The Middle East has experienced a significant upheaval since the ratification of the Abraham Accords in September 2020, which marked a paradigm shift in the Arab-Israel conflict – ongoing since the end of World War II – paving the way for a new era of harmonious relations between Israel and several Arab nations.
The major objectives of the Abraham Accords are to end the hostility that has persisted since 1948 and to enhance peace, business and energy interests, technological developments, and security cooperation between the Arab states and Israel with massive implications for the Middle Eastern people, including oppressed communities such as Kurds and their religious Yezidi and Alevi factions.
Kurdish troops successfully fought pan-Sunni Islamist jihadists such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda-linked groups and were able to build an inclusive model in Rojava in Syria, encouraging multiple ethnic and religious communities to coexist together.
The Kurdish forces have simultaneously advocated for regional peace by bolstering secular and emancipatory agendas for harmony among Middle Eastern peoples – a pluralistic harmony that includes regional, national, ethnic, and religious minorities. This Kurdish paradigm mirrors the objectives of the Abraham Accords, which Israel and Gulf Arab states have been pursuing since September 2020.
However, the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 against Israeli civilians and sites were intended to obstruct the implementation and expansion of the Abraham Accords in the hopes of restoring the status quo that persisted from 1948 until recently.
Turkey, Iran have targeted communities supportive of accords
To put it another way, the Iranian and Turkish regimes, along with their pan-Sunni and pan-Shia proxies, backed Hamas in their efforts to thwart peaceful coexistence following the Abraham Accords – and reignite the hostilities that the Arab states, striving to usher in a new era in Middle East history, are gradually abandoning.
Yet, to succeed in implementing the Abraham Accords, Israel is currently engaged in multiple conflicts on seven fronts with pan-Shia Islamists in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran, as well as pan-Sunni Islamists including Hamas and numerous other jihadist groups in Gaza and the West Bank.
The Iranian and Turkish regimes have already objected to the Abraham Accords, condemned their signatories, and empowered the Sunni and Shia proxies, causing the failure of this peace agreement. These regimes have also targeted communities such as the Kurds who desire the Abraham Accords’ spirit – on the grounds that they implement “the Zionist agenda.”
Consequently, the Kurds face daily deadly attacks from the Turkish military in the north and Iranian proxies in the east of Syria. Moreover, the Iranian regime has continued its systematic oppression of Kurdish citizens, executing them on a regular basis.
The murder of 22-year-old Jina [her Kurdish name, “Mahsa” in Persian] Amini in September 2022 serves as a symbol of Iranian repression toward Kurds and other minoritized ethnic groups in general. Furthermore, regime forces have frequently employed missiles to attack Kurdish civilian sites in Erbil and the camps of Kurdish refugees from Iran in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.
The Turkish regime forces have arbitrarily arrested ordinary Kurdish individuals for speaking their native language or participating in dancing performances and have imprisoned Kurdish politicians and journalists, frequently without a fair court trial due to Erdogan’s direct control.
Additionally, Turkish forces repeatedly targeted Kurdish populations and infrastructure in Syria and Iraq. They have been accused of ethnic cleansing in Afrin and other Kurdish areas.
Turkish journalists, professors, and former generals have asserted that the Turkish invasion in Afrin and other Kurdish cities was aimed at thwarting “Zionist” efforts to gain access to the Mediterranean Sea. Thus, the Iranian and Turkish regimes justify their draconian measures against Kurds by citing “Zionist agendas” and “Kurdish efforts to establish a second Israel.” The Kurdish authorities have refuted the Iranian regime’s claims that they are harboring Mossad bases in the Kurdistan Region.
While inflicting significant cruelty on Kurds, both Iranian and Turkish regimes internally divide them by creating factions driven by anti-Kurdish and antisemitic objectives. The legal version of Hezbollah, specifically HÜDA-PAR in the Kurdish region, is one of the main factions. HÜDA-PAR endeavors to preserve the status quo, a strategy that the Iranian and Turkish regimes employ to suppress any potential for regional peace. This group has transformed Kurdish cities, particularly the symbolic Kurdish capital city of Diyarbakir, into a hub of pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah, pan-Islamist, antisemitic, and anti-Kurdish activities.
The Turkish state authorities promote HÜDA-PAR’s activities by encouraging and transporting masses – along with village guards and civil servants – from Kurdish cities in an attempt to create the impression that the Kurds are against Israel’s objectives, supporting the antagonistic agendas of pan-Islamist forces and opposing the Abraham Accords peace initiative. Yet the local Kurds do not, for the most part, back HÜDA-PAR and its ideological agendas.
The pro-Kurdish DEM-Party’s elites represent a problematic position, which ordinary Kurds designate as a position of the repressive states, upholding the status quo in the region. These elites, mostly Turkish leftists and Kemalists, hold a dominant position within DEM-Party’s structures. For instance, the DEM-Party chairs recently expressed their outrage over Hassan Nasrallah’s death and denounced Israel – a stance that aligns with that of both the Iranian and Turkish regimes.
The DEM-Party’s co-chair, Tülay Hatimogulları, of Arab descent, claimed that the “imperialists” intended to reconfigure the Middle East by remapping its borders and urging people in the region to “unite for peace” against this policy. Her statement aligns with the official Turkish and Iranian regime’s stance. For example, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called on the authoritarian regimes in Iran, Syria, and Russia to take measures against Israel, which threatens Syria and the region.
Yet a large number of Kurdish social media users have condemned the statements of this co-chair, emphasizing their opposition to her representation of the Kurds.
Encourage Israel to extend
Based on my communication with Kurdish activists and politicians in the diaspora and observation of the DEM-Party’s social media accounts, they claimed to support the transformation of the status quo, encouraging Israel to extend the zone of the Abraham Accords to Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. This approach implies a cleavage between the Kurdish grassroots and the non-Kurdish DEM Party’s elites.
In contrast to the DEM-Party’s elites, the Kurdish grassroots portray themselves as progressive advocates for the transformation of the current Middle East’s status quo through the Abraham Accords, which pave the way for democracy, freedom, and self-determination.
By ignoring these demands, the DEM Party’s elites adopt agendas that cater to the Turkish state’s needs, thereby upholding the status quo in the region.
Despite differing narratives, Israel and the Kurds share a desire to reform authoritarian and dictatorial regimes in the Middle East, particularly in Turkey and Iran, which have long been responsible for violence and antagonism. The progressive Jews, Kurds, and other populations in the Middle East could create a peaceful and democratic order in the region through the Abraham Accords, which offer security, welfare, and business opportunities to Middle Eastern indigenous populations.
By eliminating the hostile pan-Sunni and pan-Shia forces, the Abraham Accords will certainly replace the dark Middle East with a bright Middle East, offering its people peace, welfare, and democracy. To this end, Kurdish actors in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria must move beyond ideological dogmatism and listen to their people’s democratic demands in order to advocate for the peace project embodied by the Abraham Accords.
Likewise, Israeli politicians should recognize that the overwhelming majority of Kurds (over 40 million people) sympathize with the spirit of the Abraham Accords, believe it will have a positive impact on their lives, and therefore wish to see it implemented.
In this sense, Israeli decision-makers should consider openly embracing the Kurds and formally welcoming them to participate in the multi-ethnic and multi-religious model for the Middle East that the Abraham Accords represent, a model of that which they have long upheld.
The approach Israeli policymakers take toward the Kurds is crucial to securing full confidence between the Kurdish people and Israel, undermining the adverse influence of authoritarian regimes that are destructive to Kurdish-Jewish relations.
The writer is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.