Abstract Kurds as an ethnic group have always demanded creation of a Kurdish nation-state, and with it, the democratic and territorial autonomy and cultural rights. Presently, the Kurds are stateless and battling for their mere survival. Three of the most potent factors in the Levant region today – the rise of ISIS / ISIL, the Syrian civil war, and political flux in Turkey, have placed the Kurds in an especially precarious position with consequences for the fate of one of the Middle East’s largest ethnic groups in the lurch (Bohn, Lauren, 2015). Michael Gunter claims, ‘Kurdish nationalism largely developed in the 20th century as a stateless ethnic reaction against the repressive…