Deputy FM: We have sent humanitarian aid to Kurds

Israel will help the Kurds in any way it can, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said in the Knesset on Wednesday.

The deputy foreign minister added that she could not go into detail about how Israel aids the Kurds, because doing so could hurt their cause.

“Israel has received many requests for aid in diplomatic and humanitarian matters. We are aiding them in various channels,” Hotovely said, in response to a motion to the Knesset’s agenda on the situation of the Kurds in Syria.

In addition, the Foreign Ministry has helped nongovernmental organizations send humanitarian aid to the Kurds.

Hotovely recounted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “condemned the Turkish invasion of northern Syria and warned against ethnic cleansing of the Kurds,” and that Israel conveyed “our truth about the Kurds in a continuing dialogue with the US.”

Israel’s support for the Kurds is based on “historic ties... [and] shared and varied interests,” she added. “There are many Kurdish Jews in Israel who maintained ties with their place of origin. Kurds are a moderate and pro-Western factor in the Middle East.”

Blue and White MK Zvi Hauser initiated the motion to the agenda and accused the government of failing to anticipate the Kurds’ crisis.

“Israel is the nation-state of an ethnic minority in the Middle East,” Hauser said. “For 2,000 years, we suffered from persecution and exile. We should speak in a clear voice about what is happening north of us.”

Likud MK Gideon Sa’ar called to “keep Turkish aggression in northern Syria on the agenda.”

Sa’ar said Israel should promote the Kurds’ cause to the US, and recommended a no-fly zone to protect the Kurds in northern Syria.