Turkey's Syria policy changes as Israel enters Kurdish game

Israeli flags have recently been waved during independence rallies in the cities of northern Iraq's Kurdistan region. 

That is just the latest in a series of events unfolding at dazzling speed, which have brought the situation in the Middle East to the brink of a new set of political fault lines. But it is safe to say that the statement from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sept. 14 that Israel "supports the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to achieve their own state" ramped up the already flammable situation in the region.

Netanyahu's statement came a day after Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) leader Masoud Barzani's turning down of a message conveyed by U.S. President Donald Trump's coordinator in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), saying there is no "alternative" solution to the independence referendum he announced for Sept. 25. 

Barzani definitely welcomed the support from Israel, which brought to mind an event from the 1960s, when his father Mullah Mustafa Barzani, the founder of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), received support from Israel's Golda Meir.

Israel has actually never hidden the fact that it favors a non-Arab, Muslim but secular state as a buffer zone with Iran, while also making Iran's access to Israel's neighbors Syria and Lebanon more difficult. Israeli strategists give little credit to scenarios that Kurdish independence from Iraq is going to anger Turkey and Iran and force them to cooperate, increasing Tehran's influence over Iraq and the Persian Gulf region and disturbing Saudi Arabia, which has been supportive of Israel as an ally of the U.S. 

Eyes have now turned to Netanyahu's speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 19. 

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