The promise Israel must ignite

The obstacle to a Kurdish state has never been geography or courage. The mountains are impregnable, and the Kurds have demonstrated courage in arms against every tyrant and every jihadist. They have resisted Saddam’s poison gas, they have beaten back the black banners of ISIS, and they have endured the betrayal of every capital that used them as auxiliaries and then discarded them. What has defeated them, time and again, is not the enemy without but the quarrel within. Factionalism has done what chemical weapons could not. Division has handed their neighbours the means to strangle them.

In 2017 the matter was settled at the ballot box. More than ninety per cent of Kurds in northern Iraq voted for independence. That is not wishful thinking but a democratic fact, the kind of fact the world claims to respect. It was ignored everywhere except in Jerusalem. Washington muttered about “bad timing.” Europe issued pieties about “stability.” Baghdad sent in troops. Turkey shut its gates. Iran tightened its noose. Israel alone acknowledged the vote as meaningful. The referendum stands as a legal and political cover that has not expired. It demonstrates that Kurdish independence is not a fanciful aspiration of a few elites but the declared will of a people. To continue ignoring it is not pragmatism; it is cowardice.

Israel, of all nations, should not make that mistake. Its own existence was regarded as temporary and illegitimate for decades, and in many quarters still is. It knows the cost of encirclement and the meaning of permanent rejection. It knows that survival requires alliances with those whose very existence is in doubt. The parallel with the Kurds is plain. Both peoples have been told they have no right to exist. Both have survived in defiance of that command. The survival of one reinforces the survival of the other.

For Israel, Kurdish independence is not a diplomatic accessory. It is a strategic necessity.

The form it must take is also clear. A unified Kurdish state should begin now by linking the Kurdistan Region of Iraq with Rojava, the Kurdish-run territory of northern Syria. The two entities already govern themselves in practice. They have armies, administrations, and borders. What they lack is recognition. The next step is to bind them formally into an independent Kurdistan, recognised and backed by Israel and the West. Iranian Kurdistan cannot be folded in yet, but Tehran’s theocracy will collapse. When it does, its western provinces will be in play. Preparing now for that inevitability ensures that once Iran fragments, it is Kurdish sovereignty, not chaos, that fills the vacuum.

This does not demand Israeli troops in Kurdistan. The Kurds have shown repeatedly that they can defend their land. What they need is recognition and, if pressed, support from the skies. Israel can provide that, and more importantly, can force Washington to abandon its habitual evasions. The bargain is simple enough: Kurdish unity in exchange for recognition of sovereignty. Presented with that choice, no Kurdish leader will risk being remembered as the one who squandered independence for the sake of factional rivalry.

The objections collapse under scrutiny. Turkey declares that a Kurdish state would be intolerable. Yet Turkey is locked to NATO, reliant on Western markets, and dependent on American arms. Iran has for decades armed rival Kurdish factions to ensure division, but its own regime is tottering. Iraq mutters about borders and Kirkuk but already concedes de facto autonomy to Erbil. Syria proclaims its “unity” while barely governing the rubble of its cities. None of these states can prevent independence if Israel and the United States decide to enforce it.

Meanwhile Israel is encouraged to believe that its safety lies in the signatures of Arab autocrats. The Abraham Accords were hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough, but they were, in truth, little more than a set of ceremonial handshakes from rulers who require American weapons and cover against Iran. Their populations were not consulted and were not transformed. The mosques and media under their control still denounce Israel daily. When the balance of power shifts, as it always does, the treaties will be worth nothing. To confuse this charade with security is to guarantee another war.

The Kurds, unlike the Arab countries, have proved themselves by deeds. They have fought ISIS, governed under siege, and advanced women’s rights. They have defended minorities when others exterminated them. To dangle statehood before Hamas while denying it to the Kurds is not merely hypocrisy but comedy. The referendum of 2017 demonstrates what the Kurds want. The record of their governance shows what they can build. What is missing is not their will but the will of their supposed allies.

It is imminent that Iran’s theocracy will fall, and in the absence of preparation, the vacuum will be seized by militias and jihadists competing for control. If the Kurds are not prepared with a state ready to expand, the space will be filled by the very forces Israel and the West fear most. It is less costly to invest in Kurdish independence now than to fight the next ISIS when it emerges from Iran’s ruins. Pre-emption here is not imperialism but prudence.

The betrayal of the Kurds is already one of the West’s dirtiest disgraces. They fought when others fled. They defended minorities when others murdered them. And in return they were abandoned. To repeat this cycle, now of all times, would not only be shameful but suicidal. Israel cannot afford to collude in that hypocrisy. Its choice is clear enough. Either it ignites the promise, compels Washington to act, and offers the cover only it can provide, or it resigns itself to another generation of wars conducted against the same enemies, for the same reasons, with the same results.

The question is simple enough for all the evasions. Shall terror be rewarded with a state, or shall a people who have chosen pluralism and democracy at last be recognised? To choose Kurdistan is to choose strategy over status que, security over conceit, foresight over drift. The union of Iraqi Kurdistan and Rojava can and should form the nucleus of an independent state now, ready to be joined by Iranian Kurdistan when Tehran falls. That is the reality that must be grasped if a century of betrayal is finally to yield to a century of sovereignty.

Israel knows, as no other state can know, what it means to be told your existence is temporary, conditional, revocable. The Kurdish claim is nothing more - and nothing less - than the same right to history.