From The National
The unravelling of the map of the region would likely lead to chaos of the kind that a strong, nuclear-armed Israel could richly exploit
Benjamin Netanyahu portrait
(Image by (From Wikimedia) Benjamin Netanyahu on September 14, 2010.jpg: US State Dept. derivative work: TheCuriousGnome / , Author: See Source) Details Source DMCA
Palestinians and Israelis watched last week's referendum of Iraq's Kurds with special interest. Israeli officials and many ordinary Palestinians were delighted -- for very different reasons -- to see an overwhelming vote to split away from Iraq.
Given the backlash from Baghdad and anger from Iran and Turkey, which have restive Kurdish minorities, the creation of a Kurdistan in northern Iraq may not happen soon.
Palestinian support for the Kurds is not difficult to understand. Palestinians, too, were overlooked when Britain and France carved up the Middle East into states a century ago. Like the Kurds, Palestinians have found themselves trapped in different territories, oppressed by their overlords.
Israel's complex interests in Kurdish independence are harder to unravel.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the sole world leader to back Kurdish independence, and other politicians spoke of the Kurds' "moral right" to a state. None saw how uneasily that sat with their approach to the Palestinian case.
On a superficial level, Israel would gain because the Kurds sit on plentiful oil. Unlike the Arab states and Iran, they are keen to sell to Israel.
But the reasons for Israeli support run deeper. There has been co-operation, much of it secret, between Israel and the Kurds for decades. Israeli media lapped up tributes from now-retired generals who trained the Kurds from the 1960s. Those connections have not been forgotten or ended. Independence rallies featured Israeli flags, and Kurds spoke of their ambition to become a "second Israel."
Israel views the Kurds as a key ally in an Arab-dominated region. Now, with ISIL's influence receding, an independent Kurdistan could help prevent Iran from filling the void. Israel wants a bulwark against Iran transferring its weapons, intelligence and know-how to Shiite allies in Syria and Lebanon.
Israel's current interests, however, hint at a larger vision it has long harbored for the region.
It began with Israel's founding father, David Ben Gurion, who devised a strategy of "allying with the periphery" -- building military ties to non-Arab states like Turkey, Ethiopia, India and Iran, then ruled by the shahs. The goal was to help Israel break out of its regional isolation and contain an Arab nationalism led by Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Israeli general Ariel Sharon expanded this security doctrine in the early 1980s, calling for Israel to become an imperial power in the Middle East. Israel would ensure that it alone in the region possessed nuclear weapons, making it indispensible to the US.
Sharon was not explicit about how Israel's empire could be realized, but an indication was provided at around the same time in the Yinon Plan, written for the World Zionist Organization by a former Israeli foreign ministry official.
Oded Yinon proposed the implosion of the Middle East, breaking apart the region's key states -- and Israel's main opponents -- by fuelling sectarian and ethnic discord. The aim was to fracture these states, weakening them so that Israel could secure its place as sole regional power.
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