Jews had constant presence in the land, especially around Jerusalem, for over 3000 years.

No, Palestinians make up over 70% of Jordan's population. It is a state created by the British and is not a democracy so it is occupied Palestinian territory.

while Turkey claims to want Kurds as full citizens with equal rights, they also use disproportionate force on the Kurds than the rest of the population.

The barrier to autonomy has lowered since 1945. There once was an issue of being attacked and swallowed up by stronger nations or armies, so small, unique groups would band with larger groups to form a protected nation or kingdom. That was true in the 1800s, it's not true today. Today, if the Intl Law and community act properly, Tamils could get their own State, Kurds could have their own, Coptics, Nubians, Western Saharans, Basques, Tibetans.... I predict in the future we will see more flexing of muscles on the democratic front by smaller populations insisting on self-rule and Statehood, like the Flemish or people from Quebec.

and Armenia, and traditional Kurdistan...all entities that have lost land to the Turkish occupier. Israel, on the other hand, was built on traditional Jewish land which was stolen and occupied by Arab hordes...a fact Arabs celebrate to this day. In legal terms, 95% of the land in Palestine was public land, and none of the private land (prior to 1948) was to become State land but rather remained in private hands, inside the State of Israel. BIG difference.

How about a flotilla to support Kurdish independence? They certainly deserve it and have been dealing with discrimination and repression for ages. Great article.

Kurds deserve their State.

Jordan is Palestine.

on Israeli territory. In 1922, the League of Nations confirmed the British Mandate of Palestine. The greater part (77%) of the Palestinian Mandate (the Jewish homeland) became the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946. Transjordan went over the Jordan River in 1948 and occupied the Jordan Valley, Judea and Samaria, an act which was condemned by nearly all nations of the UN and Transjordan became Jordan. Jordan attacked Israel also in 1967 and lost the occupied territories to Israel. Jordan is already a part of 'the state of Palestine,' which the Arabs want to restore-without the State of Israel in its midst. Now, Israel is left with less than 20% of the Mandate Land.

Mavi marmara was full of kurds.

WE EXPECT ALWAYS YOUR INSTRUCTIF ARTICLES !!

AS THE FAMOUS SONG SAYS : BY BY HAPPINESS HELLO LONELINESS !!!

it was you who were kicked out of Europe and unwanted in the Middle East. Am I wrong?

jews are indeed indigenous to the middle east, according to history, language, culture and GENETICS. dna studies match the historical record. the anti-semitic fairy tales of european jews being somehow "not jewish" just don't wash. the arab "palestinians", on the other hand, were registered by unrwa with as little as TWO years residency. (a great many of them were economic migrants from neighbouring countries, drawn by the zionist reconstruction.) and you claim that they are "indigenous"? absolutely, just not to the land of israel!

how can there possibly be 10 million "palestinians" worldwide, as you say? about half a million arab refugees fled palestine in 1948, and a similar number stayed to become israeli citizens. arab israelis number about 1 million now. even with all the fraud that is unrwa, how could the population have increased 1000% in 60 years? or are most of them "honorary palestinians", like yasser arafat (who was born in cairo)?

To say that Turkey is 'not wanted in the 'mideat' by the Arabs ignores Turkey's close ties to Syria, hamas terrorists, and non-Arab Iran. What other Arab states resent /f ear is Turkey's clear ambition to dominate the Middle East. From this comes Erdogan's constant attacks against Israel which is a real economic, military and political competitor in the region. Israel has a working relationship with Egypt and Jordan, a close military relationship to Turkey, an improving relationship with Greece and strong ties to Europe (EU and eastern Europe) plus a very close relationship with the U.S. none of which Turkey can come close to matching. Hence Turkish petroleum industry chief's statement earlier this year that Turkey sees its close ties to Iran as more important than its relationship with th U.S.

