|
Trending Topics
|
Source: https://www.newsweek.com/colonialism-middle-east-you-dont-hear-about-opinion-1946102
You Don't Hear about Iranian Colonialism in the Middle East
(Newsweek) Joseph Epstein - The anti-Israel trope of "settler-colonialism," which refutes a Jewish connection to the land of their ancestors and denies a permanent Jewish presence in Israel, stems either from ignorance or malevolence. Overlooked is Iran's real "settler-colonialism" in the Middle East that has intentionally altered the demographics in war-torn Syria and Iraq. In Syria, Iran has settled Shia families from Iraq and Lebanon in strategic Sunni areas between Damascus and the Lebanese border. In Iraq, Iranian-backed militias were at the forefront of sectarian cleansing of Sunnis to solidify its corridor to Lebanon. Meanwhile, Turkey has been changing the demographics of Kurdish territories in northeast Syria. After the Turkish military and its allied Islamist militias captured the Afrin district from Kurdish rebels in 2018, 300,000 Kurdish residents were driven out and their properties given to ethnic Arabs. Qatar agreed to finance 240,000 housing units for Arabs in Turkish-controlled Kurdish lands. The writer is director for legislative affairs at the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) and a fellow at the Yorktown Institute.