jash (term)
{{Short description|Derogatory term used in Kurdish culture}}
{{for|the Youtube channel|Jash}}
{{Infobox phrase
| title = Jash
| image =
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption =
| origin = Kurdish
| meaning = Traitor, Collaborator
| original_form = جەحش (Cehş)
| context = Derogatory term in Kurdish culture
| coined_by =
}}
Jash (Kurdish: جاش, Caş; from جەحش, Cehş; meaning 'donkey foal')ھەژار، ھەنبانە بۆرینە، تاران، چاپەمەنیی سرووش، pp. 153, ISBN 978-964-376-516-3. is a Kurdish term for a traitor, or a collaborator.{{cite book |last=McDowall |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dgDi9qFT41oC&q=jash+kurd&pg=PA354 |title=A Modern History of the Kurds : Third Edition |date=May 15, 2004 |publisher=I.B.Tauris |isbn=1-85043-416-6 |edition=Third}} It refers to Kurds who are either fully loyal to the enemy, or cooperate with the enemy against the Kurdish nation, Kurdish militant groups, or Kurdish political interests.{{cite book|last=Prunhuber|first=Carol|title=The Passion and Death of Rahman the Kurd: Dreaming Kurdistan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JdRwGcJg7DwC&q=jash&pg=PA114|date=January 21, 2010|publisher=iUniverse|isbn=978-1-4401-7816-0}}{{cite book|last=Mackey|first=Sandra|title=The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9idnMTt38BEC&q=jash+kurd&pg=PA292|year=2003|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|location=New York|isbn=0-393-32428-1}} The term is considered derogatory in a cultural sense, in much the same way as the use of the term quisling in the Western world.
The National Defense Battalions, the Village Guards, and the Muslim Peshmerga are considered "jash" by some Kurds.
History
File:في الصورة الأولى من يمين العميد خليل جاسم (مسؤول الجتا والفرسان) جالس أمام الخيمة في حركات الشمال والشخص اللابس داكن أسود هو أبراه.JPG, commander of the Light regiments (first from the right) with Ibrahim Al-Ansari (third from the right) in northern Iraq (1963)]]
The Light regiments were first established in the 1940s, during the 1943 Barzani revolt in northern Iraq, then it flourished and start to take an important role in the 1960s during the First Iraqi–Kurdish War, when General Khaleel Jassim was in the command of these regiments and associated them with many Iraqi Army operations against the Kurd rebels, specially in Amadiyaأهم الحروب التي خاضها أهالي العمادية (ئاميدي), جريدة باخرة الكرد المستقلة, 23 حزيران/يونيو 2013 in 1965 and Rawandiz 1966.مذكرات المناضل متي توما, اوراق توما توماس , 07/05/2012
During the al-Anfal campaign, the military campaign of genocide and looting commanded by Ali Hassan al-Majid, al-Majid's orders informed jash units that taking cattle, sheep, goats, money, weapons and even Kurdish women was legal.Jonathan C. Randal, After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness?: My Encounters with Kurdistan, 356 pp., Westview Press, 1998, {{ISBN|0-8133-3580-9}}, p.231
The term "Jash Police" was used by the Kurds towards Iraq's local Kurdish police militias in 1944.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yx7UqM31KYUC&q=jash+kurd&pg=PA65 |title=Mustafa Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement – Massoud Barzani – Google Books |date= 20 September 2003|isbn=9780312293161 |access-date=2013-04-01|last1=Barzani |first1=Masud |author2=N. A. N. A |last3=Barzani |first3=Massoud |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan }}
In the latter half of the 20th century, Kurds who became collaborators with the Iraqi government were referred to as jash. The number of jash increased to "as many as 150,000 by 1986" as a method of avoiding military participation in the Iran–Iraq War. The jash then realigned with the rest of the Kurdish people during the 1991 Kurdish uprising. It has been stated by a number of Kurds that "the jash had been completely forgiven".{{cite book |title=A thousand sighs, a thousand revolts: journeys in Kurdistan |last=Bird |first=Christiane |year=2004 |publisher=Random House, Inc |isbn= 9780307430502|page=81 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DYwFG3e9KIcC&q=%22Jash%22&pg=PA81 |access-date=January 31, 2011}}