Why Norman Finkelstein is wrong to support a Two State ‘solution’

Norman Finkelstein [NF] is an enigma.  On the one hand he is a brilliant analyst of Zionist attempts to rewrite history.  He has no difficulty deconstructing Zionist attempts to paint themselves as the victims but on the other hand he has a blind spot when it comes to a solution to the crisis.

For years he has been pleading the case of the 2 State Solution (2SS) and, as my quote below demonstrates, he sincerely believed that the 2SS was about to be realised during the Obama reign.  It is always a haphazard and dangerous process to draw conclusions from an individual but it would appear that the reason for the schizophrenic divide between NF’s analysis of Zionism and his solutions are based on his Maoist background and in particular his lack of any class analysis.

It is the lack of a class analysis internationally which results in NF seeing the world as one big ‘international community’ rather than a set of imperialist states, led by the United States and the rest of the world which is subject to the manipulation and at times violent interference by those same Western states.  NF doesn’t see that when the West is unable to impose its rule via client rulers and puppets and when, on occasion, radical leaders like Hugo Chavez come to the fore, then the United States and its European lackeys have no hesitation in destabilising and if necessary invading that state.

It is the lack of any class analysis which results in NF believing that ‘international law’ and its agencies will somehow impose their will on a recalcitrant Israel rather than that international law itself is a consequence of the imperialist order, which is only enforced when the powerful want it to be enforced.  I reprinted the The End of Palestine? in order to show that if anyone doubts what I am saying then they should revisit NF’s interview with the Left Project to see how he got it so disastrously wrong in believing that Zionism could ever concede a Palestinian state.  I also published Norman Finkelstein –A Wasted Opportunity & Self-Indulgence after his 2011 lecture.

A subsidiary  problem with the 2SS that NF endorses is that it leaves in place a Zionist Israel.  To NF this seems to be no problem and at his 2011 talk at the Institute of Education he dismissed Israel’s racism against its own Palestinian citizens as no worse than that in Europe or America.

I have written a number of polemics against NF not least when he attacked BDS as a ‘cult’.  They include The End of Palestine or the End of Norman Finkelstein? and my The Tragedy of Norman Finkelstein – Time to Say Goodbye which Ilan Pappe described as 'a brilliant refutation of Norman's position', e- mail 18.2.12.

Lessons from Finkelstein: a response to Seth Anderson

Reprinted from Mondoweiss

Tony Greenstein on September 8, 2017 

 Finkelstein being arrested in New York during a protest against Israel's assault on Gaza. (Photo: Eamon Murphy)

In an article last month, ‘Lessons from Finkelstein: International Law and equal rights should be the focus for Palestine solidarity,’ Seth Anderson maps out a strategy for the Palestine solidarity movement by drawing on the analysis and prescriptions of Norman Finkelstein.

There is no doubt that the movement owes Finkelstein an enormous debt of gratitude for his incisive polemics and analysis.  There is no one who did a better job in deconstructing and destroying Joan Peter’s fraudulent From Time Immemorial, which claimed that the Zionists colonised an empty Palestine.[1]

When Daniel Goldhagen wrote his execrable book Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, which argued that the Germans, not Nazis, killed Jews because they were a sadistic and cruel nation that had imbibed eliminationist anti-Semitism with its mother’s milk, Finkelstein took him apart. So devastating was Finkelstein’s criticism, that Goldhagen threatened to sue him for libel initially rather than reply to the substance of the criticism.

The problem with Finkelstein’s analysis of Zionism and his proffered solutions is that they exist in intellectually watertight compartments, ne’er the twain shall meet.  Finkelstein’s devotion to the Two State Solution, or 2SS, has entirely distorted his understanding of the relationship of power both inside Palestine/Israel and internationally.

Norman Finkelstein was arguing against BDS and for a 2 State Solution and behind him a banner said the exact opposite

I can remember attending, at the Institute of Education, London University in November 2011, a two-hour lecture from Finkelstein on how a 2SS was around the corner.[2] Over two years later and he was even more certain that the solution to the Palestine question was about to be resolved. In an interview for the New Left Project Finkelstein declared that:

A “framework agreement” will shortly be reached, and a final settlement will probably be signed in the last six months or so of President Obama’s term in office. When the Kerry process was first announced I was virtually alone in predicting that it would actually go somewhere; now, it’s widely assumed. Many respected Israeli commentators now take for granted that an agreement is just a matter of time.[3]

By way of contrast I wrote, after the 1993 Oslo Accords that:

this agreement will lead not to an independent state but to further misery and defeat. The one concession, recognition of the PLO by Israel, means little when all that the PLO symbolised is now forsaken. Maybe a biblical analogy is most appropriate: Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a mess of pottage.[4]

Finkelstein’s repeated prediction of a settlement cannot be divorced from his basic premises.  Finkelstein fails to understand not only the dynamics of Zionism but the world’s power relationships and the political order.

