I've tried to read about the history of Circassians in Palestine by myself, but I still feel like even with some very rudimentary historical background, that I don't really understand the modern political climate of the global Circassian diaspora regarding Israel and Palestine. In particular I'm curious about the climate of Circassians living under the Zionist Entity regarding the ongoing war. My impression is that there exists some division among Circassians regarding Palestine, even within the Zionist Entity — but my impression doesn't really matter, now does it?
So please, send me your thoughts and analyses, your resources, your Circassian perspectives, whatever you may have that may be relevant...
...Which is probably nothing, frankly, because not a lot of people who aren't Circassian — at least outside of West Asia — seem to see those fellows as anything other than at best a passing mention or footnote in Russian and Middle Eastern history treatises, or at worst as an opportunity to make eyeroll-worthy Star Trek jokes.
Circassians are friendly to Israel, they seems to have the same relationship to the state of israel as the druze, during the 1948 they mostly remained neutral but some members did join the israelis and because of that they were subject of the conscription law just like the druze.
they have struggles with israel like no allowing them to have their own educational system and Circassians areas no receiving the same amount of investment as the israeli ones, islamophobia because of their sunni faith, but from what i read they are either neutral or supporting of israel in the palestinian conflict
Did you find anything about Circassians outside Israel?
the country with the most Circassians is turkey, there they are very assimilated into the turkist state with most not speaking the native language, they have mostly an anti-russian ideology being anti-czarist in the begining of the 20th century then anti-communist and nowdays anti-putin, they are an important voting block of the conservative parties in turkey but mostly Erdogan's Islamist bloc, they have been some that have try to reconect with their culture but they are mostly a minority, there is a decent population of active speakers tho but they arent a majority
also from what i read about the circassians on syria and jordan is that they both have mostly assimilated with the population but unlike turkey they havent assimilated that much, there was a circassians unit that fought for syria during th war against israel and some communities lived on golan heighs but because of the occupation they were forced to flee into inter syria mostly the cities like aleppo
How did Circassians in the RSFSR view their position in it? That would've been the time when they got a writing system and autonomous regions, right?
i imagine not that well, most of the circassian population lived in turkey at the time and just hated everything russia, and they ones that stay while it was nice to have an ASSR being able to speak their language and not being oppressed like during the era of the Czars that positive view seems to not have lasted much due to russian migration to the caucases, making the circassians a minority in their ASSR, also most of their lands were not returned only the ones were they were a majority, also some of the soviet policies did isolated them from the dispora, like introduccing the cyrillic alphabet while the dispora used the arabic alphabet, also the USSR didnt have a policy of return for the dispora, combine that with how hard it was for example a citizen of turkey to get a visa to the USSR that created a negative view of the soviets.
nowdays their relation with Russia is still kinda bad
So as a whole, why would you say Circassians were treated the way they were in the USSR, why did Circassians in Turkey assimilate and become part of Erdogan's voting block, and why did Circassians in Palestine come to support Israel? There has to be some reason behind all of this.
Interesting, thank you.