Abdullah Ocalan
Re the Feb. 16 arrest of Abdullah Ocalan: Once more the Kurdish saying that the Kurds have no friends except God and the mountains has been painfully proven. The Kurdish leader became a handball to be played with by several countries (Syria, Germany, Italy, Russia, Greece) and eventually fell into the hands of his Turkish captors to be tortured and probably executed for his “crimes.” Turkish authorities call him a “terrorist,” but to millions of Kurds and other decent people all over the world he is a freedom fighter, not much different from Yasser Arafat and others who were once “terrorists” but later became legitimate leaders of their nations.
It is especially upsetting to Kurds that Israel may have cooper- ated with Turkey to capture Ocalan. The Kurds always saw Israel as a model for their national aspirations and identified with the suffering and persecutions of Jewish people. The Kurds are very proud that Yitzhak Mordecai, who was born in Kurdistan, became a well-known Israeli leader (ex-minister of defense and a candidate for prime minister).
YONA SABAR
Los Angeles
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