Okay, the previous Middle East thread is closed, so I'm opening this one. Usual politics megathread rules do apply, but in addition, since it seems the Israeli-Gaza conflict was generating most of the flaming on the other thread, I'll ask you not to discuss it at the moment, a bit like we refrained from talking about Ukraine in the Eurothread for a while.
However, there is plenty of stuff happening in the Middle-East outside Palestine and Israel, notably in Iraq, where ISIS is turning into a real villain, ruthlessly cleaning the territory it controls of all minorities, giving them a choice between fleeing the Islamic State (leaving all valuables behind) and death.
Christian women have also reportedly been sold as slave in Mosul's market.Meanwhile, thousands of Yazidi (a Sunni heresy, for all you CK2 players) have been pushed out of their houses and are besieged in the mountains near Sinjar, without food and water but for what the Iraqi air force can airdrop to them.
The only good news is that the Kurds, who are ethnically close to the Yazidi, have decided to bring the fight to ISIS. Interestingly, they set it up as a joint operation between the Iraqi Kurds, the Syrian Kurds and the PKK. As in the recent years, they use the external turmoil around them to quietly but certainly create a de facto independent Kurdistan.
However, it is not certain that the Kurds will be able to beat ISIS. That part of the world is fucked up right now.