In this first episode of a two-part series for his TeleSUR show “Days of Revolt,” Chris Hedges and Sabah Alnasseri, associate professor of Middle East politics at Toronto’s York University, trace the roots of Islamic State to their origins and explore comparisons to the 20th-century genesis of Israel.

Hedges begins by pointing out how the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, responsible for “carving up the Middle East and turning countries into protectorates,” has been changed only twice — once with the Israeli independence and now with Islamic State.

As Hedges put it, the tactics used to redraw the map in the Middle East are both effective and familiar, including the “use of foreign money, use of foreign fighters, tactics of ethnic cleansing and terrorism and this mythical vision — in the case of Israel, the re-creation of Judea and Sumeria from the Bible, and in the case of ISIS, the recreation of the seventh-century caliphate.”

Alnasseri agrees, opening his response with the observation that “to understand the pheonomenon of ISIS, we need to contextualize it within the setbacks and counter-revolution against the Arab revolutions.“

Watch Hedges and Alnasseri in conversation in the clip below (TeleSUR via The Real News Network):

The video can also be accessed here on TeleSUR’s website.

–Posted by Kasia Anderson

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