There is no Palestinian language. There is no distinct Palestinian ethnicity. The term didn't exist before the Roman Empire invented it to tweak rebellious Jews, leveraging the traditional Jewish foes, the Philistines. And yet the international community, especially the left, keeps joining the "Palestinian" activists in calling for a Palestinian homeland, to be carved out of the tiny state of Israel. Most of the Arab-Muslim nations in that part of the world don't recognize Israel, calling it by the Roman name "Palestine," even though before the Romans changed the name, it was called "Judea" — the homeland of the Jews, an appellation that goes back for thousands of years.

To the east of Judea/Palestine/Israel, there are a people who, unlike Palestinians, are ethnically distinct, linguistically distinct, a people who have been recognized as such for thousands of years — Kurdish warriors may have been among the forces that harried the Greek Xenophon during the March of the Ten Thousand in 401 BC, as documented in the Anabasis. The Kurds are like the Palestinians in one primary way: They do not have a homeland. There is no internationally recognized nation of Kurdistan.

So why does the left continually call for a homeland for the Palestinians and not for the Kurds? //

There is, sadly, little chance of the Kurds achieving a nation of their own. There will not be a Kurdistan. The best these people can hope for is a lessening of Turkish hostility and some increased autonomy for Kurdish people in Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. This is a legacy of the Great War, the treaties that carved up the Ottoman Empire, and the rather arbitrary creation of borders by the victorious Allies. Fortunes of war and all that.

But the hypocrisy remains, and it is galling. It's also revealing. The American left, in particular, loves to shout about the need for a Palestinian homeland. Never mind that what passes for Palestinian leadership has turned down offers for a two-state solution many times. The American left, meanwhile, ignores the Kurds, who, again, unlike the Palestinians, are ethnically and linguistically distinct, and have been for thousands of years.

Why? I can only think of one reason. The Kurds, to achieve independence, would have to have territory carved out from majority-Muslim nations: Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. The Palestinians want Israel. All of it. From the river to the sea. Kurdish independence would result in a Kurdish nation. Palestinian independence would result in the destruction (or, at least, the attempted destruction) of Israel.

Once you realize that, the left's hypocrisy starts to make sense. //

Dieter Schultz Jim Stewart
8 hours ago
From what I've read, the Israelis see the Kurds as a stabilizing and blocking force between the Israelis and the Iranians. The Israelis are already working behind the scenes to help establish the Kurds as a blocking force... I expect the Kurds to get something out of the dissolution of Syria. //

anon-89ic
9 hours ago
The Kurds are a real nation. The "Palestinians" are a myth. Those Arabs have a home--in Arabia. They should be deported there. //

norcalguy101
7 hours ago
Please stop referring to the residents of Gaza as “Palestinians”,
They are not Palestinians. The are Sunni Muslims.
In the cast social system of Islam, they are considered to be no better than dogs by the Arab states and Iran, a Persian state.
Rush Limbaugh. RIP, informed his audience long ago the coining the residents of Gaza as Palestinians was a ploy by Yassar Arafat to elicit the emotions of the brain dead in the Western World: liberals.
Please refer to them in the proper ethnic context.