By publishing the images, the media portrayed Israel's illegal act and showed how it broke the international rules of law as well as the violence that Israel used against the civilians. People around the world reacted to this disproportionate retaliation on the high seas that was carried out on a ship which was attempting to deliver humanitarian aid.
Actually, what was encountered on the ship, the Mavi Marmara, was the attack on the common conscious of humankind. The attack on the humanitarian aid flotilla on the high seas can never be explained or legitimatized by neither international rule of law or human values.
As you remember, when Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers in 2006, Israel bombed Lebanon for 30 days. Even in this case, Western countries perceived Israel's bloodshed as a form of self-protection in a region full by threats. However, this last attack, though Israel had in the past proven itself to been ally of the West and had claimed to represent civil values in the Middle East, indicates that Israel's bloody attacks cannot be defended by the Western powers on a legitimate level anymore.
Israel, which developed a hostility concept to deal with radicalism, felt into its own trap following the spread of videos of the operation all over the world. After the attack, Israel thought that it might control the information and mislead international public opinion, but incidents did not develop as expected. After all, Israel is not the only power that has the information and technology in the world.
After Israel's noncompliant intervention, there are certainly some matters that have to be discussed primarily. In this context, there are some questions need to be answered first. Does the common conscience of the world accept the incidents by turning a blind eye or will they say “stop” to Israel's unfair actions? Will the international system accept this lawlessness? Will Israel continue to undermine the international system?
However, as the days passed new questions were consciously posed instead of these questions. The main aim of these questions, which are the product of Israel's psychological war, is to perplex people's minds and to distract the focus of the debates from Israel's inhumane acts. Those who consciously ask these questions are trying to show as if there is a link between radicalism and Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, which Israel perceives as terrorists, as well as that there are similarities between the PKK and Hamas.
If carefully analyzed, neither debate touched upon Israeli attack, but they engineered a news story to divert attention from the scandal. The main aim here is to raise questions about the connections of the members of the Turkish group Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) with the radical organizations such as Hamas and Al-Qaeda and to spread propaganda by circulating rumours of Turkey's collaboration with radical organizations, as if Turkey has close ties with Palestine and Iran.
There have been numerous attempts to draw similarities between the Kurdish problem and the Palestinian problem, the PKK and Hamas, as well as between Turkish and Israeli methods of combating terrorism. However, these are all baseless allegations from many aspects. Above all, the relationship between Turks and Kurds and between Palestinians and Israelis do not have any common ground. The establishments, functions and social structures of these states are very different from each other.
Taking into consideration the relations of the people and the characteristics of terrorist organizations in these regions, it will be seen that the Kurdish and Palestinian issues differ from each other. The strategies and policies of Turkey and Israel for fighting terrorism also have many differences. In this sense, it is necessary to examine the weaknesses of these baseless arguments by analyzing the abovementioned differences.
Kurds and Palestinians
Considering the historical facts and the current situation, it is not possible to find a similar historical background between the Kurds and Palestinians. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which was a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural state, the foundation of the Turkish Republic was made possible not only by the Turks but also by the Kurds. The first parliament of the Republic was formed by many ethnic groups, including Kurds. Thus, the legendary War of Independence was the product of Kurdish and Turkish shoulder-to-shoulder participation. There is no case of an army leaving Ankara to invade specific regions in Turkey. In brief, one can see two ethnic groups coming together to achieve a certain goal working side-by-side sharing the same territory.
In Palestine, one can see a state being formed on the lands that were purchased and/or invaded by the Israelis. Today's Israel is a country that has been in a constant fight with the Palestinians. There is no desire for the Israeli citizens who came from all around the world to share the 'holy lands' with the Palestinians. From the day of its establishment, there has been a deliberate attempt to move the Palestinians out of the region. Since 1948, there has been no policy change towards the Palestinians except the Oslo process led by Yitzhak Rabin. Thus, there are no cultural, political, economic, social, or religious links between the Israelis and the Palestinians as there are between the Turks and the Kurds.
Despite some wrongdoings and unjust acts by the governments towards the Kurds, the Kurds have significant power in Turkish politics, parliament and the decision-making process. This representation is not only limited to the parliament, it equally covers a range extending from economics to art, from social life to bureaucracy. Even the reconciliation among the people forces the implementations of Ankara to a point at which the Kurds benefit equally from all facilities and enjoy their rights. Briefly, those who look for similarities err by only assessing some policies of the government and by overlooking the pervasive reconciliation in the society.