Seth Anderson asks, “Who are we talking to?”.  The answer to that is simple. We are talking to all those who can be won to support for the Palestinians and the struggle against Zionism.  We are campaigning against Israeli Apartheid and its practical application.

Zionism might be the name of a hairspray or cologne “for most people,” Finkelstein has said, but it isn’t for Palestinians or Israeli Jews. Zionism is a political movement and ideology, based on the doctrine of racial supremacy, that functions as the Israeli state’s principal guide. Zionism is the backdrop to the Israeli State’s day to day assumptions and practice.

When Netanyahu urges opposition to the immigration of even a single refugee (or ‘infiltrator’), he does this by appealing to the Zionist axiom of a Jewish majority state and Jewish identity. [5]  When Ayelet Shaked, Israel’s Justice Minister, attacks the Supreme Court for not recognising that universal values and human rights take second place to Jewish nationalism and racism she does it in the name of Zionism. [6]  When the Jewish National Fund responds to a Supreme Court decision that the JNF cannot refuse to allocate land to non-Jews, by saying that “a survey commissioned by… JNF reveals that over 70% of the Jewish population opposes allocating… land to non-Jews, while over ‘over 80% prefer the definition of Israel as a Jewish state, rather than as the state of all its citizens” — this is done in the name of Zionism. [7]

Zionism is not an ideological construct or a perfume. It is a lived reality for the Palestinians.  Our task is to persuade people through our campaigns that Israel is not just another example of human rights abuses.  It is because of Zionism that the Israeli state has developed a unique system of institutionalised discrimination found historically in such countries as apartheid-era South Africa and Nazi Germany.

Seth argues that we should be ‘pragmatic’ in the way we go about creating a ‘broad public opinion in favour of the Palestinian cause’.  I’m not opposed to pragmatism but I don’t believe you should subordinate your principles to it.  We need to argue that Israel cannot be reformed precisely because it is a settler colonial state. Would our task have been easier if we had simply concentrated on South Africa’s human rights abuses and ignored the structural discrimination and racial segregation inherent in Apartheid?

Far from making our job easier, Seth’s and Norman’s answer makes it more difficult. South Africa’s response to criticism was to say ‘what about the Black African states’. Israel’s response is not dissimilar – it points to the gross human rights violations in the surrounding countries. Of course our criticism of Israel must encompass its human rights violations but in arguing for equal rights we cannot avoid the question of Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinian issue is not fundamentally a human rights one.  It is a political question.

International Law

Seth justifies Finkelstein’s reliance on ‘international law’ by asking us to engage in a false choice. He counterposes ‘feel(ing) good about myself’ to wanting Palestinian children to go to school unharmed. Of course presented like this, who would not choose the latter?  Not content with this rhetorical device, Seth then offers us a non-sequitur. Choosing Palestinian children going to school also means him having to put aside his own moral standards.

I’ll let Seth into a secret.  I am not an anti-Zionist in order that I can assuage my conscience.  If I thought that it was really possible to force Israel to comply with ‘international law’ and grant equality between Israeli Jewish children and Palestinian children, then I wouldn’t have a second thought.  However my anti-Zionist politics tell me that Israel, because it is a Zionist state cannot grant equality to non-Jews.  That is the whole point of a state which defines itself, not as a state of all its own citizens but as a Jewish state.

According to Finkelstein, we have to work ‘within the existing framework’ and ‘the law is the framework’.  But don’t despair, because, as Finkelstein points out, the law is completely on our side. Seth reels off a list of examples – the Occupation, the Siege of Gaza, the Annexation, the Wall.  As regards the Right of Return, Seth disagrees with Norman. This too is guaranteed by UN resolution 194. What could be simpler? How could a Jewish Marxist dogmatist impose his beliefs on the Palestinians and thus delay their day of redemption?

