Like the Palestinians, the Kurdish people deserve a state

The West’s failure to support Kurdish independence will condemn this people to further oppression by hostile forces, writes Shlomo Avineri.

Nowadays, almost everyone agrees that the Palestinian people deserve a state, and that they should not live under Israeli rule.

Most Israelis share this view, even prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has reluctantly stated his own commitment to a two-state solution. And in many Western democracies, a strong left-wing constituency regularly organises demonstrations in favour of Palestinian independence.