This is an urgent appeal from northeastern Syria: history is repeating itself

By Barzan Iso, SDF adviser for international relations

This is an urgent appeal.

History is repeating itself. Once again, the United States of America is abandoning its most important ally for democracy and human rights in the Middle East.

The Kurds of Syria sacrificed their sons and daughters to fight the most brutal organization in human history.

Today, they have been abandoned by the international community and by the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS for the benefit of ISIS’s allies of yesterday and those who will become its extension tomorrow.

As a Nation, we were defending our very existence and our freedom in a trench where all those who believed in humanity once took shelter.

Today, we wake up to the devastating realization that we have become victims of political deals, in which authoritarian regimes divide the spoils of a “new Middle East,” under the sponsorship of those we once believed were our friends.

Friends who stood on podiums and declared: “The Kurds no longer need the mountains; we are your friends.”

Today, they have betrayed us—just as they betrayed us before.
Yesterday it was Gertrude Bell. Today, it is Thomas Barrack.

We will endure.
But you must choose.

Are you standing with justice, or with what is yet to come—built on the suffering and blood of the Kurds?

This appeal is addressed to all those who claim humanity, and to all who claim to uphold the values of journalism.