The key here is ‘within the existing framework’.  Given the existing constellation of forces in the Middle East, with Israel as the United States strategic watch-dog and with its de-facto alliance with the most repressive regimes in the region, no solution to the Palestine crisis is possible.  Without a thaw in the political permafrost no change is possible, either for the Arab masses or the Palestinians. When Netanyahu says that no settlements will be removed or Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely states that ‘This land is ours. All of it is ours. We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognize Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere.” [8] which part of these statements does Seth or Norman not understand?

But I forget ‘the law is completely on our side in this matter. The Palestinians won in every aspect.’ The International Court of Justice voted unanimously in favour of the Palestinian cause. Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, are Palestinian territory under International Law.’

Of course if this was Britain or France or even Donald Trump’s United States, once the highest court in the land had thus ruled one would expect the Wall to crumble along with the settlements.  But here is the rub.  Although ‘international law’ is indeed on the Palestinians’ side, it makes not a blind bit of difference.  True, the Palestinians have a President of the make-believe Palestinian state, but no one is deceived.

International law is a strange beast. There is no one body of law which is accepted by all. It consists of a series of conventions, treaties and UN Security Council resolutions.  There is the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, but they apply primarily to states not individuals.

There is no single Supreme Court and more importantly there is no enforcement mechanism.  In other words International Law only works where the United States is in agreement.  Most people would agree that the pre-emptive attack on Iraq in 2003 was a war crime according to the Nuremberg Trials in Germany.  Yet neither George Bush nor Tony Blair were indicted at The Hague. Who was going to arrest them?  Or prosecute them?  I suspect Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman sleep fairly soundly knowing that they are unlikely to be arrested for defiance of international law.

If within a state the application of the law reflects the class nature of that state, in that it falls most heavily on the poorest and weakest in society, it does at least formally apply to rich and poor alike.  Both rich and poor alike are prosecuted should they steal food, but of course the rich have no need to steal!  It is not surprising that the ICC has only prosecuted African or Serbian dictators.  International law is only enforced against the weakest.

If it is the case that we must work within the existing framework we can never win.  There is an old Zionist saying.  ‘The facts come first and the law comes after.’  Zionist strategy in Palestine operated on the basis of creating facts on the ground.  First establish the settlements and the law will adjust accordingly.

Of course most states, the USA excepted, adhere to the notion that the settlements are illegal.  But the hypocrisy of these same states can be measured in the degree of their opposition to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).  If the European states were at all serious about their opposition to the colonisation of the West Bank or the illegal blockade on Gaza then they would not be granting Israel most-favoured-nation trading status.

Finkelstein is correct that the return of the refugees would mean the end of the Israeli state as it currently exists.  It is arguable whether the UN in 1947 intended for Israel to become an apartheid state via the expulsion of the majority of the Palestinians but that was the effect of the decision. Here however is the conundrum. As long as Israel remains an ethno-religious state then there will be no dismantling of the settlements, nor will there be any equality of rights.  The Right of Return does indeed spell the end to Israel as we know it but that is an essential precondition to a Palestinian/Israeli state of all its citizens.

I disagree with Seth that a 2SS represents the best or indeed any hope for the Palestinians.  Given the disparity of power, a Palestinian state could only be a fiction, not even a Bantustan.  But if Israel were forced to de-Zionise, why would one want to repartition the area?

Seth says that decolonization has to come from within and the idea that it could come from the outside ‘is a colonial idea in itself’.  So presumably when we supported decolonisation in South Africa we were being colonialists?  Or those who supported Indian independence were also colonists in disguise?  This is a mere playing with words.

Finkelstein bases his schema on international world opinion as represented by the United Nations.  He places his faith in the basket of the ‘international community’. It has as much relation to reality as Alice’s Wonderland. The UN is a body whose Human Rights Council was chaired by Saudi Arabia!  It is a gang of thieves and imperialist cut throats.  The Security Council represents the interests of the major powers, no less and no more.  In practice the UN is under the thumb of the United States, as we saw when the UN Secretary General insisted that the Report of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, which defined Israel as an Apartheid state, headed by Professors Virginia Tilley and Richard Falk had to be ditched.[9]

The intellectual edifice that Finkelstein has constructed in support of a 2SS is built on sand.  It fails to comprehend the unique features of the Israeli state and why it is unique. The position of Israeli Palestinians, a population that is seen as a potential fifth column and temporary non-Jewish residents of a Jewish state,  is also unique. Finkelstein sees a rational world order.  I see one in which the United States maintains a world empire through deceit, corruption and military might. Only a mass movement from below will be able to change the political geography of Palestine and the Middle East.

