Maroc - EURASIAREVIEW.COM - A la une - 25/Mar 00:04

Why Are Kurdish And Palestinian Struggles Treated Unequally? – OpEd

By Dr. Loqman Radpey Self-determination movements of former colonies often advanced together toward independence. The ideological backing of socialist states in the Eastern Bloc and various Asian and Islamic countries fueled many anti-colonial movements. However, this left-Islamist alliance has adopted starkly different stances on the Kurdish and Palestinian struggles. This disparity has led to a widening gulf between the two causes on the international stage. While the Palestinian movement has garnered overwhelming support, the Kurdish cause has been marginalized— ignored, to a very large extent, by the international community. Palestinian statehood has been deemed legitimate, while the Kurds, despite enduring over a century of suppression and oppression, remain trapped within the borders of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria, with their plight dismissed as an “internal issue” causing “security concern.” Meanwhile, Palestine, while being promoted as having “its own category,” is just a Middle East case like Kurdistan, yet it is acknowledged as a case, framed within a broader geopolitical struggle. This shift has transformed Palestine from a legal and humanitarian issue centered on self-determination into a geopolitical grey zone, where regional powers manipulate its status to serve their strategic interests. Since the final partition of Kurdistan across Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and the Soviet successor state to Russia in 1920s, Kurdish movements have historically been isolated, never amassing the same level of international backing as the Palestinian cause. Since the establishment of the United Nations, the left-Islamist coalition has consistently ignored Kurdish self-determination, using it only as a bargaining chip during the Cold War or as a tool to maintain border conflicts in equilibrium. The UN bodies have passed staggering number of resolutions only on Palestinian self-determination, yet not a single proposal on Kurdish self-determination has surfaced — not even at the subcommittee level, let alone in the General Assembly or Security Council. The only mention of the Kurds came in UNSC Resolution 688 (1991), which referenced the “Kurdish population” and “Kurdish-populated areas” in the context of Iraqi regime’s brutal repression. Meanwhile, the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (formerly the Organisation of the Islamic Conference) have never condemned Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Kurds in Halabja (1988), which led to the loss of 5,000 civilians in just a few hours. The UN Security Council has never convened an emergency session on the Kurdish plight, and even the Human Rights Council has remained silent on Kurdish self-determination and their suppression by host states. Ethnic reconfiguration continues unabated in the West of Kurdistan (known as Rojava in Syria), particularly following Turkey’s 2018 occupation. Turkey has systematically engaged in ethnic cleansing, forcibly settling thousands of non-Kurds —including Arab Palestinians— in occupied Kurdish areas. In cities like Efrîn, Serê Kaniyê, Tell Halaf, and Girê Spî, Turkey has pursued policies of forced displacement, abduction, and demographic engineering. Kuwait, Pakistan, and Qatar have been complicit in this scheme, funding settlement projects that violate international law and further Turkey’s aggressive agenda. Meanwhile, Turkey’s environmental crimes in Kurdistan —including the destruction of ancient olive groves and forests— have gone unnoticed by the world. Turkey’s military incursions into Kurdistani regions, both Rojava in Syria and Başȗr in Iraq, and its targeted killings of Kurdish civilians are met with global indifference and minimal media coverage. The international community turns a blind eye, reinforcing the perception that Kurdish suffering is not worth addressing. Political currents actively work to erase Kurdish identity from any movements across Kurds’ host states. Consider Iran’s “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” protests — “Mahsa” Amini’s Kurdish name, Jina, was deliberately omitted from international discourse, exemplifying the broader erasure of the Kurdish struggle. This was not merely the deletion of a name; rather, it marked a deliberate shift in the Kurdish narrative, transforming it from a movement that arose in Kurdistan into a global brand co-opted by the Iranian opposition. A disproportionately high number of Kurdish political prisoners receive the death sentence. Violations of Kurds’ economic, social, and cultural rights are commonly recorded. Even nature and the ecosystems of East of Kurdistan (Rojhilat) have been securitized and are not immune from Iranian state ecocide policies. However, all these violations have not resulted in a case at the UN or any other international forums. The systematic denial of the Kurds and their language in Bakûr (Northern Kurdistan) since the founding of Turkey’s ethnic-chauvinistic state in 1923, along with the brutal suppression of Kurdish movements through mass killings and genocide, has been met with global indifference. Even the large-scale destruction of Kurdish cities in February 2015 —reduced to rubble in a campaign of state violence— failed to draw any meaningful attention from the international community. Despite being a NATO member, Turkey consistently disregards rulings from the European Court of Human Rights. Meanwhile, hundreds of democratically elected Kurdish parliamentarians and mayors have been sentenced to long-term imprisonment, further cementing the state’s authoritarian grip over the Kurds —a policy that remains in effect. The Kurdistan case has never had the strength to rival the Palestinian cause in international forums. This is largely due to its systematic exclusion from academic discourse, political activism, and policy discussions. Many universities, scholars, activists, and think tanks that focus on the Middle East either omit Kurdistan entirely or relegate it to an internal “Kurdish issue,” “question,” or “problem,” confined within arbitrarily drawn borders imposed from the outside. They either reduce Kurdistan to a game of identity politics that contradicts the historical aspirations of the Kurds or attempt to ‘Palestinianize’ it, shaping its struggle to fit external narratives. A simple survey of Middle East-focused research centers reveals how they systematically exclude Kurds and Kurdistan. Many fail even to acknowledge the Kurdish language or people, despite positioning themselves as experts on regional affairs. They refer to the ‘Middle East’ in Arabic, Persian, French, and German —but in Kurdish, as if the region is solely the domain of Arabs, Persians, and Turks, despite their claim to offer a “new framework” for the Middle East, all at the cost of intentionally ignoring Kurdistan and the Kurds. As of March 2025, the International Court of Justice has issued two advisory opinions in 2004 and 2025 concerning Palestine. Also, the International Criminal Court is involved in legal proceedings related to Palestine, particularly concerning alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. International law, ostensibly designed to uphold self-determination for “all peoples,” has been selectively applied. While Palestinian self-determination enjoys widespread legitimacy, the Kurdish case —despite its deep historical roots and the explicit recognition of Kurdish rights in the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920) which was later replaced by the British government with the Treaty of Lausanne (24 July 1923) without consulting the Kurdish nation— remains neglected. The failure of the international legal system to address Kurdish grievances has exacerbated further instability across the Middle East. Persisting in this policy of exclusion will only breed more conflict. The question remains: will a UN member state muster the courage to challenge Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey for their systematic crimes against the Kurds? Will we witness a second South Africa or Gambia —one willing to take the Kurdish plight to the International Court of Justice? That state is for sure not likely to come from the left-Islamic coalition, as for them, the other party from which the Kurds seek independence and statehood holds strategic significance. As long as ideology and politics dictate the attitudes of left-Islamist states, the Arabization, Turkification, and Persianization of the Kurds will remain outside their concerns. Consequently, Kurdistan will not be recognized as a legitimate case for self-determination deserving of international support. About the author: Dr Loqman Radpey, an expert on Kurdistan and the Middle East, is a fellow at the Middle East Forum with over a decade of experience analyzing the international legal and political dimensions of the right to self-determination for peoples and nations, including the case of Kurdistan. He is the author of ‘Towards an Independent Kurdistan: Self-Determination in International Law’ (published by Routledge, 2023). Source: The views expressed in this article belong to the author(s) alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.