After Mr. Tayyip Erdogan’s walk-out incident in Davos, one of the most common statements made is that Israel and Turkey have been fighting terrorism; thus, they have to be on the same side. Part of this statement implies that PKK and Hamas are similar organizations and Kurds share the same fate as Palestinians do. Moreover, there is a deliberate attempt to compare Turkish way of fighting terrorism with Israeli methods. On one hand, DTP (pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party) is trying to challenge the Prime Minister claiming that “the same thing is done to the Kurds” and on the other hand, columnists who are independent from DTP or even opposed to it claim that objecting the Israeli counter-terrorism methods will only put Turkey in a difficult position in the international arena.
There are numerous attempts to portray similarities between the Kurdish problem and the Palestinian problem, Hamas and PKK, and Turkish and Israeli methods of combating terrorism.
Kurds and Palestinians
Considering the historical facts and the current situation, it is not possible to find a similar historical background between the Kurds and Palestinians. After the end of the Ottoman Empire which was a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural state, foundation of the Turkish Republic was made possible not only by the Turks but also the Kurds. The first parliament of the Republic was formed by many ethnic groups including Kurds. Thus, the legendary War of Liberty was the product of Kurdish and Turkish -shoulder to shoulder- participation. There is no case of an army leaving Ankara to invade specific regions in Turkey. In brief one can see two ethnic groups coming together to achieve a certain goal working side by side sharing the same geography.
In Palestine, one can see a state being formed on the lands that were purchased and/or invaded by the Israelis. Today’s Israel is a country which has been in constant fight with the Palestinians. There is no desire for the Israeli citizens who came from all around the world to share the “holy lands” with the Palestinians. From the day of its formation there is a deliberate attempt to move the Palestinians out of the region. Since 1948, there has been no policy change towards the Palestinians except the Oslo process led by Izak Rabin. Thus, there is no cultural, political, economic, social, and religious links between the Israelis and the Palestinians as there are between the Turks and the Kurds.
Anyone, who claims that there are similarities between Israel-Palestine and Turkish-Kurdish issues, should also answer the following questions. Do Turks and Kurds suffer from not being able to create common living spaces? Is there such hatred between the Kurds and Turks as there is between the Israelis and Palestinians? Are there intermarriages in Israel/Palestine as there are in Turkey? How many Palestinians are there in the Israeli parliament or the army? Considering the answers to these questions it is not possible to draw parallels between Israel and Turkey. There are significant differences in the way in which the state functions as well as the current social structures between Turkey and Israel.
PKK and Hamas
One major comparison is usually drawn between Hamas and PKK. It is claimed that both of them are terrorist organizations and should be treated in a similar fashion. Are these two organizations really that similar?
PKK, especially after the period of rapid democratization since 2003, increased its attacks on the civilians. In other words, democratization, removal of the obstacles in terms of cultural rights, resulted with an increase in the number of terrorist assaults. Considering Kurds’ active participation in political, social and cultural life in Turkey, the marginality of PKK can clearly be seen. Although pro-Kurdish parties’ having the right of representation in the parliament, PKK carried its terrorist activities constantly. In brief, we can see that terrorism has been on the rise as the economic wealth, social status and political representation increases. Moreover PKK does not only target Turks only anymore. The attacks on 3 December 2008, PKK targeted the Kurdish population in Diyarbakir.
Hamas case is significantly different from PKK. After Hamas won the elections, Palestinians were punished and left to starvation and poverty. In order to prevent Hamas from representing the Palestinians, Palestine was turned into an open prison. Theoretically speaking however, launching of rockets by the military division of Hamas can definitely be considered as terrorist attacks.
PKK is an organization which devotes its entire resources, bases its entire strategy on terrorism and terrorist attacks. Hamas however is an organization which applied social, economic and political methods before using terrorism as the last option. There is no correlation between democratization in Turkey and PKK reducing its terrorist acts. For many experts and observers, Hamas winning the elections and becoming more moderate was truly a chance and opportunity for peace in the region but Israel chose to punish all the Palestinians because of their decision to choose Hamas to represent them.
