Below, we reprint an interview which the Greek socialist collective Ela Liberta conducted with Joseph Daher, Swiss-Syrian socialist academic and activist.

May 8, 2018

A) Ela Liberta: A large part of the Left chose not to support the Syrian revolution, or even stood by the Assad dictatorship. The main argument is that the Syrian regime was for years an ally of the Palestinian movement. Its overturn it would be a very serious defeat for the Palestinians. Is there any truth in these allegations? What were the relations between the Syrian Baath regime and the Palestinian liberation movement?What has been the treatment of Palestinian refugees in the Syrian camps all this years? How did the Palestinians of Syria see the Syrian revolution? Have Palestinians been involved in protest demonstrations?

Joseph Daher: The idea that the Assad regime is a supporter of Palestinian liberation is one of its biggest lies. Actually the final break in 1970 between Salah Jadid, de facto leader of Syria at the time, and Hafez al-Assad, who was Minister of Defense and head of the Air force, occurred following the refusal of Hafez al-Assad to support the government decision to allow the Palestinian Liberation Army (under command of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA)) to intervene in Jordan during the war in 1970 between the Palestinian resistance and King Hussayn’s army. This led to the bloody Black September with thousands Palestinians killed. The Ba’th party led by Jadid started a process to expel Assad from his positions of power, in order to dominate the army more firmly. The decision was never implemented. The army took control over the party headquarters, on the orders of Hafez al-Assad and Mustafa Tlass. This new bloody coup led to complete control of the party and of the regime by Assad.

Assad’s regime forces entered Lebanon in 1976 to crush Palestinian and Lebanese leftist forces with the support and approval of the United States and Israel.

Throughout the eighties you had the war of the camps between mostly Amal and Palestinian groups, and Syria was supporting Amal against the Palestinian groups and crushing them.

Less known, following 1982 and the crushing of Palestinian groups in Lebanon by the Syrian regime, Yarmouk camp, which is a neighborhood of Palestinians in Damascus, witnessed a couple of uprisings or protest movements on a massive level within Damascus. There was massive repression by the Syrian secretive services against them, with more than a 1,000 political prisoners throughout the eighties in Assad’s prisons.

From 1974 until 2011, not a single bullet was shot from Syria to liberate the occupied Golan. Assad was always ready to enter into a peace agreement with Israel if Israel gave back at least a section of the occupied Golan but Israel never wanted that. It wasn’t the opposite and it’s very important to understand this. Until this day they see Assad as the lesser evil, as the best guarantee for their own borders. So this is why they are happy with a weakened dictatorship in Syria, as opposed to regime change. Israel fears various uprisings in the region, because authoritarian regimes had interest to, directly or indirectly, collaborate with Israel and crush their own people along with the Palestinians.

The best example was a statement made by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2011, when he declared that the biggest threat to Israel is a successful Egyptian revolution, an Egyptian democracy, and not Iran. Because this revolution could be extended to the region, and people liberating themselves will turn towards the Palestinian cause that has been a central cause for decades in the region. So no, definitely the Assad regime is very far from being an ally of the Palestinian people or of any of the peoples struggling for freedom and dignity.

Since 2011, there has been massive repression against Palestinians refugees in Syria. Syria’s Yarmouk camp suffered a horrible siege with hundreds of people dying of hunger etc. In the first week of the uprising Bouthaina Shaaban, the advisor of the Syrian regime, accused the Palestinians of fomenting sectarian strives within Syria, especially in Latakia etc. Several Palestinian refugee camps have been bombed.

There are more than 20,000 Palestinians wanted by the Assad regime.

Currently, Syrian military operations and airstrikes are continuing in various areas, including targeting massively notably Yarmouk camp occupied by Islamic state, but in which between 300 to 1000 civilians still remain. Since April 19, 5,000 of the estimated 6,000 civilians left in Yarmouk when the offensive against IS began have fled to the nearby village of Yalda, according to the United Nations.  While they are no longer under fire, they are also in dire need, as Chris Gunness, spokesman for UNRWA, said many of the new arrivals to Yalda are “begging for medicine and are sleeping in the streets”.

