Kurds and ways
In “Deafening silence” (October 16), Gershon Baskin draws facile but false comparisons between the plights of the Kurds and the Palestinians.
The Kurds have fought for their independence from the time of the ancient Persians, then Alexander the Great and then the Arab Muslims in the 7th century. Baskin positions the Palestinians on the same pedestal of oppression as the Kurds. The Kurds are currently being raped and killed, as, one might be told to believe, are the Palestinians by the Israeli “oppressors.”
Baskin is amazed that MK Ayalet Shaked has recently called for Kurdish independence. How, he wonders, can she not see and understand the contradiction and absurdity of supporting Kurdish independence but not Palestinian independence?
There are many monstrous differences. For example, the Palestinian leadership calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and some are involved in killing as many Jews as possible with guns, knives, bombs, cars and more. The Kurds, on the other hand, have consistently been friends and supporters of Israel and its just cause. Moreover, the history of the Jews in Kurdistan reveals no blemishes, massacres or other atrocities.
There, Mr. Baskin, you have just one of the essential differences between the Kurds and the Palestinians. DIMA OSTER
Jerusalem
Gershon Baskin seems to be deaf to all the voices calling to help the Kurds from the Turkish carpet bombing.
How dare he compare this to what he calls the suffering of the Palestinians by Israel? May I remind him that until the 1960s, there was no “Palestinian people,” there were only Arab refugees who were mistreated by their fellow Arab brethren, placed in camps and held in contempt – not by Israel but by their fellow Arabs. To this day, they have not been absorbed (as Jewish refugees were) but kept in camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt and not allowed to ply any profession.
Only in the 1960s did they refashion themselves as the Palestinian people and thanks to their terrorist leaders, Israelis (not Palestinians) were slaughtered wholesale on buses, airplanes, in restaurants, etc., and to this day because of these “poor” Palestinians we have to endure security checks at airports all over the world.
How dare Baskin compare Israel to the Turks slaughtering Kurds
FREYA BINENFELD Petah Tikva