The Kurds have been a people for thousands of years, while the Palestinians only decided that they would represent themselves as a separate people in the mid 1960's. Before that their leaders insisted that they were not a separate people, but southern Syrians. The name Palestinian denoteed a Jewish citizen of the British Palestinian Mandate. In the Arabic articles there are statements that their treatment of the Palestinians as a separate people is only a tactial ploy. That they will be united with other Arab Nations and/or peoples as soon as Israel is (pardon the thought) liquidated.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION : SALAHADDIN AYYOUBI WAS THE KURDISH THAT DEFEATED THE CHRISTIANS AND LIBERATED JERUSALEM . AS FOR THE SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICIENT THE JEW ( HIS MOTHER WAS JEWISH ) CONSTRUCTED THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM UPON THE WISH OF HIS BELOVED WIFE HURREM SULTAN ALSO A JEWISH WOMAN TO PROTECT THE JEWISH PEOPLE FROM THE BANDITS . SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICIENT GAVE ALSO TO DONNA GRACIA THE GREAT PHILANTROPIST THE PERMISSION TO BUILD A SETTLEMENT AT TIBERIA FOR THE JEWS RUNNING AWAY FROM THE CHRISTIAN OPPRESSION IN EUROPE !!

Dear Anton, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. To put it simply ,Turkiye cannot support Hamas but reject PKK, cannot support Kosovo but reject Kurdistan, cannot ask for armenian withdraw from Artiashk ,while remaining herself in Northern Cyprus. A serious state must follow the same rules for her decisions, instead of just following her interests. Concerning the kurds now, they participate in turkish political life, but it seems they are not very happy.That explains why they organisied the Democratic Kurdish Autonomy with more than 850 participants.Some efforts towards their assimilation are really taking place, but probably are not enough. The bottom line is that you must not try to inflame your neighbours house,because you can be burned too. Human life is too precious, whether it belongs to a turkish soldier, a kurdish peasant, an israeli settler or a serbian living in Mitrovitsa.

In 2003 and 2004, the Kurds were nice to us when our people deployed there. They liked having us around, and we liked being there. I actually heard our deployers refer to it as Kurdistan, and - at least at that time - it was one of the few places in Iraq where our folks felt safe.

1. The "palestinian" Arabs are not home in Israel. 2. Their home is Jordan. To give the "palestinian" Arabs autonomy, simply allow them to claim their already-extant Jordanian citizenship, repatriate them to Jordan, depose the Hashemite ruler currently occupying the throne there, and then let Jordan thrive.

It's not Sultan Suleiman who defeated the Christians in the Holy Land, it's Salaaddin, who indeed was of Kurdish origins. Salaaddin was no Kurdish nationlist, his leadership had very little to do with his ethnic idendity, but saw himself as a muslim leader. There already was a Jewish community in the Holy Land at that point (there always were Jews in Israel), and far from recruiting Jews from elsewhere, his relationship with Jews was one of a muslim conqueror, with everything that this implies.

No you are not wrong, jut anti-Semitic, like most Turks. I am not sure if you even realize how disgusting your logic is. In a survey conducted in 2008 by the Pew Research Center, over 60% of Turks answered that they would rather not have a Jewish neighbor. There are about 20 000 Jews living in Turkey today. The population of Turkey is over 70 million. You do the math.

Salahuddin (Saladin) defeated crusaders in 1176 in Hittin and later took Jerusalem, which is described in the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" btw. In the time of crusaders Jews of major cities were massacred, and remnats fled to Mesopotamia. However, significant Jewish communities remained in Gaza, Askelon and in isolated villages of southern Judea. When Salahuddin took Jerusalem, by the advice of his Jewish physician and advisor - the famous Maimodies, he invited the Jews of Askelon to resettle the Jewish destroyed neighbourhood of Jerusalem.

The writer of this op-ed piece is just being a smart-ass. What does he want to say? That the Palestinians deserve a state (just as the Kurds)? Or that neither of them do? And which Palestinians? There is no parallel between the Kurds (that are Turkish citizens with full voting rights) and the Palestinians of the occupied territories. There is a parallel thought between the Arab Israelis and the Turkish Kurds, being historically discriminated against minority populations. But it's not the Arabs go the Galilee that have asked the UN to recognise them as a state, now is it?

I am from Sulaimani, Kurdistan of Iraq. I want to let you know that All Kurds love Israel and Jewish people because we both as minorities have a common history of oppression by radical Arabs. in addition, we are proud of Israel as the only democratic state in the Middle-East. There were alot of Jewish Kurds, who left kurdistan to Israel because of the tyranny of Iraqi Arab-ruling regimes. I hope the day will come (Independent Kurdistan), when all Jewish Kurds will be able to return or visit their second or rather first country. In sum, we Kurds lived very peacefully with our Jewish brothers.