We have to make clear that however like other ethnic and religious groups in Syria, there was no single political position among Palestinians in Syria. Some were opposed to the regime and were issued from a variety of political spectrum (leftists, liberals and Islamic fundamentalists), including Palestinian-Syrian youth activists, who participated in the uprising since the very beginning as demonstrators; organizers of aid and relief work for wounded and internally-displaced Syrians; or as citizen journalists, photographers and media activists. Some individuals also joined armed opposition groups, even jihadist groups such as IS and Hay’at Tahrir Sham, although not in massive numbers. However other sectors of Palestinians Syrians supported the regime and Palestinian pro-regime militias existed as well such as Liwa al-Quds, Quwat al-Sa’iqa (military wing of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party- Palestine Organization), etc… The fighters Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command were actually working hand in hand with the mukhabarat and running security patrols for the regime in the Yarmouk camp and repressing activists. The majority of Palestinians in Syria who have taken up arms in the war actually supported the Syrian regime.

I believe that the liberation of the popular classes of the region and of Palestine are linked. The liberation of Palestine and its popular classes is linked to the liberation and emancipation of the popular classes in the region against their ruling classes and the various imperialists, particularly the USA and Russia, and regional powers, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. In this similar logic we have to fight against all attempts by regimes and Islamic reactionary forces to divide the popular classes according to their gender, religious sects, nationalities, etc. in an attempt to rule them and therefore prevent their liberation and the Palestinian popular classes’ liberation as well.

The multiplication of attacks by Israel in Syria is linked to Iranian presence and influence. Unwilling to see any radical change at its borders, Israel favored a similar option in Syria to the USA’s. The main priorities of the Israeli state were firstly to prevent the civil war in Syria from spreading across its borders and secondly to prevent chemical weapons from falling into the hands of extremist Islamic groups or the transfer of significant arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon. In September 2017, former Israeli air force chief Amir Eshel declared Israel had hit arms convoys of the Syrian military and its Hezbollah allies nearly 100 times since the beginning of 2012. Assad’s regime, unwilling to provoke Israel, never responded to these interventions, except in February 2018 when an anti-aircraft fire downed an Israeli warplane returning from a bombing raid on Iran-backed positions in Syria. Israel then launched a second and more intensive air raid, hitting what it stated were 12 Iranian and Syrian targets in Syria, including Syrian air defense systems. Following this confrontation, both Israel and Syria signaled they were not seeking wider conflict, while Russia and the USA were concerned about any more violent escalation.

Israeli authorities also publicly stated their opposition to seeing any Iranian or Hezbollah troops close to its borders and called on Russia to prevent this from happening. In this context, Israel multiplied attacks, especially from 2017, against Hezbollah and pro-Iranian targets in Syria.

The main issue today for Israel is therefore the presence of Iran and Hezbollah close to its borders in Syria.

B) Ela Liberta: The relations of the Assad regime with the Kurds are rather more complicated. The Syrian Baath regime retained a different attitude towards Kurdish movements and Kurdish political organizations in the countries of the region (Turkey, Iran, Iraq). In Syria for decades Syrian Kurds suffered a rather hard oppression. Would you like to explain these contradictory polities?

JD: The first Syrian Kurdish parties were established in the 1950s as the result of an increasingly aggressive and chauvinistic Arab nationalism and growing frustration with Kurdish members of the Syrian Communist Party. While Kurds had a significant presence in the party, and were close to it, many came to the conclusion that the party headed by Khalid Bakdash would not defend Kurdish rights and actually opposed the recognition of Kurdish national rights in Syria.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Kurds in Syria were of the main scapegoats of rising Arab nationalism in Syria. They were presented as hired agents working at the service of powerful foreign enemies, especially American and Zionist imperialism. The first measures of the “Arab belt” plan started in 1962. This policy of the “Arab Belt’ was a plan for a cordon sanitaire between Syrian and neighboring Kurds around the northern and northeastern rim of the Jazirah, along the borders with Turkey and Iraq. An “exceptional census” of the Jazirah population in 1962 resulted in around 120 000 Kurdish being denied nationality and declared as foreigners, leaving them, and subsequently their children, denied of basic civil rights and condemned to poverty and discrimination.

