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Turkey vehemently criticizes the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip, and many countries of the world supported the “freedom flotillas” that made successive trips to ostensibly try and bring humanitarian aid to Gaza. Turkey has made a lifting of the blockade on Gaza a precondition for resumption of diplomatic ties with Israel, and has vehemently criticized Egypt for also limiting traffic into Gaza from its border.
The discourse focuses on the huge injustice of collective punishment of all of Gaza’s people for the politics of their Hamas rulers. Even though Hamas has launched thousands of rockets aimed at Israeli civilian centers, sent infiltrators to attack Israel and declares the destruction of Israel and complete liberation of Palestine to be its main goal, Tel Aviv is accused of overreacting with its blockade.
Yet somehow when it comes to the Kurds in Syria, it seems perfectly fine to blockade them. The world does not cry out, and no “freedom convoys” get dreamed up by the international hippie Birkenstalkanista movement. Turkey does not let traffic cross into Syrian Kurdistan unless it is in the form of bearded Jihadis, it seems. Turkey is also building a 2 meter-high fence-wall to block off Rojava. Even the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) seems to be playing the role of Egypt in this case, letting humanitarian traffic through but blocking other goods so as not to enrich the PYD.
Adding to the double standard, there does not even seem to be that much of a real comparison between the Syrian Kurdish political parties and Hamas. The Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its YPG Popular Protection Units have organic links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), but they have never attacked any neighbouring state – including Turkey. There has not been one single rocket, commando or suicide bomber sent over the border to anywhere - including non-Kurdish parts of Syria, as far as I can tell. Instead, they keep insisting that they respect Turkey and want no trouble with it. They are not talking about marching on Damascus or Homs. They are just defending their towns and cities. Although the PYD recently declared the establishment of an interim government, it is asking for autonomy within Syria rather than its own state. The interim government also welcomes Syrian Arabs, Christians, Turkmen and others within its institutions.
What’s more, the “blockade” on the Gaza Strip hardly seems comparable to what’s being done to Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan). Israel blocks military goods and dual use items from entering Gaza, but other materials seem to be entering unhindered these days. Statistics for the last year are one thousand to six thousand truckloads of goods (mostly food) a month entering Gaza from Israel, several hundred truckloads of medicines and thousands of liters of cooking oil and diesel fuel. Hundreds of patients from Gaza are also admitted to Israel for medical treatment each month (some months in 2013 had over 1000 patients admitted).
This is not of course to say that Gazans have it easy – everything from construction materials to jobs and electricity are in short supply there and travel outside the strip is anything but easy for ordinary Gazans – but I suspect that the people of Rojava have it a lot worse at the moment. At the same time, the people of Rojava are not assembling suicide bomb vests and spouting radical Islamist diatribes – instead, they are shooting radical Jihadis in Syria. One would think the Western world, and in particular the United States and the KRG, could at least recognize this and thank them. They don’t have to arm them, but they could at least let in the kind of supplies that Israel allows into Gaza. I realize the PYD are not angels, and their far Left political discourse alienates many – but surely the people of Rojava should not be collectively punished because of their political rulers?
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since August 2010. He is the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (2006, Cambridge University Press).
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