Any act of violence targeting civilians is unacceptable and killing innocent people for any political interest should be categorized as a terrorist act. But this alone does not prove any similarity between Hamas and PKK. There is a complete reverse correlation between PKK’s and Hamas’ use of terrorism. Palestine is an entity recognized by the United Nations and it can be said that Hamas is a de facto legitimate authority which received the majority support of the Palestinians.
Hamas can be described as a structure which undertakes social and economic projects so as to address the problems of the Palestinians. But the party has also a terrorist element in its structure. PKK, on the other hand is an organization which uses only terrorism, killing innocent civilians to achieve its goals.
Israeli and Turkish Methods of Combating Terrorism
Both Turkey and Israel are the countries that are combating terrorism. But this does not mean that they are using same methods in their fight against terrorism. Turkey has a more comprehensive approach to terrorism, undertaking social, economic, cultural and political projects in response to PKK. The land operations initiated by Turkey since 2007 only targets terrorists thus the strategy was completely different than of the Israelis. In the operations, 300 terrorists were killed and many ammunition depots were destroyed. Only 1 civilian died as a result of the operations. Moreover, it was announced by the Turkish authorities that the operations did not target the terrorists but the logistic support units and the ammunition depots. Turkey, not only acts carefully in differentiating terrorists from civilians but also attempts to cut the logistic units instead of killing maximum number of terrorists. Turkey also follows rehabilitation strategies for those who decide to leave the organization and join back into the society.
When we look the Israeli methods we can see that only in the last Gaza operation, 5400 people were wounded and 1360 people were killed. Out of 1360, only 46 of them are Hamas members. And there are 280 children and 111 women among the dead. It is possible to draw some conclusions only by looking at these figures. The first one is that Israel does not make a distinction between the civilians and militants. Second, Israel did not collect intelligence in Gaza targeting Hamas militants. And third, Israel assumes to have the privilege of punishing all the Palestinians and have no intentions of sharing a common space with them. Israel holds a strong propaganda power against the accusations for human rights abuses and disproportionate use of power. Israel’s strategy is based on its ability to convince and influence the international opinion. It is important to note that, what captures more attention is not what is happening in Gaza today but rather what the Israeli lobbies are telling to the world. Public opinion, locally and internationally, is not constructed by the facts but rather how it is portrayed and presented.
From this perspective, Israel is constantly bringing up the rockets launched by Hamas while drawing comparisons between Hamas and Al-Qaeda or Taliban to gain the sympathy of the world. Even if Hamas is a full scale terrorist organization, the way in which Israel deals with Hamas is ineffective if the intention is really destroying Hamas. Despite the fact that economic, social, and political methods are essential in combating terrorism, Israel completely relies on its military power punishing all the Palestinians by turning Gaza into an open-prison.
To claim that Hamas was the side breaking the ceasefire is not very convincing either since the Israeli army spokesperson said that the Israeli army has been preparing for this operation -on maps- for several months. Moreover an Israeli security expert has also said that the army has been preparing for this operation for months to limit the number of civilian casualties. Israeli approach to combating terrorism is significantly different than of Turkey’s. Trying to find similarities between the Turkish method of combating terrorism and Israel’s approach to Palestinians and Hamas is not possible.
Turkey had also taken some harsh measures while combating terrorism. But if such aggression was illegal, the Turkish authorities choose to investigate such incidents without any public or international pressure. This proves that Turkey is on the right track to become a first class democracy ensuring the rights and freedoms of its citizens. It is not possible to draw similarities between Israeli and Turkish way of combating terrorism.
When we look at the incidents that took place in Diyarbakir on 28 March 2006, we can see that the Turkish armed forces showed extreme care and sensitivity towards the children who were used by the PKK militants. The children were given guns and stones to fight against the police forces. Many businesses were affected; the shops were damaged as a result of PKK provocation. But the Turkish police forces did not fire at all and because of this, Turkey was even portrayed as a country which is quite incapable of dealing with this kind of incidents. The major of Diyarbakir who ordered not to shoot said that we rather have shops damaged than have lives lost. Thus, the ones who try to take advantage on the situation by drawing similarities have to give up their ambitions, because PKK and Hamas, Kurds and Palestinians or the Turkish and Israeli way of combating terrorism have nothing in common.
Translated by Huseyin Akturk
A Time Collapse in the Kurdish Problem