The Assad regime continued policies of discrimination and maintained the institutional racist system against Kurdish populations in Syria. Between 1972 and 1977, a policy of colonization was implemented in specific regions populated dominantly by the Kurdish population in the continuation of the “Arab Belt” plan. Around 25,000 “Arab” peasants, whose lands were flooded by the construction of the Tabqa dam, were sent in the High Jazirah and established in “modern villages” close to Kurdish villages.

Meanwhile, the regime developed a policy to coopt certain segments of Kurdish society – especially with mounting opposition in the country at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s – and to serve foreign policy objectives. Some Kurds participated in the regime’s system through the incorporation of certain Kurdish elites from the religious brotherhoods and official sheikhs such as Ahmad Kuftaro, mufti of the republic between 1964 and 2004 and Muhammad Sa’id Ramadan al-Bouti. Several Kurds held positions of local authority, while others reached high-ranking ones. However, this was on the condition of not demonstrating any particular Kurdish ethnic consciousness. Some Kurds were also included at the end of the 1970s and in the 1980s into elite divisions of the army or linked to specific military groups serving the regime. Another way of cooptation was the complicity of local security services with certain families of active Kurdish smugglers in the Jazirah on the Syrian-Turkey and Syria-Iraqi frontiers.

This policy of cooptation included some Kurdish political parties as well. The Assad regime actually established a form of alliance with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)[1] and Ocalan became an official guest of the regime at the beginning of the 1980s in the background of Syrian and Turkish tensions. The PKK was authorized to recruit members and fighters, reaching between 5,000 and 10,000 persons in the 1990s and to launch military operations from Syria against the Turkish army. PKK had offices in Damascus and in several northern cities. PKK militants took de facto control over small portions of Syrian territory, particularly in Afrin. Other Kurdish political parties also collaborated with the Syrian regime such as the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)[2]led by Jalal Talabani, who had been in Syria since 1972 and later in 1979 the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP)[3) affiliated with Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani.

The condition sine qua non of this support from the Syrian regime was the abstention of the Kurdish movements of Iraq and Turkey from any attempt at mobilizing Syrian Kurds against the Syrian regime. Damascus was able to instrumentalize these Kurdish political groups to serve its own interests by using them as a tool in foreign policies to achieve some regional ambitions and at the national level by diverting the Kurdish issue away from Syria, towards Iraq and Turkey.

Relations between the Kurdish political parties and the Syrian regime became increasingly bad at the end of the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s. The improvement of Turkish and Syrian relations prompted Syrian security forces to launch several waves of repression against the remaining PKK elements in Syria. Following the exile of Ocalan in 1998 and imprisonment of many PKK members, party’s activists tried to establish new parties with the double objective of avoiding state repression and providing support for its thousands of members and sympathisers. The PYD (Democratic Union Party) was established in 2003 as a successor to the PKK in Syria.

Relations were similarly weakening with KDP and PUK from 2000 as Damascus was trying to normalize relations with Baghdad, which meant an end to its interference in Iraqi Kurdish affairs.

In 2004, the Kurdish uprising, which had started in the town of Qamishli and had spread in the predominantly Kurdish regions throughout the country – Jazirah, Afrin -, but also in Aleppo and Damascus, was severely repressed by the security forces. The regime appealed for the collaboration of some Arab tribes of the Northeast that had historical connections to the regime. Around 2,000 protesters were arrested and 36 killed, while others were forced to leave the country. The Kurdish Intifada, as well as developments in Iraqi Kurdistan with increasing autonomy and Kurdish symbols being raised, gave Syrian Kurdish people increased confidence to mobilize for their rights and strengthened the nationalist consciousness of the youth and its will for change.

Kurds continued to assert themselves by organizing events celebrating their Kurdish identity and protesting anti-Kurdish policies of the government. Kurdish students of various political groups were also very active throughout these years on university campuses, particularly Damascus and Aleppo. Syria pursued harsh repressive policies against Kurdish political and cultural activisms and celebrations.

