(“Hypocrisy is the homage paid by vice to virtue”)
At the time of writing, two important events occurred in the troubled Middle East, the two referring to one important historical feature in the region, the notoriously unfulfilled dreams of nation- and statehood by the two major peoples that remained prevented by prevailing political processes and structures from realizing those dreams, the Palestinians and the Kurds. The two events were, on the one hand, the re-opening of the Rafah entry point in Gaza, on the other hand a last-minute agreed upon deal between Kurdish-led SDF in north-east Syria and the new regime in Damascus seeking top prevent disaster for the Kurds.
Comparing these two events, and the thorny political and historical issues they represent, is engaging in an exercise of comparison in which both differences and similarities are of analytical interest. Even though, at the point of writing, the case of Iran and the mountain of uncertainties pertaining to whether current US military threats will materialize imminently represents the most dramatic stage in ongoing Middle East crises, it has to be remembered that there is unlikely to be long-term stability in the region as long as simmering issues of Palestinian and Kurdish quests for nationhood remain inhibited – even if the power game of greater powers could occasionally impose temporary order.
The gradual opening of the Rafah crossing symbolizes the beginning of phase two of Donald Trump’s October 2025 20-point plan to end the Israel-Hamas war that Hamas started on October 2023, as did the Davos economic summit US-administered launch of the Trump-designated Board of Peace. Many questions remain unanswered as regards the viability and sustainability of Trump’s final effort to put an end to the indefensible Gaza disaster. Opening, albeit step-by-step, the Rafah gate is a small but essential step aiming at facilitating long-needed evacuation of the 20 or so thousand wounded civilians inside Gaza, some return into Gaza by the thousands in Egypt needing and wishing to return, and then of course, finally, the desperately needed unrestrained humanitarian assistance. But still no sign of the stipulated deployment of a 5000 troops International Stabilization Force, still no establishment of the stipulated Palestinian “technocratic” authority to run daily affairs, still no disarmament of Hamas, and still no Israeli military withdrawal, back from the “yellow line” that divides Gaza de facto into two. And still no real ceasefire; the other day Israeli air attacks killed some 31 Palestinians, adding to some 500 Palestinians killed since the entry into force of the ceasefire, as stipulated by the Plan’s phase one. And still no Israeli permission for international media to enter, report and assess.
Still no time, therefore, yet to summarize the full dimensions of the Gaza disaster, even though the total number of Palestinians killed since October 7, 2023, is now generally agreed to be an incredible 71 000 plus, those perished under rubble in the flattened strip not yet found and counted. So, while in the best of worlds we may be witnessing the slow yet dramatic beginning of a new era in the area, Gaza and the West Bank, pending the certain drama of Israeli elections, the relevant question here is what the two years of catastrophic war have meant to the issue of Palestinian nationhood.
Clearly we are here faced with a profound paradox, with on the one hand Hamas'(et consortes’) unforgivable terror acts on October 7 -23 dealing a mortal blow to the cause of Palestinian nationhood, on the other hand the suffering of Palestinians at the hand of Israel’s ensuing war of retaliation internationally re-establishing that same cause, now with traditional European allies of Israel adding their voice and vote to the broad UN majority view that only a political solution could provide for longer-term stability and that only a two-state solution – Israel back-to-back with a Palestinian state – can be that political solution. In addition, Trump’s 20-point plan, currently the only plan in town, does contain a reference (vague, but still a reference) to a future Palestinian statehood as a desired end result of the launched process, disliked by Israel but demanded by leading Arab states and Turkey. It remains to be seen how this paradox will play out in the forthcoming Israeli elections this year, and beyond.
Considering whether the real situation now, the net outcome of the turbulence, past and present, is one on which the Palestinian dream of nation- and statehood has been advanced to coming closer to fulfilment, one is perhaps wise to recall the classical definition of hypocrisy as the homage paid by vice to virtue, given the lengthy history of perhaps well-meaning but power- and meaningless international pledges in support of the Palestinian cause. Will there be any difference now, given the machinations of weaponized geo-politics? Perhaps the short answer, for now, is that it depends, pending endlessly complex further regional developments. While the paradox is further cemented: a two-state solution, never before so impossible, and never before so indispensable. And never before such a clear determinant of regional stability.
And now for the comparison with the Kurdish case and cause, highlighting the combination of differences and similarities, the main difference perhaps being the lesser relevance of the reference to the definition of hypocrisy, given the lack of even hypocritical international support for Kurdish nationhood as a result of political history’s division of Kurds between the region’s nation states. But like Palestinians as a “people”, the history of Kurdish national aspirations is filled with episodes of hope quelled by episodes of disappointment and sense of betrayal, an unfinished business and as such an element of constant instability.
The history here is long, obviously, but let us look back at the situation 2014-15 when things looked really promising for the Kurdish, in fact pan-Kurdish, cause as a result of parallel processes, in Turkey and in the wider region where the emergence of the ISIS threat shook perceptions.