Footnotes: 

[1]              Norman Finkelstein on Joan Peters legacy (and Dershowitz’s legal troubles).
[2]           Norman Finkelstein –A Wasted Opportunity & Self-Indulgence, http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/norman-finkelstein-wasted-opportunity.html
[3]           The End of Palestine? An Interview with Norman G. Finkelstein, by Norman Finkelstein, Jamie Stern-Weiner, 11 January 2014,
^[4]           Birthright sold for mess of pottage, Labour Left Briefing, November 1993.
^[5]           Israel PM: illegal African immigrants threaten identity of Jewish state

^[6]           The Justice Minister Versus Democracy – Alarm bells ring when the minister appointed to defend Israel’s courts announces that Zionism will ‘no longer bow its head to a system of individual rights’, Ha’aretz, 30.8.17
[7]              Jewish People Land

[8]           The Guardian, 22/5/15.

[9]           Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid Palestine and the Israeli Occupation, Issue No. 1 E/ESCWA/ECRI/2017/1 (ESCWA) 

Danger to Rojava as United States Threatens to Stab Kurdish Allies in the Back

Washington stands by Turkey while expecting the Kurds to help fight tough battles against Islamist militants in Syria

The democratic organisation of society in Syrian Kurdistan stands in marked contrast to the Erdogan and Assad dictatorships, ISIS and the Israeli state.  It is a beacon of hope in a region without much hope.  The equality of women, with 40% of its fighting forces made up of women, stands in marked contrast to the feudal barbarism of ISIS and Ahrar al-Sham and the other US sponsored jihadi groups in Syria.

The United States has used the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) of the Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD) as their foot soldiers in the battle against ISIS.  It was always an unholy alliance since the United States is not interested in the liberation of the Kurdish people or indeed any people in the region.

Rojava - Kurdish Autonomous Enclave in Syria

  

The alliance was however useful for the Kurdish people as the YPG would not have managed to have ousted ISIS from Kobane over a year ago without the help of US air support.  However the US has many other fish to fry in the Syrian quagmire. 

Things are now looking very dangerous for the Kurds and that is why western solidarity with the Kurdish struggle is so important.

The Assad regime, which historically has brutally suppressed the Kurds was forced during the civil war to withdraw from Rojava, the Kurdish autonomous region and even have a non-aggression pact as the Syrian Army came under sustained attack.  With the strengthening by Russia of the Assad regime’s position and the new de facto alliance between Assad and the Turkish dictator Erdogan, the Kurdish position is under direct threat.

It was to forestall the two parts of Rojava uniting that the Turkish military in conjunction with Arab forces under US command has attacked and captured the town of Jarablus from ISIS.  Although this was ISIS’s main outlet to the outside world in Syria, the main purpose of the attack was to forestall the unification of Rojava.  Turkey does not want to seen an independent Kurdish statelet on its border.

This picture taken from the Turkish Syrian border city of Karkamis on August 24, 2016 shows smoke following air strikes by a Turkish Army jet fighter on the Syrian Turkish border village of Jarabulus.Bulent Kilic, AFP

Despite differences between Turkey and the USA, the position of Turkey in NATO is of some importance to the USA, especially given the recent raprochment of Erdogan and the Russians.  The Kurds in other words are facedd with the prospect of a united from consisting of Assad, Erdogan and the Russians to some extent against them.  It was into this configuration of power politics that US Vice President Jo Biden has appeared to make it clear to the Kurds that they should abandon all hope of uniting Rojava and to stay clear of the eastern banks of the Euphrates.  Once again the Kurds are at the mercy of the power play of larger forces in the region, forces they had hoped to play off against each other.  However both Erdogan and Assad have an interest in opposing Kurdish autonomy.  

Erdogan has also, separately, made his peace with Israel and thus stabbed the Palestinians of Gaza in the back too.

I post 3 articles below on recent developments.

Tony Greenstein 

Spilling Blood in War on ISIS, Kurds Pay Heavy Price for U.S.-Turkey Ties

Zvi Bar'el Aug 25, 2016 10:42 PM

Secretary of State John Kerry’s threat was unequivocal. If the Kurds did not pull back east of the Euphrates River, the United States would not help them, he said.

