Jewish state threatened by group’s advance toward its borders, Islamic State says.
By ARIEL BEN SOLOMONUpdated: MAY 19, 2016 23:36ISIS militant threatening Israel in Hebrew(photo credit: YOUTUBE SCREENSHOT)
Islamic State threatens Israel in an article in its weekly newsletter this week, saying that unlike Hamas, the “war on Israel will not be limited by geographical boundaries or by international norms.”According to the article in the Al-Naba newsletter identified by the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor of MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) and shared with The Jerusalem Post, Israel feels threatened by ISIS because of the “collapse” of neighboring states and the Sunni terrorist group’s advance toward the borders of the Jewish state.For this reason, Israel has started to fight against Islamic State in Sinai and Syria, it says, adding that the entire world is now an arena for the fight against all the “polytheist combatants, including the Jews,” who are legitimate targets. Israel is using jets to attack Islamic State in Sinai, the article claims.“The collapse of the Sykes-Picot statelets, which were tasked with protecting the Jewish state; the approach of ISIS mujahideen toward its borders; [Israel’s] fear of the spread of its [ISIS’s] methodology among the oppressed Muslims inside those borders [i.e. fear that ISIS ideology is spreading among Israeli Arabs]; and the manifest failure of the Crusader states who protect the Jews to win the battle against it [ISIS] – all these are factors that caused the Jewish state to not sit idly by in face of this danger,” it says.Islamic State also says Israel is using drones and spies to collect intelligence against it, adding that this will lead to further Israeli “entanglement” with the group.This war is not going to be like those waged by secular, nationalist or communist movements, or by those that “falsely attribute themselves to Islam [referring to Hamas], since those battles were fought within the framework of the international order, the article says.However, it continues, Islamic State “rejects this ‘international order,’” and its war against its enemies “has no boundaries other than those which Allah prescribed on the Muslims in their jihad to make the polytheists submit to Islam’s rule – the entire world is an arena for its jihad; all the Muslims are potential soldiers in its army; and all polytheist combatants on earth, and the Jews among them, are legitimate targets for it.”It continues, “Any threat its leaders [issue against] the Jews emanates from the [promise] from Allah that He will enable them to carry it out. As the [Islamic State of Iraq leader] Sheikh Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi said in the past, he and those that are with him fight in Iraq while their eyes are on Jerusalem.”The article also claims that the group is more capable than others have been in the past of attacking Israel since it is closer to Israel.However, notes the MEMRI report, the Islamic State ideology does not view Israel as its primary target, but rather as one to be fought later, after the organization conquers the Arab countries surrounding it.
“Let the Jews bomb with their planes, they are not harsher on us than the Crusaders’ planes and Allah enabled us to persevere [against] those.... With Allah’s permission they will be overpowered, and then they will be taken to hell,” the ISIS article concludes.