#Ayub Nuri#
From Zionism, there are great lessons to be learned -- especially for the Kurds of Iraq who can use these lessons to solve the problem of their disputed territories.
Zionism brought a people to a land to which they were historically, culturally and emotionally attached.
Thus if the Kurds truly feel attached to the parts of Diyala, Nineveh and Kirkuk which they claim as their own, they should start to act differently. Waiting for the Iraqi constitution or the Iraqi prime minister to solve this issue will get them nowhere. It’s a mistake for which Kurdish leaders and the current generation will be condemned in the future.
First of all, the problem lies in calling those areas “disputed territories.” It is a term invented and used only by the Kurds. The Arabs of Iraq do not see it that way. They see those areas as nothing but inseparable parts of Iraq.
Over the past several years, I have traveled across Iraq, from Mosul all the way to Safwan on the border of Kuwait. I met with many Iraqi secular and religious leaders, Shiites and Sunnis, insurgents, ordinary people and intellectuals. Not once did I ever hear someone mention the disputed territories. To them, even the autonomous Kurdistan Region is a temporary scheme.
Getting back those areas needs clever planning and vision. Every day that passes and the Kurds wait to implement this absurd Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, they only find themselves a step farther from a solution. The Kurds must start settling in those areas en masse.
Israel didn’t begin with bombs and bullets; it started by planting trees. Almost a hundred years before the creation of Israel, Jewish people came from all over the world and planted tens of thousands of trees. From the early 1900s to the late 1960s, they planted 240 million trees on the hills of Israel. Highly educated Jews came from as far away as Milwaukee and Moscow and became farmers where their ancestors had once lived.
That is what the Kurds should do in the disputed areas. Thousands of university graduates are unemployed and frustrated in Kurdistan. Their education, their skills and their energy are wasted. They camp out in front of government offices demanding jobs. The Kurdish government can pay those graduates to work and settle in the disputed territories. They can dig irrigation channels, they can plant trees and they can help local farmers.
New schools must be built in towns and villages that the Kurds believe are theirs. An agricultural institute can be built in Jalawla and the Kurdish ministry of education should send high school graduates from all over Kurdistan to study there. Kurdish and foreign tutors should be invited and enticed by great pay and privileges to go and teach. A university can be built in Khanaqin for oil and gas studies.
Kurdish farmers in northern Diyala should be encouraged to stay, by giving them livestock, advanced farming and harvesting tools with subsidies.
That is exactly what the regime of Saddam Hussein did. He didn’t seized the Kurdish lands with bombs and soldiers; he only encouraged Arab families to come and settle there from throughout Iraq. He gave them land. He gave them seeds for their farms. He bought their products from them. He dug irrigation channels. He made their lives easy. He gave them the reasons and means to stay and prosper.
The Kurds cannot take back those areas by just sending in Peshmargas. For every Peshmarga, a Kurdish family must arrive and settle. The Peshmarga should only be there to protect and guard them.
I read on a Georgian news website this past summer that scores of Kurdish families had crossed the Turkish border into neighboring Georgia looking for field work and day labor. They were experienced farmers and livestock herders. The Kurdish government should form a special committee to locate such families, be they in Turkey, Georgia, or central Asia, and settle them in the disputed territories of Iraq.
Instead of forming all these committees to deal with Baghdad, to oversee Article 140, to study the situation and waste time and money, the Kurds should create a committee for resettlement. That is more practical.
When it first started, Zionism had two wings -- “political Zionism” and “practical Zionism.” Both were vital in bringing the Jewish people back to their homeland and creating a state for them. The Kurds only have the political part, and they don’t even play it correctly.
There are impoverished Kurds everywhere -- in Lebanon, in Egypt, in the former Soviet republics -- I hear about them even in the Sudan. They do not belong to those lands. They should be helped to return to Kurdistan and have an easy life.
Free housing, health care, education should be provided for anyone who is willing to move to a village or town in the disputed territories. If necessary, teachers, engineers and doctors must be brought from abroad despite the high cost and have them serve in the schools, hospitals and institutes.
There are many professional Kurds living in Europe, America and Australia who would happily come to settle permanently or temporarily and work in the plains of Kirkuk and Diyala. But some infrastructure is needed first, including good roads and housing for their families. The Kurdish government can make this possible with a small percentage of its budget. A portion of the region’s oil and gas should be allocated to bring life to the disputed territories.
The Kurds keep blaming Baghdad for pushing Kurds out of Jalawla, Khanaqin, Saadiya and other areas. But Baghdad hasn’t done anything. It’s only turning a blind eye to the continuous flow of Arab families who come and settle in those areas. This blame game must end. It’s time to prove with deeds that those areas belong to the Kurds and that they will do anything to regain them.
The main philosophy of Zionism was to bring a people without land to a land without people. They had to struggle and convince the world powers that Israel was their land and was the only place where they would feel safe and proud. They achieved their goal, and once in Israel, they proved to everyone that that is where they belong -- it is where their heart is, by turning the barren land into farms and the hills into woods. They translated their words into action.
Unfortunately, the Kurds only tend to cry and shed tears for a loss that they often cause it themselves. Since 2003, they have been waiting for the implementation of a constitutional article that means nothing to the Iraqi leaders or the average Arab.
The Kurdish inaction is turning a people with land into a land without people. Many Kurdish families have left the disputed territories. Some of them were threatened by insurgents, but many left because they felt abandoned. They saw a better life in the Kurdistan region.
This should be reversed. The disputed territories must be developed. Some of Kurdistan’s brick, tile and cement factories should relocate to those areas. Some major clinics from Erbil and Sulaimani must relocate to the Kurdish parts of Diyala, Kirkuk and Nineveh. Foreign investors are given free land and are exempt from taxes if they invest in Kurdistan. The same should be done in the disputed territories. Security guarantees can be given through Kurdish Peshmargas guarding investors and their businesses.
Mass settlement of Kurdish people and practical agricultural, education and health projects are the only guarantee to regain the lost territories. Article 140 was initially devised to solve that issue, but it has now become a weapon in the hands of Iraqi leaders through which they drive the Kurds further and further away from the areas every day.[1]