It’s “Put Up or Shut Up” Time for Israel on Kurdistan

Michael Rubin | American Enterprise Institute

As Gideon Sa’ar began his tenure as foreign minister on November 10, 2024, he outlined his agenda: Expand normalization in the Arab world, advocate for Israel’s right to self-defense, and develop ties with Middle Eastern minorities.

He gave the Kurds a special shout-out. He called the ethnic group “natural allies” and said, “We must reach out to them and strengthen our ties.” Sa’ar’s timing suggests realpolitik more than principle colored his desire to expand ties with the Kurds.

His move comes against the backdrop of Turkey’s turn. Whereas Turkey was the first majority-Muslim state to recognize Israel and worked closely with the Jewish state through the second half of the twentieth century, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has worked to unwind the two states’ close ties as he cast his lot with Hamas. Finally, on November 13, 2024, Turkey severed relations with Israel.

Israel and the Kurds are not strangers. Soon after the Iraqi revolution replaced that country’s monarchy with an Arab nationalist regime, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Leader Mulla Mustafa Barzani, the father of current KDP leader Masoud Barzani, sent an emissary to Geneva to meet Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

At the time, Israel embraced a periphery doctrine in which it sought alliances with non-Arab states to counter the Arab nationalist threat on its borders. This meant Israeli ties with Iran, Ethiopia, Turkey, and the Kurds, especially those in Iraq.

For both Israel and the KDP, it was a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Israel’s alliance with Iraqi Kurds helped fuel the Kurdish rebellion that a succession of Iraqi leaders faced. In 1975, however, U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger cut a deal in which Iran-based Kurds would cease operating in Iraq in exchange for a border demarcation favorable to Iran and an end to Iraqi efforts to undermine the shah.

The result was the collapse of the Kurdish rebellion, the flight of the Barzanis to Tehran for protection, and the fracturing of the Kurdish movement with Barzanis’ former deputy Jalal Talabani moving to Damascus to develop his own party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The bifurcation between the two Kurdish parties continues today with neighboring states siding with one or the other in a divide-and-conquer strategy. Pulling the carpet out from beneath the rebellion continues to engender hatred of Kissinger and distrust of the United States among Kurds nearly a half-century later.

This is why, when Sa’ar reaches out rhetorically to the region’s Kurds, Kurds in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran try to see if Jerusalem is serious about a Kurdish strategy. Frankly, the Kurds no longer have the luxury of time. Just three weeks after Sa’ar’s statement, Turkey renewed a full-scale military assault on Syrian Kurds utilizing Turkish fighter jets, artillery, and Turkey-backed Islamist militias. The Syrian Kurds, who have successfully and peacefully governed their region for a decade, have no weaponry to counter the Turkish F-16s and drones.

While Israel has supplied Azerbaijan with drones and other advanced weaponry to use against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and in Armenia itself, the Israel Defense Forces apparently have not supplied any countermeasures to the Syrian Democratic Forces, the largely Kurdish militia that controls the region, keeps the Islamic State at bay, and seeks to protect the Kurds from Turkey.

If Sa’ar cites the Kurds only as an intellectual exercise, he is doing both Israel and the Kurds a disservice. Leaders should craft strategy silently, not use their perches to mull ideas out loud as an intellectual exercise. There is little that is more immoral in international diplomacy than encouraging a people to rebel and resist without having any intention of helping them survive.

Kurds are especially sensitive on this point, not only because of Kissinger’s 1975 actions but also because of George H.W. Bush’s February 1991 call for Iraqis to rise against Saddam Hussein, only to stand down when Republican Guard helicopters and tanks fired into the crowds.

The situation today could be as deadly. Erdogan harbors a deep, racist hatred toward Kurds and seeks advantage from Washington’s distraction during the U.S. presidential transfer to create a “buffer zone” in northern Syria that will push more than one million Kurds into the same desert where an equal number of Armenians perished a bit more than a century ago.

If Israel does nothing after Sa’ar’s comments, then not only will Turkey feel it has a green light to act against the Kurds, but Sa’ar will expose Israel as an unserious player in the region and himself as an amateur. If, on the other hand, Israel begins to arm the Kurds—as it should—Turkey finally may recognize there are red lines that neither it nor its proxies should cross. Indeed, while the Kurds deserve support on moral grounds, Turkey’s support for Hamas also opens the door for Israel to support and supply Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) peshmerga in Turkey itself. Turkish officials might complain but other European countries already have deemed the PKK struggle lawful.

Either way, it is decision time in Jerusalem. Israel should put up or shut up on the Kurds. If Jerusalem is willing to support the Kurds, it should go all in, but should Israel insincerely suggest a Kurdish alliance, it could paint a target on the Kurds’ backs in a way that is as short-sighted as Kissinger’s betrayal 50 years ago.

Michael Rubin is a former Pentagon official whose major research areas are the Middle East, Turkey, Iran and diplomacy. He is author of “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes” (Encounter, 2014). He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute AEI. His major research area is the Middle East, with special focus on Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Kurdish society.

The article first published at aei.org

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.