Anyone who claims that there are similarities between the Israeli-Palestinian and Turkish-Kurdish issues should also answer the following questions. Do Turks and Kurds suffer from not being able to create common living spaces? Is there the same hatred between the Kurds and Turks as there is between the Israelis and Palestinians? Are there intermarriages in Israel/Palestine as there are in Turkey? How many Palestinians are there in the Israeli parliament or in the army? Considering the answers to these questions, it is not possible to draw parallels between Israel and Turkey. There are significant differences in the way in which the state functions as well as the current social structures between Turkey and Israel.
PKK and Hamas
One major comparison is usually drawn between Hamas and the PKK. It is claimed that both are terrorist organizations and should be treated in a similar way. Are these two organizations really that similar?
The PKK has increased its attacks on the civilians especially after the period of rapid democratization that began in 2003. In a similar pattern, the PKK was disturbed by the pursuit of peaceful politics focused on the rights and liberties of the Kurds. As we have witnessed in the process of Constitutional reform, new terrorist attacks followed each democratic attempt. In other words, democratization, the removal of the obstacles in terms of cultural rights, resulted in an increase in the number of terrorist assaults. Considering Kurds' active participation in political, social and cultural life in Turkey, the marginality of the PKK can clearly be seen. Although pro-Kurdish parties are presented in the parliament, the PKK constantly carried out terrorist activities. It ineptly increased its attacks in a political atmosphere in which Turkish democracy started to tolerate and support the representation of the radical Kurdish party, Democratic Society Part (DTP), and the closing of DTP was severely criticized and led to support for the DTP's replacement, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). In brief, we can see that terrorism has been on the rise as the economic wealth, social status and political representation of Kurds has increased. Moreover, the PKK does not only target Turks anymore. In the attacks on 3 December 2008, the PKK targeted the Kurdish population in Diyarbakir.
Hamas is significantly different from the PKK. After Hamas won the elections, Palestinians were punished and left to starvation and poverty. In order to prevent Hamas from representing the Palestinians, Palestine was turned into an open prison. Theoretically speaking, however, the launching of rockets by the military division of Hamas can definitely be considered terrorist attacks.
The PKK is an organization that devotes all of its resources and bases its entire strategy on terrorism and terrorist attacks. Hamas, however, is an organization that applied social, economic and political methods before using terrorism as the last option. There is no correlation between democratization in Turkey and the PKK reducing its terrorist acts. For many experts and observers, Hamas winning the elections and becoming more moderate was truly a chance and an opportunity for peace in the region, but Israel chose to punish all the Palestinians because of their decision to choose Hamas to represent them.
Any act of violence targeting civilians is unacceptable and killing innocent people for any political interest should be categorized as a terrorist act. But this alone does not prove any similarity between Hamas and the PKK. There is a complete reverse correlation between the PKK and Hamas' use of terrorism. Palestine is an entity recognized by the United Nations and it can be said that Hamas is a de facto legitimate authority that received the majority support of the Palestinians.
Hamas can be described as a structure that undertakes social and economic projects so as to address the problems of the Palestinians. But the party has also a terrorist element in its structure. The PKK, on the other hand, is an organization that uses only terrorism, killing innocent civilians to achieve its goals.
Conclusion: The Equation 'Hamas=PKK' Is Wrong
Following the Israeli raid on the humanitarian ship the Mavi Marmara, it was surprising that both the liberal Israelis and most of the world reacted by criticizing the Israeli attacks. Although these reactions are far from creating concrete conclusions, “the community of Israel lovers” was disturbed and attempted to obscure Israel's bloody attacks and violation of law through some baseless arguments and questions to occupy the agenda. The attempts to establish links between Kurds and Palestinians and to create similarities between the PKK and Hamas are all products of these aims. However, these groundless arguments denounce those who distorted and concealed the reality. Hamas is a political entity that works for the well being of the punished Palestinian society in terms of social life, healthcare and education. As a result of its implementation, Hamas won the elections and its political projects were approved by its people. In addition, it can be seen also a party that was partly involved in terrorist attacks. On the other hand, the PKK appears as a terrorist organization that only focused on propaganda at the expense of the dead bodies of innocent people and limited its existence to this crime. Therefore, equating Hamas with the PKK is patently false.