 

D) Ela Liberta: How did the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza see the Syrian revolution? What was the attitude of their political organizations (the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Palestinian Left)?

JD: There are a variety of opinions among Palestinians in the Palestinians Occupied Territories. At the beginning of the Syrian Uprising, there was a general atmosphere of support following Egypt and Tunisia. As the uprising turned more and more into an armed war after 2013, positions were less clear, although there are general sympathies towards the Syrian uprising until today.

The PLO leadership led by Fatah, which was previously mostly opposed to the Assad regime, increasingly came closer to the regime since the beginning of the uprising. In January 2016, representatives of the Fatah movement from Syria and the occupied West Bank hailed the regime of Bashar Al-Assad and the Egyptian army during a celebration of its 51st anniversary in Damascus. They collaborate on various issued regarding Palestinians in Syria.

Officially the PFLP is neutral but most of its leadership is very close to the Assad regime because it depends on its relation and even to some extent, some people say, provision of money. They also have a very close collaboration with Hezbollah. A figure of the movement Leila Khaled has on several occasions claimed her support to the Assad regime. However among the youth and the base of the party feelings are more mixed, and even some support the uprising.

For more than a decade to the uprising, Hamas’ political bureau was based in Syria. Hamas was interested in maintaining its relationship with the Syrian regime, which has supported and welcomed the group when most other Arab regimes closed their doors.

While some senior Hamas officials and cadres have loudly voiced their support for the Syrian revolution at the beginning, including Ismael Hanieh in a speech delivered at Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque on February 24 2012, Hamas officially maintained a neutral position for a long time. The movement has supported the rights of the Syrian people while neither condemning nor directly opposing the Syrian regime. The group has even attempted to mediate the crisis on several occasions, and has encouraged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to undertake immediate reforms. Mahmoud Zahar, acting Hamas foreign minister at the time, declared that Hamas’ position on the revolutions in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt was neutral, and that it has adopted the same policy toward Syria.

The on-going conflict and increased tensions with the Syrian regime eventually prompted the Hamas leadership in Damascus to leave the country in February 2012.

Hamas relations with the Syrian regime worsened throughout 2012, especially following a speech in Turkey in September 30, 2012, in which Khaled Mish’al voiced his support for the Syrian revolution. In November 2012, Syrian national television was accusing Mish’al of high treason. In addition to this, Hamas military brigades, Izz al-Din al-Qassam, participated in Syria in military confrontations alongside armed opposition forces against the Syrian regime, and shared some of its expertise with the Free Syrian Aramy brigades, notably in the construction of tunnels in the battle of Qussayr in May 2013.

Hamas’ support for the Syrian revolution however became less vocal and less clear after summer 2013. For example, in October 2013, Mish’al urged “groups fighting in Syria to direct their rifles towards Palestine,” announcing his “support of a peaceful solution in Syria that guarantees the freedom and dignity of people”, while adding that “peoples have the right to rise up for their rights, but this must be done through peaceful means,” in reference to Syria’s armed groups. Moreover, following the entry of Jabhat Al-Nusra, Al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, and the Islamic State into the al-Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus in April 2015, the Hamas affiliate in the camp, Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis, which had been actively fighting the regime since the start of the Syrian revolution, were compelled to collaborate with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command led by Ahmed Jibril, very well known to be an active supporter of the Syrian regime, while an injured leader of Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis, Ahmad Zaghmout, was treated in a regime hospital.

Hamas has been for more than a year under pressure from several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which see it as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization considered terrorist by these regimes. This led to a strengthening Hamas of its relations with Iran and Turkey. Hamas officials have praised officials and governments of these countries… especially the latest Turkish military led operation and occupation of Afrin.

 

F) Ela Liberta: What stance did the Syrian Kurds and their political organizations hold when the Syrian revolution broke out?

