What Jews, Israeli Palestinians, and Turkish Kurds have in common.
By James M. Dorsey
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Diaspora Jews, Palestinian Israelis, and Turkish Kurds have
more in common than meets the eye.
The similarities in how the three minority communities
define themselves offer insights into what will make either a one- or two-state
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict viable.
To be sure, it’s hard to see, amid the Gaza carnage and
Israel’s blinded and traumatised view of future relations with the Palestinians,
how the two communities could live with each other or side by side.
Yet, neither has a choice. The alternative is continued
violence, repression, and destruction that will only escalate.
Source: Quora
What is clear from a comparison of Diaspora Jewish, Israeli
Palestinian, and Turkish Kurdish attitudes is that respect for national,
religious, and communal identity coupled with equal rights and economic
opportunity are prerequisites for peaceful coexistence.
The validity of that maxim is evidenced by the fact that a
majority of Israeli Palestinians and Turkish Kurds would remain resident in
either Israel or Turkey, even if a Palestinian or Kurdish state were to be
established in Israeli-occupied territory or carved out of Iraq, despite
discrimination and the limiting or repression of expressions of their national
identity.
Similarly, a majority of Diaspora Jews, despite rising
anti-Semitism and irrespective of whether they support or oppose Israeli
policies and the Gaza war, want a Jewish state to exist but have no intention
of uprooting their lives and moving to Israel.
A ‘Stand
with Israel’ Vigil in New York. Credit: AFP
Acknowledging the parameters of Diaspora support for Israel,
Israelis have long joked that “New York Jews will fight to the last Israeli.”
Opinion polls exploring identity among Palestinian Israelis
and Turkish Kurds tell a similar story.
A yet-to-be-published survey by Rawest, a research and
polling outfit based in Turkey’s majority Kurdish southeastern province of
Diyarbakir, found that only 22 per cent of the country’s Kurds, who account for
20 per cent of the population, favored breaking away from Turkey to create an
independent Kurdish state.
Similarly, the survey, quoted in an email by Al-Monitor
reporter Amberin Zaman, reported that only 9.7 per cent preferred exclusively
Kurdish-language curricula in education as opposed to 44.1 per cent who
advocated a bi-lingual Turkish and Kurdish language system.
A majority identified themselves primarily as Muslims, while
67.4 per cent said their Kurdish identity was strong. Even so, only nine per
cent defined themselves as Kurdish nationalists.
Counterintuitively, an Israel Democracy Institute poll
in November concluded that the number of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship,
who feel they are part of the State of Israel had risen dramatically since
Hamas’ October 7 attack and Israel’s Gaza war.
Palestinians account for about 20 per cent of Israel’s
population.
In the poll, 70 per cent of Palestinian Israelis said they had
a sense of solidarity with Israel, a 20-year high, compared to 48 per cent in a
survey conducted six months earlier.
An Israel
Police patrol car burns in the town of Lod amid clashes on 12 May 2021 between
Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians. Credit: Flash90.
A separate
survey conducted by The Center for a Shared Society at Givat Haviva
concluded that 55 per cent of Palestinian Israelis believed that a desire to
live in peace or a feeling of shared destiny had prevented inter-communal
violence from erupting since October as opposed to the violence
during the 2021 Gaza war.
A third
survey conducted by Hebrew University researchers days after the October
attack showed that 66 per cent of Palestinian Israelis supported Israel’s right
to defend itself. Fifty per cent said Hamas’ attack that primarily targeted
civilians was “contrary to the values of Islam.”
Even so, amid widespread anti-Palestinian sentiment in
Israel fuelled by the October 7 attack and the war, Israeli Palestinian
optimism about the future dropped to a five-year low, with only 27 per cent of
those polled by the Israel Democracy Institute less or unconcerned about what
lies ahead for them.
Sixty-two per cent of Palestinian Israelis surveyed by Givat
Haviva said the attack and the war had negatively impacted their sense of
personal safety.
