AL_Shaqaif castle consolidated strong Kurdish–Palestinian relationship

 OMAR MOUSA/GAZA

Ever since the malignant political plans have led the societies of the area to hide its true face by blood and artificial conflict between them, until this day, the cycle of history continues to reestablish itself by its events. The continuous calls and attempts to shape the relationship between peoples based on the special interests aiming at their dissolution, and pushing them away from the integration that was the seed of the real relationship between them.

The current events in the Middle East are the living model intended here, and the schemes mentioned above, aimed primarily at the Kurdish-Arab relationship, but history has always had a word that reshaped the true face of peoples by that of blood and conflict.

As we speak about the history cycle that continues to emphasize fraternity of the peoples, the 35th anniversary of the Battle of al-Shaqaif Castle in which the Arab blood is mixed with the Kurdish, is on the way to defend the noble idea of the just cause of the world.

The relationship between these two peoples, as an ordinary association, may seem to be a serious avoidance on the basis of this relationship. The holders of the common cause -  two peoples - have started from the principle of the tripartite fraternity of the oppressed, which requires the oppressed peoples to share the torment and seek with one hand freedom, which is the principle of the Kurdish-Palestinian relationship with blood, as a noble and unique model for all the peoples of the world seeking a decent life.

The Palestinian-Kurdish relationship with blood

On 6 June, while three Israeli military brigades attacked the historic al-Shaqaif Castle, with the aim of destroying the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) forces in Lebanon, the blood of the Kurdish martyrs, comrades "Mohammad Atmaga ,Wali Jakmak, Ismat Ozkan, Kamal Glick, Amin Yashar, Sharif Arras , Mustafa Maranquez, Shehab eddin Kurt, Arfan Ay, Sulaiman Tuzjo, Kurgan Ozjan, Abdulla Kumaral, Abdul Qadir Jobuk Jo "who stood with their arms alongside their comrades from the Palestinian forces, repulsing this Israeli aggression, mingling their blood with the blood of their Palestinian siblings, backing their just cause.

This famous historical battle, which became a military model, was carried out by Israeli military academies when, in 1982, Israel invaded Beirut in order to destroy the armed Palestinian resistance movement.

This struggle has turned into a reality that has been marked by a fundamental connection between the Palestinian and Kurdish causes. The causes reflect the Kurdish nationalism and the Arab Palestinian nationalism’s tendency to liberation and living, but this liberal tendency has become a systematic repression by colonial forces that directly control the political process in the region whether through the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which was the real political basis for legitimizing the establishment of an Israeli entity to expel the Palestinian people from their land, or the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, which divided the geographic regions with the Kurdish population among four countries competing against each other to suppress the aspiration of the Kurdish national liberation.

To return to the battle, where the clashes took place, exactly between the Special Commando Units of the Golani Brigade of Israeli army on the one hand and the PLO fighters fighting side by side with PKK fighters on the other. Hundreds of fighters were kept at hands of Israeli army as prisoners, and transferred by Israeli authorities into occupied Palestine, including dozens of young Kurds, "according to reports by Israeli studies centers.

In addition to the prisoners and martyrs mentioned in the report, there are corpses of three martyrs who remained unidentified, according to the commander of "al-Jarmak" Battalion at the time "Moin Taher" to Hawar news agency (ANHA) and the martyrs are likely to be Kurds as well as 12 whose names were known.

The joint statement issued by the National Front for Liberation of Palestine and PKK on the martyrs of the resistance of Castle al-Shaqaif documented, at that time, names of all the martyrs of the Kurds and Palestinians in album Martyrs, there is also a record issued by the House of Serxwebûn in 1983 belonging to PKK. However, these events have not been archived and saved from the Palestinian side, as the rest of the events of the time of the Palestinian revolution because of the circumstances Palestine was going through, which was the reason for scarce available information, according to the writer Mazen Safi.

The Israeli forces tightened its grip on the castle only after heavy sacrifices made by Palestinian-Kurdish forces, which infuriated the Israeli government as the extent of steadfastness shown by the forces was tremendous, and how the Kurdish forces participated alongside the Palestinians, according to the famous British journalist who covered War, Robert Fisk in the book "Lebanon in War."

This heroic participation was the seed of cooperation at all levels between the Palestinian and Kurdish peoples, although it extends to the previous stage. The Kurds also had a remarkable role in the presence of many Kurdish soldiers, officers and volunteers from Syria and Iraq in the battles of Palestine since al-Nakba. The Kurdish political movement, since its inception, has maintained in its struggle programs a special place for Palestine and the Palestinian cause

However, this stage - the Battle of Castle al-Shaqaif - was the official declaration and the frank Kurdish and the Kurdish people and PKK forces’ position that began an armed struggle against the policy of fascist Turkey against the Kurds since the eighties of the last century. While the Turkish state was the only Muslim state that recognized Israel in 1949, simultaneously, it is cultivating the Palestinians' illusion of victory. Turkey was the first to legitimize the presence of the Israelis on the land of Palestine, and its steps continue to support Israel day by day, in a noisy atmosphere and propaganda deluding Palestinians of its solidarity with them.

This history confirms the good relations between Kurdish and Arab peoples in the region amid attempts to distort these relations and clearly shows that this agreement and integration between them helps the Kurdish and Arab peoples to develop, possess power and build democracy against the fascist and capitalist forces that struggle to create chaos and destruction in the region and to bring woes and apartheid on the people.

The Palestinian-Kurdish relationship: political, military and cultural solidarity

Not only did these relations between the two peoples restrict to political solidarity promoted by the wave of movements of the military left, which brought together the various issues of different peoples and ethnicities against regional and international domination, according to the Kurdish writer Dara Abdullah but also exceeded that to the direct military training between fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and fighters from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon, in order to benefit from the mutual military and mutual pursuit of a shared Kurdish-Arab vision of liberation, to destroy national extremism and to establish concepts of peoples freedom and social justice, for peoples struggling to live in dignity.

It is also mentioned that communications at the leadership level did not stop between the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocelan and the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat in particular, until Ocalan became prisoner in Turkish prisons. The author and renowned European scholar Gordon Thomas, author of the famous book "Mossad Secrets” notes that Israeli intelligence has the upper hand, in the management of the attempt to kidnap Ocalan.

Israeli-Turkish intelligence relations have not ceased till this day. Israel has been collecting information about PKK positions and activists and sending them to Turkey in the context of their strong and reciprocal relations.

After return of the Palestine Liberation Organization leadership to Palestine and the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, the Palestinian leadership remained faithful to its principles. The bilateral relations between the Kurdish and Palestinian peoples witnessed a new qualitative leap in the opening of the office of the Kurdish movement in Palestine as a representative of official character of the Kurdistan National Liberation Movement.

In the summer of 1999, the late President Yasser Arafat sponsored the founding conference of the Palestinian-Kurdish Friendship Society held in Ramallah, the first Arab-Kurdish friendship society in the modern era, where the Kurdish side met with the establishment of the first Kurdish-Arab Friendship Association in Hewler in Kurdistan region of Iraq in 2000.

The Kurdish-Palestinian relationship continues in the same fraternal and solidarity atmosphere, despite all the attempts that sought to sabotage this relationship through the racist concepts that are broadcast between the Arab and Kurdish peoples as a result of the tricks of imperialism and reactionary authorities in the region and what brings together the Arab and Kurdish peoples much more than can be distinguished. The Kurdish-Palestinian relationship will remain the living model of the brotherhood of peoples in an age of intense division and conflict.

ANHA