Netanyahu 'doesn't care about the Kurds,' Israeli diplomat says

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not have a strategic commitment to the Kurdish cause and views the issue primarily through the prism of Israel’s rivalry with Türkiye, according to former Israeli diplomat Alon Liel.

Liel, an international relations expert who previously served as director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry and as Israel’s chargé d’affaires in Türkiye, made the assessment while discussing Ankara’s renewed peace process with the Kurdish movement and its implications for Israeli-Turkish relations.

“Netanyahu doesn’t care about the Kurds,” Liel said, challenging perceptions that Israel’s regional strategy is fundamentally driven by support for Kurdish political aspirations.

His remarks come as the relationship between Türkiye’s Kurdish peace initiative and the rapidly changing regional security environment has become an increasingly prominent subject of debate.

The latest process began taking shape in October 2024, when Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli made an unexpected political opening towards the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party and raised the possibility of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan calling on the organization to disarm.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) subsequently backed the initiative.

The development came against the backdrop of sharply deteriorating relations between Türkiye and Israel and growing Turkish concern over the regional consequences of the conflicts that followed October 7, 2023.

Addressing the opening of the Turkish parliament in October 2024, Erdogan warned that Israel's military actions could eventually pose a threat to Türkiye itself.

“After Palestine and Lebanon, the place Israel’s administration, driven entirely by religious fanaticism, will set its eyes on will be our homeland,” Erdogan said.

Around the same period, Bahceli crossed the parliamentary chamber to shake hands with DEM Party lawmakers, a highly symbolic gesture from the leader of a party traditionally associated with a hard line on the Kurdish question.

Bahceli presented the initiative partly in terms of strengthening Türkiye's internal unity, or what Turkish political discourse has described as reinforcing the country's “home front” amid mounting regional instability.

This convergence has helped fuel arguments in Türkiye that developments involving Israel and the wider Middle East may have contributed to Ankara's willingness to revisit the Kurdish issue.

Liel's assessment, however, suggests caution against interpreting Israeli policy towards Kurdish actors as evidence of a broader ideological commitment to Kurdish interests.

Israel has historically maintained relationships with Kurdish actors in different parts of the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, while developments involving Kurdish forces in Syria have also become entangled with Israeli-Turkish strategic competition.

At the same time, Türkiye regards the PKK as a terrorist organization and considers Syrian Kurdish groups linked to it a major national security concern.

Against this backdrop, the Kurdish question has increasingly intersected with the broader deterioration in relations between Ankara and the Netanyahu government.

The renewed Turkish peace initiative could therefore have consequences extending beyond domestic politics. A successful process between Ankara and Kurdish actors could alter Türkiye's internal security environment while also reshaping one of the regional fault lines through which Turkish-Israeli competition has increasingly been viewed.