It is unlikely that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is relying on this threat. More important, will the Kurds heed it, and in exchange for what?

YPG in Tel Abyad

One day after the threat, the Kurdish forces also withdrew from Manbij, Syria, one of the Islamic State’s most important strongholds, which had been taken by Kurdish forces under cover of American air support in a battle that won them accolades for their important victory.

“It’s a slap in the face to the Kurds,” Erwin Stran, a U.S. volunteer who fought with the Syrian Democratic Forces against the Islamic State organization, told ARA News, a Kurdish press agency covering northern Syria and the Kurdish areas.

A Turkish army tank and an armored vehicle are stationed near the border with Syria, Karkamis, Turkey, August 23, 2016.IHA via AP 

The SDF was established by the United States as an alliance of Kurdish, Arab and other militias to blur the organization’s Kurdish character — necessary to allow Washington to continue to support the Kurds without overly angering Turkey.

But now it seems that the Kurds are once again paying in blood for the complex and tense relationship between Ankara and Washington.

An official in the Kurdish administration in Iraq told Haaretz that the American threat “conveys a frustrating and dangerous message not only to the Kurds in Syria but to the entire Kurdish people, who are spilling blood in the war against ISIS and were relying on the U.S. government to stand by them."

Pro-Ankara Syrian opposition fighters moving two kilometers west from the Syrian Turkish border town of Jarabulus.Bulent Kilic / AFP

"The Kurdish forces in Syria seek to establish an autonomous region and that is their right," he said. "They paid and are paying a heavy price to create territorial contiguity in Syria that they need to establish an autonomous region.

"That was clear to the Americans from the outset and they said nothing when the Kurds declared Kurdish autonomy in Syria. Now they have decided to stand with Turkey and at the same time they expect the Kurds to continue helping in the war against ISIS.”

Turkey, which has changed its attitude about direct military involvement in Syria after years of helping Islamic State and other extremist militias, is holding a major means of leverage.

The renewal of ties between Turkey and Russia and the establishment of a commission for military, intelligence and political cooperation between the two countries has earned Washington’s support.

But at the same time, Turkey can threaten to withhold cooperation with the United States if the latter allows the Kurds to establish an autonomous region on its border with Syria.

Turkey can also pressure Washington to extradite Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey claims was behind the recent failed coup.

The United States is not anxious to extradite Gulen, but it began legal discussions with Ankara this week to examine the evidence against him and it may be assumed that the threat against the Kurds is part and parcel of efforts to ease the diplomatic tension.

But there are two more heavyweights in this muddy arena. Over the past year, Russia has become an ally of the Kurds in Syria and was even able to mediate between them and the Syrian regime.

The Russian-Kurdish alliance blossomed in the wake of the crisis between Turkey and Russia after the downing by Turkey of a Russian Sukhoi aircraft in November 2015.

But even after the two countries reconciled, Russia did not abandon the Kurds. Last week Moscow initiated a cease-fire between the Syrian regime and the Kurds in the Hasakah region in northeastern Syria.

According to the terms, the Syrians could maintain a symbolic police force in two cities of Hasakah and Qamishli, the two sides would trade prisoners and the dead, and the Kurds would be in charge de facto of security in those cities.

Kurdish government workers who had been dismissed due to the war would return to work and negotiations even began over the “Kurdish problem.”

Ostensibly this was “merely” a local accord, but its special importance is that it strengthened the standing of Russia, which, unlike the United States, can establish a cease-fire, create “areas of quiet” and translate its aerial assaults into achievements on the ground.

According to Syrian media reports, Russia is trying to change Turkey’s position vis-a-vis Syrian President Bashar Assad, and agree to his remaining in office at least until elections can be held.

This initiative has already seen partial success with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim’s declaration that Assad is an important player in the Syrian crisis and Turkey could agree to his remaining temporarily in office.

Iran is trying to encourage Turkey, and worked behind the scenes to further Turkish-Russian reconciliation. Iran sees the axis of Russia-Turkey-Iran leading diplomatic initiatives to resolve the crisis. The importance of this axis to Iran is not only the chance of ending the war, but also to neutralize diplomatic moves by Saudi Arabia, Tehran’s bitter adversary, and to distance Turkey from the Sunni coalition that Saudi King Salman has established. Iran’s realpolitik approach is unimpressed by the fact that Russia is an “infidel” state and that Turkey is Sunni. Iran has already proven that when the need arises, it is prepared to cooperate with any entity that serves its interests, including the United States, with which it signed the nuclear agreement.

