

Israel-Kurd has 50 pages in Kurdish, the official language of semi-autonomous northern Iraq. Two pages are in English. The first impression is that it is aimed at building bridges between Israel and Kurdistan. The editors are also interested in the histry of Kurdish Jews who emigrated from Iraqi Kurdistan to Israel in 1948, and their right to return to their country of origin. Articles and reports are anonymous; the publisher’s is Dawud Baghistani.

Impartial

Farhad Awni, leader of the Kurdistan Syndicate of Journalists, sees the magazine as evidence of press freedom: “Our media laws give every citizen who is a member of the Syndicate of Journalists the right to publish a magazine or newspaper within 24 hours, provided it is not in breach of the general conditions for press freedom. And we know that Dawud Baghistani, the magazine’s publisher, is impartial and not allied to any political party or faction. And he has a foreign nationality.”

Dutch journalist Judit Neurink, who gives media training in the city of Sulaymaniyah, says, “I was a bit surprised when I saw the magazine. It means that freedom of expression in this part of the world has improved and is making progress. It’s really unusual and nothing like this has happened before. The ultimate importance of the magazine will be determined by the readers.”

Politics

Nevertheless, political considerations do seem to play a role. Kurdish Iraq is increasingly positioning itself between Israel and the Arab world. Farhad Awni cites the recent visit by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, “which strengthens ties with the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular”. It is known that the late Kurdish leader Moustafa Barzani made two visits to Israel.

Native Kurds

Via his magazine, publisher Dawud Baghistani is inviting Jewish Kurds to return to Kurdistan, where they lived before their departure to Israel. Farhad Awni says, “He sees them as native Kurds and expects the return of Jews to Kurdistan to clear the way for Palestinians to return to Palestine.”

It remains to be seen whether Kurdish Jews will return. There are no reliable figures on the number of Jews from northern Iraq who emigrated. Perhaps they will be published in the third edition of Israel-Kurd, expected in September.

Source: Radio Netherlands

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