If Israel can facilitate treatment there, in third countries or in Israel, this would be a place where lives can be saved.
By JPOST EDITORIALProtesters hold Kurdish and Israeli flags during a rally against the Turkish military operation in Syria, in Berlin, Germany, October 14, 2019(photo credit: MICHELE TANTUSSI/REUTERS)
Kurdish civilians have been under attack since the US decided to withdraw from parts of Syria on October 6. The Turks, bolstered by Turkish-backed extremists, have bombed towns and cities along the border and caused more than 200,000 to flee. Some of the Kurdish civilians suffered chemical burns, alleging that banned weapons were used against them by America’s NATO ally.Several thousand of these Kurds have now sought shelter in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Israel has a track record of helping Syrian civilians who have suffered from the Assad regime’s chemical weapons and its brutal crackdown in southern Syria. Now Israel has a chance to help those fleeing the extremists, who have been murdering civilians, looting homes and terrorizing people in northern Syria.Kurds and Jews have faced similar enemies in the region over the last century, including Saddam Hussein’s vicious regime and the discriminatory regimes in Damascus and Tehran. In recent years, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan has grown increasingly hostile to Israel and to the Kurds, imprisoning politicians on trumped up “terrorism” charges and invading areas of Syria wherever Kurds live, causing hundreds of thousands to flee.Tragically, Kurds have also suffered the betrayal of the international community, which has abandoned them too often to the whims of dictators. Jews, too, know this history of betrayal, forced to live under the boot of empires and among regimes that used antisemitic populism in the past.Today the Jewish state has shown that despite the efforts of some European powers during the Holocaust, and despite attempts to support Arab armies that once ringed Israel with modern weaponry, Jews will defend themselves no matter the cost. Through that fire, the Jewish state has also sought to provide humanitarian aid from time to time using expertise gained here, for instance, to help earthquake victims.The Kurds who are now suffering in hospitals and camps in northern Iraq deserve our support. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would like to give humanitarian aid. How to do that may be difficult and complex because Israel has no relations with Baghdad or Damascus. But, that doesn’t mean it is impossible. Israel has helped people in the region from states with which the country lacks official relations.In the wake of the attacks on innocent civilians in Syria, Israel should do more for Kurds fleeing this brutal assault. The Kurds are a vulnerable people who, too often, find themselves surrounded by enemies and being forced from their land by militaristic nationalism, by regimes that use the hatred of minorities as a way to push policies. In Iraq, it is the Iranian-backed militias that have pushed the Kurds out of areas around Kirkuk after the 2017 independence referendum in Kurdistan. Anti-Kurdish voices in Iran and Iraq referred to the Kurds as a “second Israel.” Once again, in October, Turkish media have put out images showing Turkey chopping the head off a Kurdish-Israeli snake, arguing that Turkey’s operation has stopped the creation of a “second Israel.”This hatred of the Kurds includes the hallmarks of antisemitism. In the absence of Jews to hate in places like Iraq or Turkey, they have tried to transform anti-Kurdish propaganda into anti-Jewish propaganda. It is no surprise that they use terms like “cleansing” to describe their operations, much as Jews were once “cleansed” by the Nazis. This symbolism can be found throughout the Middle East. An Iraqi soldier guarding an Iranian-backed militia leader named Abu Zainab al-Lami was photographed last week with a swastika on his helmet. No one in the crowd seemed to mind the swastika.One Kurdish chemical-burn victim has already been given assistance in France. If there is a place for Israel to help it is in medical aid and providing the kind of know-how that Israel has in order to address the needs of burn victims or other acute cases.If Israel can facilitate treatment there, in third countries or in Israel, this would be a place where lives can be saved. We know too well what it means to be abandoned by the international community.
But today we are a strong nation and we can follow our values to help those in need from nations who suffer the horrors once visited on the Jewish people.