But Russian-Iranian rapprochement comes at a political cost. That has recently manifested itself in verbal blows exchanged between Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan and the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani, over granting permission for Russian planes to operate from Iran’s Hamedan airfield.

Dehghan said that since permission was only for takeoffs and landings, no parliamentary approval was needed, and that parliament should keep its mouth shut in matters that do not concern it.

Larijani responded that the defense minister “had better avoid statements against parliament and act according to the customs of the regime.”

The problem worsened when Dehghan said the Russian planes had stopped operating from the airfield and Larijani said the opposite.

Russia wants to establish a regular base in Iran for refueling, bomb storage and a large technical team, while for now Iran is willing only to allow landings, takeoffs and refueling. The dispute is wider because Russia is not willing to attack targets of interest to Iran and does not coordinate its flight destinations with Tehran.

This is not a crisis in ties between the two countries, but an arm-twisting effort in the context of Iran’s concern over what it considers Russia’s takeover of Syria. Hence the importance Iran accords the partnership with Syria and its actions now to sort things out over Assad’s future.

According to the Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Turkey sent a retired general, Ismail Hakki (not to be confused with the former Turkish chief of staff) to Tehran where he met with senior Syrian officials.

Hakki was the Turkish coordinator of the 1998 Adana Agreement that ended the crisis between Turkey and the Hafez Assad regime in Syria over actions of the Kurdish PKK in Syria.

Washington has no contribution at all in any of these moves. At the moment it can only prepare the assault on ISIS in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqah, in Syria.

On those two fronts, its plans depend on massive cooperation on the part of Kurdish forces. We can only watch to see how the Kurds will operate after the slap in the face they received this week. 

The Turkish Army & Syrian Rebels Push ISIS Out of Border Town Jarablus

Syrian rebels retake town with aid from Turkish tanks, special forces and warplanes. U.S. and Turkey agree to limit Kurdish expansion to east of Euphrates.

Reuters and The Associated Press Aug 24, 2016 7:53 PM

Turkish special forces, tanks and jets backed by planes from the U.S.-led coalition launched their first co-ordinated offensive into Syria on Wednesday to try to drive Islamic State from the border and prevent further gains by Kurdish militia fighters.

Syrian opposition forces said they are in control of Jarablus only hours after Turkey launched a cross-border operation to help them oust the Islamic State group from the border town in northern Syria.

Several rebel factions involved in the fighting announced they had liberated the town from ISIS, but were still fighting small pockets of militants.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian civil war, says rebels are in almost full control of Jarablus, adding that ISIS had lost its last link to the outside world.

Ahmad al-Khatib, an opposition media activist embedded with the rebels, says they control 90 percent of the town and posted photos of rebels purportedly in the town's center.

funeral for the victims of a suicide bombing in Gaziantep

After the takeover of Jarablus, a Turkish official said the operation in Syria will continue until Turkey is convinced that threats to its national security were neutralized. According to the official, the operation aims to permanently stop the influx of foreign fighters to Syria and cut supply lines to Syrian militias.

The Turkish and Syrian governments said the cross-border incursion on the town on Jarablus was backed by U.S. airstrikes. Hundreds of Syrian opposition fighters also joined the assault. Just hours after the operation began, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden landed in Ankara.

The unprecedented incursion marked a dangerous escalation in the Syrian conflict — and demonstrates the twisted rivalries that run through the war.

This picture taken on August 24, 2016 shows a Turkish army tank driving towards Syria in the Turkish-Syrian border city of Karkamis, in the southern region of Gaziantep. Bulent Kilic, AFP

 The U.S. has long pushed for more aggressive action by Turkey against the Islamic State group. But Turkey's move to thwart Kurdish ambitions puts it on a path toward potential confrontation with Kurdish fighters in Syria who are also supported by the United States and have been the most effective force battling ISIS in northern Syria.

Turkey has been deeply concerned by the advances of the main U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the YPG, which after months of taking territory from ISIS is poised to control nearly the entire Syrian side of the border with Turkey. The YPG is also linked to Kurdish rebels waging an insurgency in southeastern Turkey.

Speaking in Ankara, Biden backed Turkey's demand for limits on Kurdish expansion. Kurdish forces "must move back across the Euphrates River. They cannot, will not, under any circumstance get American support if they do not keep that commitment," he said.