JD: Protests in predominantly Kurdish areas started as soon as the end of March and beginning of April 2011. The first demonstrations were organized in ‘Amuda and then reached the city of Qamishli on April 1st calling for freedom, to brotherhood between Arab Kurds and solidarity with Dar’a. In the Friday demonstrations, protestors often chanted for freedom and dignity in various languages: Arabic, Kurdish and Assyrian communities present in the Jazirah. Other Kurdish inhabited cities were also active in the protests with Kurdish flags raised alongside Syrian ones.

The protest movement in these areas emerged around pre-existing youth groups or newly established LCCs, seeing themselves as part of the national movement against the regime.

Despite their activism in the uprising, the Kurdish LCCs had to face skepticism and opposition of traditional Kurdish political parties from the beginning, almost all of whom were unwilling to participate in anti-regime protests or were very cautious preferring reforms. Only the Kurdish Future Movement in Syria led by Mishal Tammo and Yekiti publicly supported the uprising from the beginning, while many youth members of the Yekiti party were among the organizers of the protests.

In late April of 2011, the Kurdish Political Congress,[4] which was established in 2009, grew in number and established the National Movement of Kurdish Political Parties with the inclusion of 3 new parties, including the PYD. By May 2011, the National Movement of Kurdish Political Parties announced its program, which included ending one party rule in Syria, the establishment of the rule of law, equality for all citizens, and a secular state. A new conference was organized in October 2011 gathering the majority of Kurdish political parties, independents, Kurdish youth organizations, Kurdish women organizations, human rights activists and professionals in the objective of uniting the Kurdish opposition in Syria. Several Kurdish political actors actually had concerned about the political program and agenda of several actors within the SNC, particularly the MB and its close relations with the AKP Turkish government.

This led to the establishment of the KNC, which followed the creation of the SNC. The KNC was formed in Erbil, Iraq, under the sponsorship of Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq and an important ally of Turkey at the time. Barzani had large influence among several Syrian Kurdish opposition groups. The stated mission of the KNC was to find a “democratic solution to the Kurdish issue” while emphasizing that it was part of the revolution.

Problems still existed within the KNC, particularly regarding its decision-making process in which representation of independent activists and youth organizations was rather small in comparison to that of political parties.

Two parties attending the founding conference did not join the KNC: the Kurdish Future Movement and the PYD. The Future Movement cited four points of objection to the KNC: the failure of the KNC to commit to the overthrow of the regime; the failure to adopt stronger support for the youth; demands for the Kurds that should be more specific and not determined and influenced by external interests; and that independent activists should have a stronger representation in the council. The PYD attended the founding conference of the KNC after its inception in October before boycotting the group and joining the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change (known as the NCBDC). The PYD was very suspicious of Turkey’s role and influence in the establishments of the SNC, but of the KNC as well as its sponsor was Kurdish leader Barzani who was a close ally of Ankara. Turkish military and Barzani’s peshmergas (combatants) had both targeted at different periods PKK positions in Iraq and repressed its militants. Tensions between the KDP and PKK remained still very much present at this period.

The PYD pursued its own path of building its own institutions.

Soon after the creation of the KNC, the PYD progressively began to put up checkpoints in the Kurdish area of Afrin, and reports started to emerge accusing the PYD of harassing political activists, enforcing its authority over Kurdish areas, and of fights between PYD and KNC supporters.

The PKK remained fiercely critical of Barzani’s party, the KDP, and affiliated parties, for the ‘feudalism’ and corruption with which it associates them. The KDP on its side blamed the PKK and its sister organization PYD for their violent politics and unwillingness to collaborate with others except as the leading partner.

The outbreak of the popular uprising in Syria in March 2011 allowed the constitution of the Kurdish national question in a way that is new in the history of the country in many ways. The uprising also gave the PYD an opportunity to become the dominant Kurdish political actor in Syria. However, the initial cooperation between Arab and Kurdish groups and activists in the protest movement against the Assad regime continued to decrease.

G) Ela Liberta: Rojava’s experience seems to be the most politicized social experience of the Syrian revolution. Nevertheless, we see that there was no concerted struggle of the Kurds and the Arabs, against the Assad dictatorship and against ISIS. What are the reasons for this?

