{"id":10167,"date":"2014-08-03T00:35:33","date_gmt":"2014-08-03T00:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=10167"},"modified":"2014-08-14T19:32:23","modified_gmt":"2014-08-14T19:32:23","slug":"why-isnt-the-islamic-state-fighting-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/why-isnt-the-islamic-state-fighting-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Why isn\u2019t the &#8220;Islamic State&#8221; fighting Israel?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>The relentless Israeli assault on Gaza has yet to stop. But even as the death toll has now surpassed 1,600, the Islamic State (IS) and its newly established \u201ccaliphate\u201d has not moved a muscle, nor is it expected to do so anytime soon. So why is IS \u2013 formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) \u2013 not fighting Israel? Would anything change if its fighters were to gain access to the borders with occupied Palestine?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>While the Israeli military machine was massacring people in Gaza \u2013 and amid the euphoria among some jihadis over the news of the announcement of an \u201cIslamic caliphate\u201d \u2013 video footage of masked individuals firing rockets into Israel was posted online, and attributed to IS. Many cheered for what they saw as the \u201cMuslim caliph\u2019s\u201d response to calls for succor from the people of Gaza, even believing the \u201ccaliphate\u201d was very close to liberating Jerusalem. But the euphoria did not last very long.<\/p>\n<p>The video turned out to be from an old footage dating back to 2012, recorded by the militant group known as the Mujahideen Shura Council, and was repurposed to be attributed to IS. IS-affiliated social media activists such as Turujman al-Asawirti were also quick to question the authenticity of the video attributed to their group.<\/p>\n<p><i>Al-Akhbar<\/i> had a number of questions for IS supporters from Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, including the following: Why has IS maintained its distance from the events in Palestine? Are the people of Gaza not Muslims after all? Does this posture not reinforce the premise that there is a hidden link between Zionism and Salafi-Jihadism that appeases Israel, or is geography alone to blame for their inaction?<\/p>\n<p>In a speech by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, after he installed himself as caliph of the Muslims, he spoke about the terror inflicted on Palestine, but he did so only in passing, in the wider context of the terror Muslims face around the world.<\/p>\n<aside>In substance, they believe that liberating Palestine is irrelevant without the establishment of the caliphate in the countries surrounding Palestine first.<\/aside>\n<p>Before him, in the time of the late leader of al-Qaeda Osama bin Laden, the jihadi attitude on Palestine was also controversial. Why have the jihadis never declared Palestine an arena for their jihad?<\/p>\n<p>In effect, the leader of global jihadism Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri had an interesting position, approaching the issue from the angle of priorities on the basis of \u201cDar al-Kufr and Dar al-Islam,\u201d or the abode of disbelief and the abode of belief in jihadi lore. Zawahiri argues that fighting in Palestine should be on the basis that it is an abode of Islam, and that therefore, liberating it is a duty for every Muslim, as stated in his speech \u201ctruths about the conflict between Islam and infidelity\u201d in 2007. But despite this, Palestine remains at the bottom of the list of priorities for most jihadis.<\/p>\n<p>In form, most adherents of Salafi-Jihadism believe that \u201cShias are more dangerous than Jews.\u201d In substance, they believe that liberating Palestine is irrelevant without the establishment of the caliphate in the countries surrounding Palestine first.<\/p>\n<p>Sources linked to IS told <i>Al-Akhbar<\/i>, \u201cThe final war that will liberate Palestine will be led by the caliphate, preceded by the establishment of this state in the Levant and Iraq,\u201d on the basis of sayings they attribute to Prophet Mohammad. The sources add, \u201cAllah alone knows just how much the soldiers of the caliphate yearn for skipping the necessary stages and battle the Jews in Palestine, but he who rushes something before its time comes shall be punished by being denied it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The sources, who are based in the Raqqa province of Syria, enumerate these necessary stages, saying, \u201cThe priority is to liberate Baghdad, then head to Damascus and liberate all of the Levant, before liberating Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is the principle that IS soldiers follow: \u201cFighting nearby apostates is more important than fighting faraway infidels.\u201d To justify this, they rely on the Wars of Apostasy initiated by the Caliph Abu Bakr (against Muslims who renounced their religion following the death of the Prophet), who made it a priority over fighting infidels and Muslim conquests.<\/p>\n<p>According to IS fighters, the adherents of all Islamic sects who do not submit to their \u201ccaliph\u201d are either \u201capostates or misguided folk, who should be fought and killed, forced to repent and let themselves be guided, or be liberated from apostate rule.\u201d A jihadi adds here, \u201cWe the followers of this path follow sharia not the whims of men,\u201d adding that the Prophet had fought Quraysh first before moving on to fight the Jews of Banu Qurayza.<\/p>\n<p>These sharia-based arguments are \u201creinforced\u201d by the reality on the ground. A jihadi argues, \u201cNo one can initiate a battle against Israel except through the [direct] borders.\u201d The jihadi then adds sarcastically, \u201cCertainly, the mujahideen will not be able to bomb Israel by air,\u201d before he said, \u201cIS is still far from Israel. If it reaches Jordan and southern Syria (the Golan and Quneitra), then things would be different.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The jihadis base their vision on their perception that \u201cSyria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan all collaborate with Israel,\u201d and argue that any attack they initiate would be stopped by what they call the \u201cidolatry\u201d regimes in the name of security. A jihadi opines, \u201cSince the countries adjacent to Israel do not fire a single bullet at it, this means they do not want a confrontation with Israel. Any attempt to use their territories to target Israel means automatically a confrontation with these regimes. Therefore, we must first purge these countries to get to Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The IS-affiliated jihadis conclude that \u201cthe enmity the Arab countries and Arab groups have with Israel are in words not deeds, that is, only in politics and slogans. As long as this is the case, any group that wants to operate will confront these regimes.\u201d As proof of their point, the jihadis give the example of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades\u2019 operations out of South Lebanon, and the subsequent crackdown on the group\u2019s members after they fired rockets into Israel. For this reason, these jihadis believe that the priority is for their \u201cstate\u201d to expand gradually, and that everything else is meaningless and illogical.<\/p>\n<p>With regards to suicide operations, the jihadis said, \u201cThis is on the table, but the time for it has not yet come.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Source: Radwan Mortada, <a href=\"http:\/\/english.al-akhbar.com\/content\/why-isn%E2%80%99t-islamic-state-fighting-israel\">Al Akhbar<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The relentless Israeli assault on Gaza has yet to stop. But even as the death toll has now surpassed 1,600, the Islamic State (IS) and its newly established \u201ccaliphate\u201d has not moved a muscle, nor is it expected to do so anytime soon. So why is IS \u2013 formerly known as the Islamic State in &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[432],"tags":[162,905,1205,136,1425,163],"class_list":["post-10167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-supreme-leader","tag-headline","tag-isis","tag-islamic-state","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-ticker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10168,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10167\/revisions\/10168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}