After Iraqi Kurdistan's President Nechirvan Barzani visited Baku, I believe that we Israelis should do everything in our power in order to encourage strong Azerbaijani-Kurdish relations. Israel has to be close to the Kurds and the Azerbaijanis. We have the same interests. Extremism is a problem for all sides concerned. We must do much to help them both with special technology. It is not just how the mullahs are oppressing both Kurds and South Azerbaijanis. And we Israelis have a duty to take a stand against it.
As we speak, Iran is getting closer to getting a nuclear weapon. The best weapon to use against the Iranian nuclear program is to prop up Iran's ethnic minorities in an attempt to topple the mullah's in Tehran. Regime change is Israel's best hope. Both the Kurds and the Azerbaijanis are friendly nations, who proudly wave Israeli flags even though they are Muslim. It is in our interest that both Kurds and Azerbaijanis have a favorable position once the mullah's are toppled, as a free Kurdistan and free South Azerbaijan built on the ashes of Iran will help to create peace and stability in the Middle East. Thus, Israel should encourage Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev to meet more often with the Iraqi Kurdish President and build up a strong unbreakable tri-lateral relationship.
As Diako Moradi, a Kurdish journalist and human rights activist in Norway, related: "After four decades of Islamist rule in Iran, all of the human rights activism of the minorities has been belittled as separatism and the regime has tried to unite all against them. This has caused all of the ethnic minorities to be closer to each other, since they know that the only way to defeat the regime is through unity and cooperation."
Moradi added: "Kurds and Azerbaijanis have been living beside each other in Iran for centuries and always lived in peace with each other, but the mullahs tried to divide them and suppress them under national security slogans. Azerbaijanis and Kurds know that they make a powerful force against the regime. Therefore, they should know each other better, understand the power of unity, and that they have a common enemy, the mullahs. They are not enemies of each other, even though they may have some differences, but they can solve them through dialogue and negotiation."
Indeed, as Iran's Morality Police increasingly crack down on the Iranian people including both Kurds and South Azerbaijanis, Israel must do its maximum to support both nations as they bravely fight against the mullahs in Tehran. After all, the same people who chant "death to Israel" and have a clock that counts down till the destruction of Israel, who targets Israeli and Jewish sites abroad and props up terror groups in Gaza, also deprives both Azerbaijanis and Kurds the right to work and study in their mother tongue. 70,000 Iranian Armenians have schools, but neither 35 million Iranian Azerbaijanis, nor 7 million Iranian Kurds have schools in Iran.
Kurdish dissident Kajal Mohammadi noted that the Iranian regime has been engaged in the systematic killing of Kurds, Al Ahwazi Arabs, Turkmen and Azerbaijanis since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. According to her, "Right from the start, Khomeini declared jihad against the Kurdish political organizations and accused them of enmity against God. Khomeini even went as far as labeling the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan as the 'Party of Satan' and sanctioned mass murder against the Kurdish nation. Thousands of Kurds were executed." The South Azerbaijanis and other ethnic minorities in Iran share a similar story, which helps to increase the bond between Azerbaijanis and Kurds.
Furthermore, from a political point of view, Iran is not the only enemy that Kurds and Azerbaijanis share. Armenian nationalists claim that Urartu in modern day Iraqi Kurdistan was the "first Armenian kingdom." Due to their dream of establishing a Greater Armenia, tens of thousands of Muslim Kurds together with Azerbaijanis were forcibly deported from Armenia, where they had lived for thousands of years.
In today's Azerbaijan, these Kurdish refugees live beside Azerbaijanis and enjoy rights as equal citizens in a multi-cultural Azerbaijan. The Yezidi Kurds who remained behind in Armenia in contrast continue to face discrimination, as demonstrated by the gunning down of a Yezidi funeral in 2017 and the arrest of Yezidi human rights activist Sashik Sultanyan. Similarly, it should be recalled that the same Armenian nationalists who disdain both Kurds and Azerbaijanis also were allied with Yasser Arafat in Lebanon. Thus, the time has come for Israelis, Azerbaijanis and Kurds to unite as a force to be reckoned with in the Middle East and across the globe.
Ayoob Kara served as Israel's communications minister under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