A senior U.S. administration official said U.S. advisers have been working closely with Turkey on plans for the Jarablus operation, providing intelligence and air cover. The official was not authorized to discuss the military operations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the military operation aims to prevent threats from "terror" groups, including the Islamic State and the YPG. He said the operation was in response to a string of attacks in Turkey, including an ISIS suicide bombing at a wedding party near the border which killed 54 people.

A senior official with the YPG's political arm warned Turkey will pay the price. Saleh Muslim, the co-president of the Democratic Union Party or PYD, tweeted that "Turkey is in Syrian Quagmire. Will be defeated as Daesh" will be. He used the Arabic language acronym for IS.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused the Kurds have a secret agenda to establish a state. "If his (Muslim) intention had been to fight Daesh then he wouldn't oppose such an operation... And so the PYD's secret agenda is out in the open.”

ISIS-held Jarablus is a key lynchpin in the Turkish-Kurdish rivalry. The town lies on the western bank of the Euphrates River at the point where it crosses from Turkey into Syria.

The YPG and other Syrian Kurds stand on the east bank of the river, and from there they hold the entire border with Turkey all the way to Iraq. They also hold parts of the border further west, so if they ever took control of Jarablus, they would control almost the entire stretch.

Last month, Kurdish forces and their allies scored a major victory, crossing west of the Euphrates to retake the town on Manbij from Islamic State militants. They now say they will push further west to assault the ISIS-held town of al-Bab.

Turkey codenamed its cross-border assault "Euphrates Shield," suggesting the aim was to keep the YPG east of the Euphrates River.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that in Biden's talks in Ankara, the two sides reached agreement that that the Syrian Kurdish forces "should never spread west of the Euphrates and not enter any kind of activity there."

Cavusoglu said Syrian Kurdish forces must cross back to the east side of the Euphrates as soon as possible. "Otherwise, and I say this clearly, we will do what is necessary."

The Syrian government denounced the Turkish military incursion and called for an immediate end to what it described as a "blatant violation" of Syrian sovereignty. It said Turkish tanks and armored vehicles crossed into Syria under the cover of U.S.-led airstrikes.

Turkey has backed rebels against Syrian President Bashar Assad throughout Syria's civil war. It has conducted small, brief special forces operations in the past.

But Wednesday's assault was its first major ground incursion.

The operation began at 4 A.M. with intense Turkish artillery fire on Jarablus, followed by Turkish warplanes bombing ISIS targets in the town. Then up to 20 tanks and a contingent of special forces moved across the border, according to Turkey's private NTV television and several Syrian opposition activists.

Ahmad al-Khatib, a Syrian opposition activist embedded with the rebels, said some 1,500 opposition fighters were involved. He said the fighters come from the U.S.-backed Hamza brigade, as well as rebel groups fighting government forces in Aleppo, such as the Nour el-Din el Zinki brigade, the Levant Front, and Failaq al-Sham.

Fighters from the powerful and ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham brigade are also present, he said.

Biden's visit comes at a difficult time for ties between the two NATO allies. Turkey is demanding that Washington quickly extradite a U.S.-based cleric blamed for orchestrating last month's failed coup while the United States is asking for evidence against the cleric and that Turkey allow the extradition process to take its course.

But Biden's comments put Washington and Ankara on the same page on limiting the advances by the United States' other main ally in the conflict, the Syrian Kurds.

The capture of the town of Manbij last month from ISIS heightened Turkey's fears. It was seized by the Kurdish-led group known as the Syria Democratic Forces, or SDF. The U.S. says it has embedded some 300 special forces with the SDF, and British special forces have also been spotted advising the group. 

The Real Target of Turkey's Syrian Operation Is the Kurds, Not ISIS

The Kurdish takeover in Manbij and their stated intention to further encroach on ISIS territory raised the stakes for Ankara, which understood that if it doesn't act now it may find a new Kurdish entity on its border.

Zvi Bar'el Aug 24, 2016 9:48 PM

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“We will cleanse the area of all the terrorists,” declared Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on the eve of  the Turkish invasion of Syrian territory near the city of Jarablus. But the Turkish definition of terrorists does not relates solely to Islamic State operatives or Al-Qaida; it also includes, perhaps primarily, the Kurdish rebels in Syrian territory that are considered a threat to Turkey.