JD: The increasing isolation of the Kurdish popular movement within the Syrian protest movement was the result of two factors:

First, the PYD pursued a policy of strengthening its political influence through its own armed forces in order to control the Kurdish majority of inhabited areas, enforce a form of Kurdish autonomy and attempt to geographically link the cantons of Rojava. This was achieved by maintaining a confrontation-free attitude and tactical and selective understanding with the regime. The regime was busy fighting on other fronts and saw the growing influence of PYD/PKK as a tool to put pressure on Turkey. The presence of the PYD on the Turkish-Syrian border has also cut off Syrian-Arab armed opposition forces – the majority of whom reject Kurdish national demands – from their bases and supply lines in Turkey in some areas. The PYD did not hesitate to oppress other Kurdish political actors and activists to dominate the Kurdish political scene in Syria. They also committed Human Rights violations against other populations, including Arabs, notably seizing with the military assistance provided by Russian airplanes in February 2016 in Afrin’s region a number of opposition-held, Arab-majority towns in northern Aleppo, and displacing large sections of local populations.

At the same time we should also aknoweldge the achievements of the experience of PYD managed areas, which was hailed for the high inclusions and participation of women in all sectors of society, including the military struggle, the securalization of laws and institutions and to some extent integration and participation of various ethnic and religious minorities. It is in this pers

The second element that explains the increasing isolation of the Kurdish question in the Syrian uprising is indeed the hostile political attitude of the Syrian-Arab opposition body in exile, but also witin the country. This position is represented first by the SNC and secondly by the coalition dominated by Syrian Muslim Brotherhoods, conservatives and liberals, which is allied with the Turkish AKP government and is directed against the political demands of the Kurdish people in Syria. These groups also supported armed attacks by Turkey and opposition armed groups against the YPG and Kurdish civilians. They promoted an Arab chauvinist discourse against the Kurds and rejected demands by Kurdish political parties for federalism, for example. They did not propose an inclusive programme that could have appealed to the Kurds and actually other sectors of the society as well, especially religious minorities.

From mid-2016, the PYD cantons came under increasing pressure from political changes on the international and regional stage. This applies in particular to the failed coup by part of the Turkish army against the AKP government, which led to a more authoritarian policy and drastic measures in Turkey, especially against the Kurds. This would affect the areas held by the PYD and the subsequent rapprochement between Ankara and Moscow.

Lately, the Syrian Coalition, composed mainly of liberal, Islamic and conservative personalities and groups, not only supported Turkish military intervention and continued its chauvinistic and racist policies against the Kurds in Syria, but also participated in this operation by calling Syrian refugees in Turkey to join the Syrian armed opposition groups fighting in Afrin. They have called for Turkish military intervention for a long time and have encouraged Arab chauvinism and racism against the Kurds, while even justifying and supporting the presence of Islamic fundamentalist movements. The Syrian fighters in Ankara have multiplied racist speeches and violent behavior (assassination, looting etc…) against Kurds since the beginning of the military operation and occupation of Afrin.

This also led to an increase and deepening of ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds. This situation drove more and more young Kurds into the arms of the PYD.

Most of the Islamic Fundamentalist movements, from salafist movements, the Syrian Islamic council, to the Muslim Brotherhoods, have openly supported the Turkish invasion and cheered it.

Several leftist and democratic groups and activists supporting the uprising have condemned the Turkish military invasion of Afrin, but they remain unfortunately a minority. Of course all Kurdish political groups despite their rivalries have condemned the military assault on Afrin.

After the occupation of Afrin, Erdogan declared that Turkish forces will press their offensive against Kurdish YPG fighters along the length of Turkey’s border with Syria and if necessary into northern Iraq.

The series of victories of pro-regime troops in the northern regions in 2016 and 2017 also complicated the situation for the PYD, while threats against them increased. The uprising had prompted the regime to seek selective and temporary agreements with the PYD in the first place. As the Assad regime strengthened its position by conquering new territories, the insurgency ceased to be a threat. In this way, the regime could once again turn its forces against the Kurdish regions and, with the agreement and support of regional and international actors, prevent any form of autonomy in Kurdish inhabited regions.

