The Genocide the World Chose to Ignore: The 2014 ISIS genocide against the Yazidis of Sinjar.

By Sarah Belzer, Editor / The American Rant

Published July 21, 2025

In an era dominated by viral hashtags, campus protests, and endless debates about imperialism and trauma, one glaring truth stands out like a bloodstain on history’s conscience: the biggest scam of the 21st century is the narrative that radical Islamist terrorism is merely a reaction to Western oppression. Apologists in elite Western universities and beyond have peddled this myth, convincing the gullible that groups like Hamas and ISIS are victims lashing out in emotional despair, not ideologues following a scripted playbook of violence. But let’s shatter that illusion with a stark example—the 2014 ISIS genocide against the Yazidis in Sinjar, Iraq, a horror the world conveniently chose to forget.

Imagine this: a peaceful, ancient community of indigenous, non-Muslim people, the Yazidis, who had coexisted in the mountains of northern Iraq for centuries. They weren’t imperialists, colonizers, or aggressors. They had no army, no geopolitical ambitions, no history of oppressing others. Yet, in August 2014, ISIS militants swept into Sinjar like a plague, unleashing a calculated campaign of extermination and enslavement that the United Nations only later recognized as genocide. Within days, over 5,000 Yazidi men and boys were rounded up, executed en masse, and dumped into shallow graves—pits that still haunt the landscape as grim reminders of unchecked barbarity. The women and girls? They fared no better. Thousands—estimates range from 3,000 to 7,000—were abducted, caged like animals, systematically raped, and sold in slave markets for as little as $10. Some victims were as young as nine years old, their childhoods shattered in acts of depravity that ISIS not only committed but proudly documented.

This wasn’t random chaos or the fallout of some colonial grudge. ISIS printed “rape manuals” and distributed them among their fighters, complete with guidelines on how to treat captives. In their propaganda magazine, Dabiq, they explicitly justified these atrocities by quoting the Quran and Hadith, Islamic scriptures they interpreted to sanction slavery and sexual violence against non-believers. 25 32 Yazidis, deemed “mushrikun” (polytheists) rather than “people of the book” like Christians and Jews, were fair game for enslavement. ISIS declared slavery a core part of Islam, mass executions as jihad, and taking “kafir” (infidel) women as concubines as following the Sunnah—the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad. This wasn’t a fringe cult improvising; it was a deliberate revival of historical practices, echoing how Islam expanded through conquest in regions like India, Persia, and Africa, where enslavement and forced conversion were tools of domination.

Critics argue that ISIS twisted these texts, selectively interpreting them to fit their extremist agenda, and that their actions do not represent mainstream Islam. Indeed, many Muslim scholars and communities worldwide condemned ISIS, issuing fatwas declaring their acts un-Islamic. Yet, the uncomfortable reality persists: ISIS didn’t invent these justifications—they drew directly from scriptural passages on warfare, captives, and non-believers, applying them literally in a way that moderate interpretations reject. The group’s leaders weren’t illiterate fanatics; many were educated, and their propaganda network included religious scholars who legitimated their worldview. This selective literalism exposes a deeper ideological root, not just political opportunism.

Now, here’s where the scam deepens: the world’s response—or lack thereof. The Arab world? Largely silent or complicit. Turkey facilitated ISIS fighters crossing its borders and even funded allied militias. Syria ignored the slaughter, while Saudi Arabia only condemned it after videos went viral, more embarrassed by the exposure than outraged by the evil. Iraq looked the other way as its own citizens were butchered. Fatwas came, but action? Minimal. Deep down, perhaps, because this mirrored historical expansions they couldn’t fully disavow without confronting uncomfortable truths.

And the West? No massive protests, no campus encampments, no viral hashtags like #FreeSinjar. Feminists, so vocal on other issues, stayed eerily quiet about the systematic rape of thousands of brown women by Islamist extremists. 47 Muslim student groups vanished from the discourse. Media outlets like BBC and Al Jazeera offered scant air time, no wall-to-wall coverage. Why? Because the victims didn’t fit the narrative. They weren’t useful pawns in anti-imperialist rants. No Columbia professors decried it as colonialism’s fault—because it wasn’t. It was raw, scripture-fueled ideology in action.

Survivors like Nadia Murad, who escaped ISIS captivity after months of rape and abuse, have screamed this truth from global stages, earning a Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy. Yet, a decade later, thousands of Yazidi girls remain missing — either dead or enslaved, their stories buried under layers of selective outrage. The psychological scars on survivors are profound—PTSD, social rejection, and a shattered community struggling to rebuild.

To those chanting Hamas slogans or excusing terrorism as “trauma,” wake up: you’re being played by what is known as “soft jihad,” funded by petrodollars from regimes that still treat women as property. The Yazidi story exposes the lie—that Islamist terror isn’t reactive but proactive, rooted in a belief system that justifies conquest and subjugation. Ignore it, and one day, it won’t be distant daughters in Sinjar facing the blade. It’ll be yours. No protest will save you then, because the scam will have already won. It’s time to confront the ideology head-on, demand justice for the Yazidis, and dismantle the narratives that enable such horrors to repeat.