US Israel Security Alliance Mission to Congress: Support Statehood for Kurdistan

Communicated Content

In response to recent political developments regarding Kurdish aspirations, the US Israel Security Alliance comprised of American Jewish business and communal leaders will be leading a delegation on November 15, 2017 on a mission to urge Congress to step up its support for the Kurdish people. The itinerary of the Mission will include a meeting with Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman who is the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Representative to the United States.

“Recognizing that there are no simple answers, we feel that Congress should be aware of how deep the support for the Kurds by the Jewish community from time immemorial exists said Ezra Friedlander, founder of the Alliance and CEO of The Friedlander Group who will be coordinating the mission.

“We are eager to dialogue with the members of Congress on this important topic and understand their position from their vantage point so that we can further develop our own perspective” said Leon Goldenberg who will be co-chairing the Mission.

An uproar was caused after a referendum in which over 92 percent of the Kurdish people voted in favor of independence from Iraq and for Kurdish statehood. Subsequently, its leadership has come under intense international pressure including less then robust support from the United States.

America’s relationship with Kurdish political aspirations dates back to World War I, when President Woodrow Wilson and the Allied Nations supported the idea of an independent state for Kurds after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. However, independence never came to fruition throughout the last 100 years to the consternation of the Kurdish population. Yet, the Kurdish fighters known as Peshmerga are key US allies and in the forefront of fighting ISIS. In fact, the Kurds have been credited with recent victories in battles with ISIS.

The Kurds and the Jewish people as well have a shared history for thousands of years.

According to tradition, the first Jews in Kurdistan, were among the last tribes of Israel, taken from their land in the eighth century B.C. They liked it there so much that when Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered the Babylonians and let the Jews go back home, many chose instead to remain.

In the modern era, Kurdish Jews departed en masse for Israel when the Jewish state was created in 1948, leaving Kurdish civil society who to this day remember with nostalgia the warm relations with the Kurdish Jewish community.

It is well known Israel has helped the Kurds for decades and continues to promote the need for an independent Kurdish state.

A fascinating account that summarizes the unique relationship between the Kurds and Jews was reported in the NY Times: After nine Jews were hanged in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square in 1969, Iraqi Jews were desperate to flee. The Kurds helped some 1,000 of them escape, over land to Iran and then by plane to Israel.

“They were going on donkeys, through the mountains,” said Ofra Bengio, a pre-eminent historian of the Kurds and professor emerita at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center.

One of the escapees was Zamir Shemtov, 63, now a dentist in Herzliya, who was a teenager in 1970 when his parents and extended family made their first attempt to flee Iraq. Arrested and locked up for a month, they tried again, but this time they were blackmailed, robbed, caught by the army and sent back to Baghdad, where his father was brutally interrogated, Mr. Shemtov said.

Released two months later, they tried to get out a third time. This time, a Kurdish taxi driver ushered them to a safe meeting point where a young uniformed Kurdish fighter loaded them in his jeep and ferried them across the border into Iran.

Mr. Shemtov said that near the end of the drive, his father offered the fighter his gold watch in gratitude.

“The young man answered, ‘I am Masoud Barzani, son of Mullah Barzani, and if Mullah would hear that I took a watch, he would hang me!'” Mr. Shemtov recalled. “‘Instead, all I ask as thanks is that you remember us well in the future.'”

A few years later, the young Masoud Barzani succeeded his father as head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Since 2005, he has been president of Iraqi Kurdistan.

“Depriving the Kurds of their national sovereignty is a blatant injustice because the Kurdish people have suffered oppression under many regimes in the region.

Kurdistan, if and when achieving statehood will become an important player on the Middle East stage and will be a positive development for the United States and the State of Israel”, said Ken Abramowitz, Co-Chair of the Mission and founder of Save the West.

“I view favorably the aspirations of the Kurdish People for the establishment of an autonomous and independent country. The Kurdish people are a distinct ethnic, religious and cultural group that deserves such a country for the continuity of their Nation and their Heritage. ” said Rabbi Elie Abadie – Spiritual Leader of the Sephardic Community of New York City.

Other co-chairs of the Mission will include: Gil Kapen – The American Jewish International Relations Institute, Avner Parnes – International Business Development,Diliman Abdulkader – Endowment for Middle East Truth | EMET.