What the Kurds should learn from the Jews

In Washington, London and Berlin, the Zionists are unassailable. Regardless of which party is in power or the currents of public opinion, the West’s support for Israel is unwavering. This can largely be attributed to the political maneuvering with which the Israelis have managed to tether support for Israel to both left-wing, centrist and right-wing movements in the US and western Europe.

Whether it be the Neocons in America, the Tories in the UK or the guilt ridden centrist politicians of the SDP and CDU in Germany, the only thing that remains constant and unchanging is billions of dollars worth of aid and weaponry to Israel every year from the aforementioned nations, as well as priceless political cover before the U.N. and other multilateral governing bodies such as the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Such unwavering support from the West is precisely where the Kurdish independence movement lacks the most.

With the recent re-election of Donald J. Trump, the fate of the Kurds, particularly those in Syria, are very uncertain. If Trump enforces policies similar to those of his previous administration, namely abandoning Kurdish regions in Syria that are held by the YPG and leaving the Kurds there to be invaded and subjugated by Turkey and it’s Islamist extremist proxies such as the “Syrian National Army”, then the next four years will be a very traumatic and troublesome time for the Kurds of Syria and any aspirations for Kurdish independence.

Despite Trump’s “America First” stance in foreign policy, he has continued to support the Israelis unwaveringly. This should be attributed to the tethering of Zionism with the American Christian Evangelical right which forms a large part of Trump’s base of voters. Trump’s evangelical Christian voters essentially guarantee that he that must support Israel or incur the wrath of their betrayal and his eventual downfall from political relevance. The anti-Jewish impulse prevalent within European far-right fascist movements is overshadowed by the sheer number and wealth of the Evangelical and Christian nationalist donors and voters who support Israeli Zionism. Furthermore, Zionism, as a far-right ideology has successfully tethered itself to the American and European far-right as can be seen by the English Defence League’s and the Alternative für Deutschland’s affinity for Israel and Zionism.

That being said, it is clear that the Kurds ought to learn from the Jews and move as they do. Within Washington, the Kurdish struggle is chiefly the pet project of the increasingly irrelevant neocons and some centrist democrats and leftists who are fond of the YPG’s leftist and feminist stance. With Trump’s reemergence and the rise of the far-right and Christian nationalists in America and Europe, the Kurds find themselves naked, alone and shivering. The Kurds will effectively be sidelined in the middle east by the US and diaspora Kurds that are in Europe and the US will also suffer from the increasingly belligerent fascist movements which are gaining traction, such as the AfD in Germany and the EDL in England.

The solution is clear. The Kurds must aim to tether the struggle for Kurdish independence, to either the fascist far-right or the evangelical Christian right and Christian nationalist movements, as to insure that America’s support for an independent Kurdistan is unassailable regardless of who happens to be President. That does not mean that the Kurds themselves should become far-right fascists or convert to Christianity, rather that they must find avenues with which they can harness such rabid and unwaveringly ignorant movements to further the aims of Kurdish independence.

It is extremely unlikely that the fascist far-right would ever support what amounts to a post colonial independence movement for a long oppressed people such as the Kurds. Nor would the Kurds themselves be fond of the type of thinking found within the fascist far-right as it is clear that the Kurds are inherently and culturally opposed to any form of authoritarianism outside that of the family and tribe. Fascism requires the harkening back to an earlier, glory age, which the Kurds do not have. Indeed, for the Kurds to try to find their “glory age” would undo the very foundations of Kurdish nationalism, as the Kurds would come to understand that they are simply linguistically and geographically isolated Iranians who happen to be Sunni Muslims rather than Shia Muslims.

Whereas the Kurds lack any sort of documented history, they excel in their ability to remain untainted by political ideology. For the Kurds, ideology is simply a servant to the family, tribe, nationalism and independence. Kurds have long used political ideology as a way of soliciting political and material support from the likes of the USSR, US, Syria and and Iran at different times in their history. However the Kurds themselves remain ideologically and politically flexible. Kurds implicitly understand that material reality is superior to everchanging human political ideals and thought.

Fascism however, is different. The implicit racism and white supremacy of it comes in direct conflict with the health of the Kurdish diaspora family and community as they are directly in the crosshairs of various fascist movements in the US and Europe as well as the fascist movement in Turkey. Kurds and fascism are simply incompatible. There are also no parallels to the Kurdish struggle for independence to American settler colonialism which is another motivating factor for America’s support for Israeli Zionism.

Thus, there remains only one option. Which is to link the Kurdish independence movement to the Christian Evangelical and Christian Nationalist movements which effectively dominate large swathes of the US. This is no easy feat, as the Kurds are predominately Muslim, Yezidi, Yarsani and Zoroastrian. There are very few to no Christian Kurds and the few Christians that live among the Kurds are in fact Assyrians and Chaldeans, historically distinct and linguistically different from the Kurds.

Kurds must seek to promote a sort of “Crusader” narrative among these groups and aim this rabid animosity that they have against brown people towards the likes of the Turkish backed “Syrian National Army”. The Christian Nationalist movements can effectively be instrumentalized to weaken Turkish backed proxies in Syria and the Kurds can organize “Crusader” trips with which insecure men from the West can travel to Syria and fight the Turkish backed islamists on our behalf. An influx of American and European Christian nationalists to the plains of Rojava will generate tremendous attention on social media and garner political and financial support for an independent Kurdistan from within the US and Europe even within the context of the Trump administration.

Far-right Christian nationalists inherently seek to become the next Tim Ballard or Chris Kyle and the Kurds should foster and encourage these delusions and pull them from the US and Europe. In much the same way that leftists from America and Europe flocked to fight ISIS with the Kurdish YPG, we should again foster another influx of adventure and fame seeking foreigners, this time from the Christian nationalist right. The expectation is not that these types of people will actually contribute meaningfully in the armed struggle for Kurdish independence, rather that their presence on social media and attempts to get book deals and international attention will benefit the Kurdish cause and effectively tether Kurdish independence in some way to the Christian “Crusader” far-right.

In order to get the ball rolling, some amount of social engineering and will be necessary to implant this idea into the minds of American and European Christian nationalist extremists. However, the implicit adventure and claim to fame that comes with traveling to Syria will tie such movements to the likes of Trump’s base of voters and force him to support the Kurdish movements in Syria and Iraq lest he be seen as soft on islamist terrorism. In this way, the Kurds will have ensured long-term support not only from the neocons and leftists, but also from the far-right.