Just over 50 per cent expressed pessimism about the
prospects for coexistence between Jewish and Palestinian Israelis. Even so, 49
per cent said the October 7 attack had positively influenced their attitude
toward Jews.
Seventy per cent feared that anti-Palestinian manifestations
would increase in the wake of October 7.
Asked by the Israel Democracy Institute if, given an
alternative Western citizenship, they would leave Israel, 59 per cent of
Israeli Palestinians surveyed said they would stay.
Brothers
Rada and Raif Rashed survived the Hamas slaughter at the Nova Festival on
October 7. Credit: Reuters
Commenting on various polls, Middle East researcher Rachel
Friedman noted that Palestinian Israelis were among the civilians Hamas killed
on October 7.
Ms. Friedman’s conclusion says much about lessons to be
learned from minority attitudes, whether Diaspora Jewish, Palestinian Israeli,
or Turkish Kurdish, particularly for the future of Jewish-Palestinian
relations.
“On October 7, 2023, Hamas
viewed their victims’ religion and ethnicity as secondary to their nationality.
Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs would be wise to do the same,” Ms. Friedman
said.
The relevance of Ms. Friedman’s conclusion is highlighted by
the acceleration of differences among Diaspora Jews, a community polarised by
the Hamas attack and the Gaza war.
Like Palestinian Israelis, Jews feel less secure.
Sixty-three per cent of American Jews said their place in American society had
become less secure, a 22 per cent increase compared to a year earlier,
according to a
survey commissioned by the American Jewish Committee.
Forty-six per cent said they took precautions or avoided
posting content online, wearing clothing that would identify them as Jews, or
going to certain places out of concern for their safety.
Even so, 62 per cent of American Jews polled
on behalf of the Jewish Federations of North America said they “sometimes
find it hard to support actions taken by Israel or its government” and 45 per cent
expressed an unfavourable view of the Israeli government. Yet, 72 per cent noted
that “in general, Israel makes me proud to be Jewish.”
Increasingly ambivalent Diaspora Jewish attitudes towards
Israeli policy and perceptions of how that might impact their safety is
reflected in diminished Diaspora Jewish immigration to Israel and millennial
Jewish responses to attempts by Israel and its supporters to depict
pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses as anti-Semitic.
Israel’s Immigration and Absorption Ministry reported in
December that 2,662
people had immigrated since October 7, the vast majority from Russia,
Belarus, and Ukraine. Only 218 came from the United States and 116 from France,
many of whom had initiated the immigration process before October 7.
Overall, the figure was a far cry from the 16,400 immigrants
who arrived in the same period in 2022, the bulk of whom were people escaping
the war in Ukraine.
Asked in the American Jewish Committee survey whether the
“actions of the state of Israel have made my life as an American Jew more
difficult,” 58 per cent said the phrase did not describe their experience.
Protest at
Hunter College. Credit: CUNY NION
Questioned whether “the anti-Israel climate, on campus or
elsewhere, has forced me to hide my Jewish identity,” 62.2 per cent said this
too did not describe their experience, and 10.9 per cent said they didn’t think
there is an anti-Israel climate.
The poll elicited similar results when it asked respondents
whether “the anti-Israel climate, on campuses or elsewhere, has damaged my
relationships with friends.”
Prominent American Jewish activist, Israel critic, and
political scientist Peter Beinart noted that “for many decades, American Jews
have built our political identity on a contradiction: Pursue equal citizenship
here; defend group supremacy there. Now here and there are converging. In
the years to come, we will have to choose.”
Rather than prompting a majority of American and Diaspora
Jews to immigrate to Israel, that choice could widen the emerging gap between
Israel and many Diaspora Jews.
That in turn, would reinforce lessons offered by what
Diaspora Jews, Palestinian Israelis, and Turkish Kurds have in common,
according to the numerous opinion polls.
Those lessons have been lost in the fog of the Gaza war.
Even worse, Israel and Hamas’ war conduct have thrown them in the trash bin.
Yet, they go to the core of any attempt to make an eventual
ceasefire stick and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Dr.
James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological
University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of
the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.
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