In Turkey, perceptions and preparations before the 2015 parliamentary elections were influenced by the parallel factors of a preceding “resolution process” concerning the Kurdish question, involving the AKP government and decisive Kurdish actors, both PKK actors such as imprisoned leader Öcalan and armed PKK militants in south-east Turley and northern Iraq and the parliamentary pro-Kurdish party HADEP, and developments in northern Syria, focusing on the city of Kobane near the Syria-Turkey border. The combined events then led to HADEP under the emboldened leadership of Selahattin Demirtas and others storming in the elections into the parliament with a strong vote, 13%, so strong as to deprive the dominant AKP of its parliamentary majority, first time ever since coming to power in 2002. At the same time, the brave Kurdish resistance against the ISIS offensive at Kobane had two consequences, protest demonstrations in Turkey that turned violent (with political consequences to this day), and an Obama administration decision to re-enter the region militarily in de facto alliance with the Kurdish resistance (YPG/PYD, later SDF) with the stated aim to counter the ISIS threat. At the same time, a referendum called in Northern Iraq seeking (Kurdish) independence.
This, then, was the peak period of the Kurdish, even pan-Kurdish, cause, a positive trend throughout, across the borders. There was even a point when a PKK rescue operation was seen to have saved Yazidi lives from a brutal ISIS assault and therefore was considered by some western think tanks to be ripe for de-designation as a terrorist organization. But an ensuing slippery slope indicated that this was not to be, given the contradictory nature of the different pro-Kurdish factors, e.g., Turkish reactions to the US support for “Kurds” in Syria and Turkish government’s strong-arm reaction to Kurdish electoral successes, all these contributing to political turbulence inside Turkey and increasing complications in the US-Turkey strategic relations.
Fast forward to the current situation, a result of a continued slippery slope as regards the Kurdish cause and of two decisive factors, Trump’s return to the White House and the regime change in Syria, with the fall of the Assad regime and the coming to power, with a lot of Turkish support, of former jihadist Al-Sharaa, now with a strong Western/US backing and with the aim to unify – and pacify – the country. Recalling the way Donald Trump in his first period tweeted a greenlight to one in a series of Erdogan-Turkish military incursions into north Syria against perceived YPG/SDF enemies, and the way this step prompted then Secretary of Defense Mattis to abandon ship and president Macron to talk about NATO being “brain dead”, it was only to be expected that in the new Syria and with Trump back in the driver seat mostly bad news were in the offing for the “Kurdish cause”. So, the question was: could there be decent compromise between al-Sharaa, supported by Turkey, and SDF leader Kobane, or must there be open military conflict and/or total Kurdish surrender? Was there, again, to have to be a crushing of the Kurdish dream of (some degree of) self-rule within the new Syria, or could some of the recent self-rule gains survive, against difficult odds? And what about links between the Syria scene and ongoing (new) attempts to find a lasting solution to the Turkish Kurdish questions?
This year things looked ominous for Kurdish hopes. A March 2025 tentative agreement between the two Syrian leaders, a compromise of sorts however in dire need of specification and operationalization, expired by year’s end without negotiating progress, and open military clashes in Aleppo and elsewhere encouraged and empowered Syria’s new leader to launch an offensive of conquest of long-held SDF territory in the country’s north-east, again exposing the city of Kobane as the victim of aggression, interrupted by Trump-initiated attempts at ceasefire and dialogue. These attempts were in turn an attempt to strike a balance in US politics between voices saying that the time was over for payback of the US’ indebtedness to YPG/SDF for their sacrifices on behalf of the US and the US led anti-ISIS coalition in the struggle against ISIS, and the now emerging voices (Pompeo, Lindsey Graham and others) maintaining that throwing the SDF under the bus would be a shameful betrayal of an ally in the broader anti-terror struggle, these voices instead demanding US sanctions against al-Sharaa and his team should they refuse earlier pledges for restraint in the field and at the negotiating table. Hence a recent compromise agreement, way short of built-up Kurdish expectations but still preserving some basic elements of self-rule.
Whether this last, tentative agreement will be sufficient as a means to prevent a further escalation in the struggle for identity and governance in the emerging new Syria, and sufficient to de-block ongoing but stalled processes in Turkey with a view to solving its Kurdish problem, remains to be seen. But everyone, Donald Trump and his team included, realizes that for there to be stability in the Middle East there has to be stability and reconciliation (and socio-economic recovery) in Syria, and for there to be stability in Syria – and in Turkey – there has to be a “solution” to the Kurdish issue.
So how can we compare the fate and the prospects of the two separate unresolved and unfulfilled “dreams” of nationhood, the Palestinian and the Kurdish varieties?
Perhaps a short, albeit rough and speculative, answer would be that while the Palestinian cause benefits, and now more so than perhaps ever after last summer’s humanitarian outcry, from wide – almost universal – international recognition, leaving the US almost alone as sponsor of the Israeli resistance against Palestinian statehood, the Kurdish cause continues to be stuck in the resistance not only by Turkey but also by the other regional states with a sizeable Kurdish minority, and the hesitancy by their great power sponsors to pay a price for the Kurdish cause, rendering global pro-Kurdish sympathies politically powerless.
It would seem probable, therefore, that now as before the best Kurdish aspirations can hope for is a grand bargain, in Turkey, in Syria and where relevant in Iraq and Iran, under which Kurds trade cultural and citizenry rights inside their countries for an explicit abstention from any claims to self-rule, whereas the Palestinian case, and cause, is much more uncertain, in spite of the wide international rhetorical support, support in principle rather than as political commitment. Given the amount of time that the international community has allowed – applying the definition of hypocrisy – a grand bargain to be rendered increasingly near-impossible, in spite of the impossible-but-indispensable paradox above, it escapes imagination how a compromise could look. Sadly, and ominously.
The key is in Israeli and US politics.
Michael Sahlin