On 7 October 2023, the Palestinian militant group Hamas initiated a large-scale incursion from Gaza, leading Israel to declare all-out war. The subsequent airstrikes have resulted in a staggering death toll, with tens of thousands of Palestinians killed and fears of a broader regional conflict mounting, and Israel warned against acts of genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). As the situation deteriorates, the global spotlight has once again turned to the long-simmering Palestinian quest for rights and statehood, a demand that has been recognised by the United Nations since 1947.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 40,000 Palestinians, provoking a renewed search for a democratic alternative in the Middle East. Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan’s reflections on the Israeli state project provide one potential model.
At this crucial political juncture then, the political thought of Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has gained renewed attention – Medya News last year published a series of the Kurdish leader’s reflections on Israel and Palestine’s role in the Middle Eastern crisis.
Öcalan’s extensive writings on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly in his “Manifesto for a Democratic Civilisation”, provide a critical perspective on the historical and ideological underpinnings of the region’s crises. The Academy for Democratic Modernity has published a new extract from the fifth volume of the Kurdish intellectual and political leader’s opus which is still unavailable in English in its entirety.
Öcalan argues that the roots of the current Middle Eastern turmoil lie in the historical processes that shaped Arab nation-states and the state of Israel. He traces the origins back to British colonial strategies that manipulated local leaders to facilitate the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. He notes, “One of the main sources of the crisis in the Middle East is the process of co-construction of the Arab nation-states and Israel.” This observation underscores his belief that the creation of Israel and the establishment of Arab nation-states are inextricably linked, resulting in a political landscape riddled with conflict.
According to Öcalan, the modern state of Israel emerged not as an isolated phenomenon but as a consequence of broader historical forces that shaped the region. He states, “The acceleration of Israel’s birth also coincides with this process,” emphasising that Israel was constructed amidst the ideological struggles of nationalism and capitalism that characterised the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He posits that Israel represents the culmination of capitalist hegemony in the region, stating, “Israel was born as the central hegemonic power of the hegemonism of capitalist modernity.”
Öcalan criticises the existing nation-state framework in the Middle East, arguing that it has perpetuated divisions and conflicts among the Arab peoples. He asserts that the creation of twenty-two Arab nation-states has resulted in systemic issues, claiming, “The nation-state system in the Middle East is not a source of solution to the fundamental national and social problems, but on the contrary, it is a source of developing, aggravating, deepening and making the problems intractable.” This view challenges the notion that the current political boundaries and identities can lead to genuine stability or peace.
In his analysis, Öcalan warns against the ideological pitfalls that have plagued the Arab states, suggesting that political Islam and leftist ideologies have often served as tools of capitalist hegemony rather than as genuine movements for liberation. He argues, “All Islamic nationalist approaches that claim to replace capitalist modernity are nothing but a great fraud,” indicating that these movements, while appearing to challenge the status quo, ultimately reinforce the existing hegemonic structures.
The implications of Öcalan’s thoughts extend beyond a critique of state structures; he presents a stark warning about the cyclical nature of conflict in the region. He observes, “For almost a hundred years, the vital energy of all Arab peoples has been wasted in these conflicts with a predetermined outcome.” This analysis not only speaks to the historical patterns of violence but also urges a reconsideration of how national identities and state formations have contributed to ongoing struggles.
As the violence in Gaza continues to escalate, Öcalan’s writings call for a fundamental reevaluation of the systems in place. He emphasises that true resolution requires transcending the capitalist modernity that has defined the region’s political landscape. He concludes that “unless we correctly understand the hegemonic construction of capitalist modernity in the Middle East, we will not be able to correctly understand why twenty-two Arab nation-states were founded.”
In light of the ongoing war in Gaza and broader escalation, Öcalan’s arguments offer a constructive framework for understanding the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and pursuing a potential systemic alternative in the Middle East. “Democratic modernity is the option that constitutes a permanent solution not only to the Jewish problem in the jungle of the Middle East but also to the problem of the Israeli state, surrounded by nationalist and religious atrocities of its own creation,” he concludes.
