The “Palestinian Dream” in the Kurdish context
The “Palestinian Dream” in the Kurdish context

Summary/Abstract: Turkey’s rising leftist student movement in the late 1960s admired the Palestinian Fedayeen movement and considered it as a school for their own future struggle. In the late 1960s young Turkish-Kurdish leftist students went to Palestinian guerrilla camps in Lebanon to be trained in preparation for armed struggle in Turkey. That relationship gained new momentum follow-ing the 1980 military coup in Turkey, which heavily impacted Turkish and Kurdish radical movements. The Palestinian camps turned out to be a major retreat for these Turkish-Kurdish groups, among whom the PKK was a primary beneficiary. The PKK seized this opportunity not only for military training but also for organisational recovery which almost no other Turk-ish or Kurdish movement managed. This article aims to trace the relationship between Turk-ish-Kurdish radical movements and Palestinian organisations, focusing mainly on the PKK. I argue that the PKK has made use of this relationship in realising the so-called “Palestinian Dream” within the Kurdish context.

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