The Yazidis, the religious and ethnic minority chased by the ISIS terror army into the hills of Iraq, then mostly slaughtered as they emerged, now want Israel to help them, according to a report at Al-Monitor.
Help them get armed, that is.
The Yazidis worship a "transcendental God" who became seven angels, led by a "Peacock King." They have shared minority status with Christians and other groups in Iraq.
But now they are asking for help, even though they don't have a formal relationship with Israel.
TRENDING: To DEI for
"They need aid, in particular military assistance, and they have chosen to make a public plea for help," according to the Al-Monitor report by Jacky Hugi, an Arab affairs analyst for Israeli army radio and a columnist for several newspapers.
"We appeal to the Israeli government and its leader to step in and help this nation, which loves the Jewish people," said Lt. Col. Lukman Ibrahim in the report. "We would be most grateful for the establishment of military ties – for instance, the training of fighters and the formation of joint teams. We are well aware of the circumstances the Israelis are in, and of the suffering they have endured at the hands of the Arabs ever since the establishment of their state. We, too, are suffering on account of them."
Hugi reported that the Yazidis were not hesitating to make public their need for help, in spite of the fact their requests could become known in ISIS circles.
"They have already killed many of us. What do we have to fear?" he told Hugi.
The question had been raised because of open communications with an Israeli during a long-distance telephone conversation between Sinjar, in northwestern Iraq, and Tel Aviv.
"The Arab countries do not recognize us, nor do they recognize you," he told Hugi. "They are telling us that we are infidels. Why should we be afraid to talk to you, when even neighboring Arab countries have become our enemies? We regard you as a friendly state, with an opportunity for relations on the basis of neutrality and respect. We do not want more than that."
The report explains that Ibrahim is a journalist by profession and is an associate of Marwan Elias Badl, a the senior field commander of the Sinjar Protection Forces.
The group formed last summer after ISIS terrorists chased and killed thousands of the sect's members.
"The militia numbers some 12,000 fighters, most of them untrained, ordinary men who rushed to take up arms to thwart IS' designs," Hugi reports. "A few of them are rank-and-file fighters, while some are officers with the Kurdish peshmerga."
An estimated 5,000 Yazidis still are held captive by ISIS. Some are women and girls taken as sex slaves.
Lacking a formal relationship through ambassadors or embassies, the Yazidis explained publicly their need for armored vehicles, machine guns and weapons.
"We are not acting against anyone," Ibrahim told Al-Monitor. "And we do not covet other people's lands."
Hugi said he also visited by telephone with others at Sinjar.
"What I have seen here, I just can't described," Majdal Rasho, told him. "Our people had no choice but to flee. We are not Arabs, nor are we Muslims. We see ourselves as sharing a fate with the Israelis, who went through similar pogroms. Those besieged on the mountain approached me and asked, 'Maybe our Israeli brethren could lend a hand?'"
Hugi said the conversations were coordinated by Idan Barir, 34, a researcher at the Yavetz School of Historical Studies at Tel Aviv University.
"I can think of a range of activities that Israel is experienced in that would not undermine the world order," Barir told Al-Monitor. "For example, providing military assistance to the Yazidi forces in Sinjar who are crying out for cooperation and aid; setting up a field hospital for medical and psychological treatment of the casualties among the displaced in northern Iraq – not only Yazidis, by the way" and more.
Israel did not respond officially immediately to the request, which would present the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu a new frontier.
But Zvi Hauser, a former cabinet member for Netanyahu, told Al-Monitor civilized people have an obligation to "do everything possible" to stop the slaughter of Yazidis.
"It is inconceivable that in the 21st century, someone's attempt to eliminate an entire people, because of its faith and religion, is met with indifference," he said.
"We, too, went through 2,000 years of existence without sovereignty, in the course of which we faced extermination schemes. Israel is a sovereign state, formed by an ethnic minority. It is the national manifestation of an ancient civilization. It would thus be appropriate to examine ways to establish relations and forge an alliance with them, if only to ensure a pluralistic Middle East."
ISIS has been accused of terrorizing civilian populations by launching canisters containing live scorpions, releasing a guide to the rape of sex slaves and claiming that a "radioactive device" has been smuggled into Europe.
There also are reports of ISIS crucifying Christians, beheading others, including children, and reducing the Christian community in Iraq, where they have made their homes for millennia, to nearly zero.
WND columnist Chuck Norris recently compiled a long list of such reports.
"Pundits and news agencies have reported and questioned the validity that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, is beheading children in its conquests of Syria and Iraq. But there is one fact that can't be contested: that the Sunni-dominated al-Qaida splinter group is on a war rampage using some of the most heinous and barbaric means to exterminate anyone who opposes them, particularly Christians," he wrote.
He cited:
- In July, CNN reported various Iraqi village residents described horrific attacks by ISIS fighters, who "seize local men and pillage homes and places of worships," according to Human Rights Watch directors in Iraq.
- CNN also reported ISIS killed 40 Shiite Turkmen, "including children," in four communities in Kirkuk, Iraq, last month.
- ISIS slaughtered 270 Syrians, including national guard members, security guards and employees in the al Shaer gas field in Syria.
- According to the human rights team at the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq, a minimum of at least 757 civilians were killed and 599 injured in Nineveh and Salah al-Din provinces, north of Baghdad, and Diyala, in the east, between June 5 and 22. At least an additional 318 people were killed and 590 wounded during the same 17 days in Baghdad and areas in the south.
- Some 500 Yazidi community members in Sinjar and the surrounding area were executed by ISIS, according to U.N. special advisers on the prevention of genocide, Adama Dieng, and on the responsibility to protect, Jennifer Welsh;
- The U.N. special advisers also reported that some 1,500 Yazidi, Christian and Shabak women and girls were abducted by ISIS.
- CNN reported: "At least 2,400 Iraqis died in violence in June, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq. Of those, the United Nations said more than 1,500 were civilians, including 270 civilian police officers, and almost 900 were members of Iraqi security forces."
- U.N. News Centre reported ISIS "has broadcast more than a dozen videos showing beheadings and shootings of combat soldiers and police officers, as well as apparent targeting of people based on their religion or ethnicity, including Shia and minority groups such as Turcomans, Shabak, Christians and Yazidis."
"And what are we to make of ISIS' summary crucifixions?" he wondered.
A British reporter described the plight of the Yazidis in Iraq a few months ago:
"I have to tell you, we were holding back tears as we filmed that report with refugees surrounding us. They were all in tears that they had survived," reporter Jonathan Rugman of Britain's Channel 4 said in an interview with the Fox News Channel's Martha McCallum, who was substituting for Megyn Kelly on "The Kelly File."
Rugman had been on a helicopter flight to rescue some of the estimated 30,000 to 40,000 Yazidis. They faced the prospect of death by dehydration or starvation on the mountain, or death from ISIS if they descended.
Rugman said the pilot who made the flight on which he rode was killed after refugees apparently overwhelmed the craft on the next flight, causing it to crash.
The London Daily Mail reported trapped children were drinking blood from their parents to stay alive.