Surprising Ties between Israel and the Kurds
by Ofra Bengio
Summer 2014

In 1966, Iraqi defense minister Abd al-Aziz al-Uqayli blamed the Kurds of Iraq for seeking to establish "a second Israel"             in the Middle East. He also claimed that "the West and the East are supporting the rebels to create [khalq] a new Israeli state in the north of the homeland as they had done in 1948 when they created Israel. It is as if history is repeating itself."[1] An Arab commentator had warned earlier that if such a thing should happen, "the Arabs will face within two decades their second nakba [catastrophe] after Palestine."[2] These contentions speak volumes regarding Iraq's threat perceptions of the Kurds more than four decades after the establishment of the Iraqi state. They also conceptualize Israel as the ultimate evil in the region. Such accusations are echoed today by some Arab media, which claim that Kurdistan is following in the footsteps of "Yahudistan" ("Land of the Jews").....