The Kurds and the Israeli Doctrine of the Periphery

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/07/28/iran-israel-agents-kurdish-rebels/

The Mossad will deny that they're working with these Kurds but in fact Israel has been working with various Kurdish paramilitaries for some time. This was not always the case but the Turkish realignment under Erdogan has made it so.

Prior to the ascendancy of the AKP in Turkish politics, Ankara was a close ally to the United States and Israel. Because Tel-Aviv was close to Turkey, it paid little attention to the Kurds as they were engaged in a civil war with Ankara.

The Kurds remain the largest ethnic group in the world without their own country. When the Ottoman Empire was carved up by the British and the French at the end of World War I, and many new countries were created, the Kurds were left out and their historic lands (Kurdistan) remain divided between Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. And they've had trouble to some extent with all of these nations – with the most severe scenarios to be found in Turkey and Iraq. During the Syrian Civil War they joined with the anti-Assad forces and forged close ties with the Americans. Washington also used them in its wars against Saddam Hussein.

But in Turkey, the Kurds were long demonised as terrorists – even though the forces just across the borders in Iraq and Syria are effectively the same people and branches of the same organisation (in most cases the PKK).

For many years the PKK was headquartered in Damascus, marking it as an enemy to the interests of Turkey and Israel. But all of this changed in recent years.

Since its inception, Israel has utilised a Doctrine of the Periphery. Surrounded by hostile Arab states, Tel-Aviv was determined to forge alliances with the Muslim states on the Arab periphery – those with primarily non-Arab populations. Turkey and Iran were key allies and in the Muslim world these cultures were major rivals to the Arab culture which tends to dominate Islam. Persians and Turks don't always get along with Arabs and as such were prime allies for Zionist Israel. Likewise to the South, Israel looked to nations like Ethiopia (an ethnic Christian and Muslim nation on the edge of the Arab world) and greatly helped the Selassie government until its overthrow in 1974. And even after the Derg came into power, Israel still attempted to maintain a relationship – so important is this notion of the periphery. But before the 1970's had ended, this relationship was severed and yet Tel-Aviv pursued it once more and it was revived by the end of the 1980's.

Israel once counted Tehran as a close ally but this also changed with the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. Tel-Aviv turned east and while the Israelis have benefitted from US-Pakistan friendship in the 1980's, the real replacement for Iran has proven to be India. New Delhi maintains a close relationship with Israel and the two countries have forged strong economic and military ties.

But closer to home the loss of Iran meant that Israel became very close to Turkey and thus the rise of Erdogan and the AKP was something of a disaster culminating in the Gaza Flotilla incident in 2010. Since then there has been some improvement in relations but it's nowhere close to what it had been before, when Turkey was governed by a strongly Kemalist state.

Though the rifts were supposedly healed in 2016, the two nations remain at odds even over issues in the Caucasus and the Civil War in Libya. Israel has turned to condemning Turkey's attacks on the Kurds in both Turkey proper and across the border into Northern Iraq.

And why? Because with the loss of Turkey, the doctrine of the periphery demanded that Israel seek an alliance with the Kurds. The Syrian War also helped to create the conditions for this and for many years now Tel Aviv has been working with the Kurds, aiding them and using them to set up listening posts and establish secret bases in their territory – the vast bulk of these efforts being directed at Iran.

Israel additionally supports Azerbaijan which is also close to Turkey and this cuts across the informal Russia/Armenia/Iran alliance that has existed for many years. Azerbaijan is caught between a world of Russian cultural influence and deep cultural ties with Turkey, and yet the nation is mostly Shiite and thus has religious and historical ties to Iran. Friendship with the US and Israel has given it a degree of security and Tel Aviv continues to use Azerbaijan in the same way it has utilised Kurdistan in Turkey and Northern Iraq.

This situation became somewhat tense in light of the Nagorno-Karabakh War of 2020 and in many respects it flies in the face of Israel's deeply rooted Holocaust narrative. People would expect them to be allies of the Armenians who suffered their own genocide at the hands of the Turks, an insult exacerbated by Turkey's continued denial of these events. And yet for Israel the geopolitics of the region have always placed them in opposition to Armenia – as was once more demonstrated during the 2020 war.

Though for years Israel turned its back on the Kurds (some of which are Jewish but these mostly now reside in Israel), it's presently in Tel Aviv's interest to forge a friendship and utilise their strategic lands that overlap the region's threats – Syria, Turkey, and Iraq, but especially Iran. This is also why these nations don't want to see Kurdistan become an independent nation. Not only would they lose territory, the nation would be so strategically located that any alliance by Kurdistan with an enemy state like Israel or the United States would represent an existential threat.

The truth is large swathes of Kurdistan are functionally autonomous. Though it's a long way from declaring independence, let alone within the claimed borders, there is a growing independent Kurdistan or perhaps Kurdistan(s) coming into existence. Israel is utilising this and it's well known that Tel Aviv is fully prepared to strike Iran if Tehran actively pursues nuclear weapons. Kurdistan would undoubtedly play a role in this as a staging ground or means of transit. Though it hasn't been acknowledged, the porous borders of Kurdistan may have already played a role in Israeli operations in Iran and its numerous operations of sabotage and assassination – and that's the story with this group arrested in Iran.

The Kurds have been burned over and over again by their alliances with the West. I suppose they have little choice. In this case it's a small group that has been arrested and faces charges but it's a hint, a glimpse of a much larger theatre of operations and series of events.

If the situation in Turkey changes and the AKP falls, the Kurds may find themselves ignored or even turned against. The same is true with regard to the Islamic regime in Iran. But in the meantime they receive aid and protection from Israel and the Kurds are willing to facilitate Israeli operations. But as we've seen (with ISIS for example) an enemy in one country can be a friend just across the border and when a group like ISIS crosses borders (as they did in Iraq) suddenly the dynamics change. Volatility characterises the region and while Israel can operate clandestinely within the Kurdish zone, it follows that Iran and Turkey seek to do likewise, and if things get hot, the Kurdish areas may suffer greatly.