The Turkish military operation against Afrin and the recent failed Kurdish referendum on independence in Iraqi Kurdistan have shown that international and regional powers are unwilling to pursue Kurdish national or autonomous goals.

No solution for the Kurdish issue, or an inclusive Syria, can be found without recognizing the Kurds as a proper ‘people’, or ‘nation’ in Syria, and providing unconditional support to the self-determination of the Kurdish people, in Syria and elsewhere. This does not, however, justify being uncritical of any negative PYD policies, or YPG or SDF operations.

H) Era Liberta: Could we put the Palestinian issue and the Kurdish issue in a single perspective, as it seemed to be shaped by the outbreak of the Arab Spring? What could that be? And after the defeat of the Arab revolutions, what could be the prospect of emancipation of the two oppressed peoples?

JD: While acknowelging there are differences between the two causes, I still think that we can still have general principles. There causes are in my opinion linked.

The Kurdish organization were used in the past by authoritarian regimes and imperialist actors for their interests before being sacrificed when these interests changed. This has happened and will most likely happen again. At the same time, similar things occured with Palestinians organizations that have been used by various regional authoritarian regimes. No trust can be put into regional or international states in a perspective of liberation, although tactical collaboration can exist on some occasions.

We must be clear and as it has been shown regional and international ruling classes of the region have no willingness to participate in the liberation of Kurds and Palestinians.

The fate of the Kurds and Palestinians in Syria and elsewehere are inextricably linked to the dynamics of the popular movements of the region and resistance from below.

What is desperately needed is solidarity between all revolutionaries (Arabs, Kurds and all other ethnic minorities) who are against the Assad regime and all the regional and international imperialist powers.

Our slogan should be “Our destinies are linked.” More generally we have to link once the differents uprisings and resistance in the region. Like this, we can see the links in our struggles and that each defeat of people in struggles for more democracy and social justice is a defeat for all. Despotic and authoritarian regimes learn from their experiences in repression and share them with their allies. This is a reality, and this is why we need more collaborations between progressive forces throughout the region.

8 May 2018

The interview published in Greek on the website Ela Liberta: https://www.elaliberta.gr/διεθνή/μέση-ανατολή/4319-η-συριακή-επανάσταση-και-η-χειραφέτηση-των-παλαιστινίων-και-των-κούρδων

Footnotes

[1] The PKK was formed in the late 1970s in Turkey and its ideology was originally a fusion of Marxism and Kurdish nationalism which was intended to be used as the foundation of an independent, Marxist–Leninist state known as Kurdistan.

[2] The PUK was originally a leftist Iraqi-Kurdish political party that splitered from the KDP in the mid 1970.

[3] The KDP is the oldest Kurdish political party in Iraqi Kurdistan. It was founded in 1946 in the Kurdish region of Iran where the Iraqi Kurds led by Mustafa Barzani were taking refuge

[4] Nine Kurdish political parties established in 2009 what became known as the Kurdish Political Congress which included the following parties: the Syrian Democratic Kurdish Party led by Sheikh Jamal; the Kurdish Left Party led by Muhammad Mousa, the Kurdish Democratic Party in Syria led by Nasruddien Ibrahim; the Kurdish Democratic Front, the Kurdish Democratic Party in Syria led by Dr. Abdul Hakim Bashar; The Kurdish Democratic National Party in Syria led by Tahir Sfook; the Kurdish Democratic Equality Party in Syria led by Aziz Dawe; the Kurdish Coordination Committee; the Kurdish Yekiti Party in Syria led by Ismail Hamo; The Azadi Kurdish Party in Syria led by Mustafa Jumaa; The Kurdish Future Movement led by Mishaal Tammo (Hossino and Tanir 2012).

English source:

https://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/2018/05/17/interview-with-ela-liberta-the-syrian-revolution-and-the-emancipation-of-the-palestinians-and-the-kurds/

Greek source:

https://www.elaliberta.gr/διεθνή/μέση-ανατολή/4319-η-συριακή-επανάσταση-και-η-χειραφέτηση-των-παλαιστινίων-και-των-κούρδων