Herein lies the paradox of the Turkish military operation. Ostensibly it is a reprisal operation for the mortar fire from Syrian territory early this week and the suicide attack that killed 54 people at a wedding in Gaziantep, only a few dozen kilometers from the battle site. But the Islamic State had committed large attacks before without drawing a Turkish invasion of Syria. The main reason for the incursion was to launch a military plan that had already been drawn up to prevent the Kurds from creating territorial contiguity for themselves.

Jarablus is a relatively small city, but its strategic importance lies in its location between two districts controlled by Syrian Kurds that have an enclave controlled by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) between them. Until now, that enclave has prevented the two Kurdish districts from merging, a move that would provide the geographic infrastructure for establishing a continuous Syrian Kurdish district that could become an independent enclave, like the Kurdish region in Iraq.

That is why for years Turkey ignored – and, according to American reports, even assisted – the logistical traffic of Islamic State fighters and equipment between the little town of Karkemish, in Turkish territory, and Jarablus on the Syria side. Until the Turkish attack that began on Wednesday, Jarablus was the only direct crossing point between the Islamic State enclave and Turkey; this campaign may close that route.

The question is whether Turkey plans to leave a permanent military presence in Syria to prevent the Kurdish rebels from seizing control of the ISIS territory or whether it can succeed in enlisting enough non-Kurdish rebels, particularly from the Free Syrian Army, to act on its behalf.

The Turkish decision was not based solely on the ISIS mortar fire but primarily on developments in the field and the intervention of the great powers. The Kurdish conquest of the city of Manbij, south of Jarablus, and the Kurds’ plan to also capture Al-Bab, south of Manbij, made it clear to Turkey that it was liable to find itself facing a new reality on its border that would be difficult to change if it didn’t act immediately. The cooperation of the United States and Russia with the Kurdish rebels made Turkey realize that it was losing control over what was happening in the region close to its border.

Although Turkey has signed a military cooperation agreement with Russia, Russian aid to the Kurds has not stopped. Russia, which saw the Kurds as a way to aggravate Turkey during the months of crisis between the two countries, believes the Kurds will not oppose keeping the regime of President Bashar Assad in place.

Actually, the military cooperation between Russia, the United States and Turkey created a dilemma for the Turks, who had to decide where their most important interests lie. Is it more important to maintain the ISIS enclave, which split the territory held by the Kurds, or to cooperate in the battle against it?

For now, there is only one solution to this dilemma; to deploy Turkish forces in the field and help the Free Syrian Army seize control of the enclave, in the hope that these forces won’t then cooperate with the Kurdish rebels, who are considered the most effective fighters in the war against ISIS.

The problem is that the Turkish invasion and the involvement of the Free Syrian Army may cause an internal battle between the invading forces and the Kurdish militias and divert the focus of the battles from the war against ISIS to a struggle for territorial gain.

The Turkish invasion interferes with the plans of Russia and the United States, which have declared their desire to preserve Syria as a united entity, but in practice have not categorically rejected the idea of establishing an independent Kurdish zone that they will take under their wing. On the other hand, Russia and the United States cannot stop the Turkish invasion, which has acquired legitimacy because it’s being portrayed as a battle against ISIS.

At the same time, the Turkish campaign publicly demolishes the strategy of non-intervention on the ground that the great powers have been upholding until now. It’s true that a few hundred American fighters and trainers are operating in the field alongside the rebels, Russian ground troops are involved in the fighting and, of course, Iranian forces have been fighting in the Syrian arena for years. But as a declared policy, the powers have stressed that they do not plan to deploy ground troops. The Turkish move is liable to change that approach, particularly since plans to conquer the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria from ISIS are advancing in the background.

Turkey recently came to the realization that its immunity to ISIS attacks on its territory has faded and that the period in which it cooperated with the organization didn’t bring the hoped-for results. It seems that Turkey is also rethinking its strategy and may no longer be so insistent about blocking Assad’s continued rule at any price.

Last week, for the first time, Yildirim said that, “Assad is one of the players in the Syrian arena,” and that he could be allowed to continue his rule temporarily. This approach is based on the desire to keep Syria united in the face of demands to create a federated state in which the Kurds would have an officially recognized independent district.

Despite Assad’s sharp condemnation of the Turkish invasion, he too wants to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdish district, and would prefer Turkey as a possible partner over the Kurdish or other rebel groups.