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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Israel Struggles to Combat Homegrown Islamic State Threat |
| 2016-01-13 |
| [USA Today] JALJULIA, Israel -- Israeli authorities are increasing security measures in Arab communities as a growing number of Muslims are signing up to fight for the Islamic State across Israel's northern border with Syria. The Shin Bet, Israel's security agency, estimates that 50 Israeli Arabs have joined the civil war in Syria or are fighting in Iraq, and more may do so soon. The worry, as in Western countries, is that these fighters with the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, will return home to commit terrorist acts. "ISIS recruits from Israel were not regarded as a problem a year ago, but the security establishment sees them as a concerning trend," said Boaz Ganor, director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel. Last year, Israel officially outlawed the Islamic State, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he will revoke the citizenship of anyone planning to join the organization. Ganor said the extremist group challenges Israel's efforts to track and deter potential recruits because its counterterrorism efforts have focused on the West Bank and Gaza rather than the homeland. Most of the more than 1.5 million Arab citizens of Israel hold Israeli passports that allow them to travel throughout Israel and to countries such as Turkey, where Islamic State recruits have passed through to reach Syria. Note the slightly modified title line from the Breitbart posting of the USA Today piece. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #4 it's amazing how close Trailing Wife's first paragraph dove-tails with certain African American groups in the USA. It's an underclass thing. In Britain it's the multi-generation Welfare yobs who behave the same way in all particulars. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2016-01-13 23:15 |
| #3 Not at all 'off topic.' |
| Posted by: Don Vito Cromotle9106 2016-01-13 11:12 |
| #2 Off topic but it's amazing how close Trailing Wife's first paragraph dove-tails with certain African American groups in the USA. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2016-01-13 10:53 |
| #1 That first paragraph conflates two different issues. Arab Israelis -- both the cotizentry and the politicians, have for a while been asking for better policing and an active program to confiscate illegal guns in their communities. They want the level of safety that Jewish Israeli and mixed Jewish-Arab communities have -- more police, and a good deal less celebratory gunfire and people shooting at each other when they lose their tempers. Despite in actuality generally refusing to betray their "brothers" when witnesses are needed in real life to solve actual crimes. And in fact, after the Tel Aviv cafe shooting, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made this a priority. Separately, the Salafist organization in Israel split recently. (I'm not sure exactly when, but it's clear in the past it wasn't a problem, or not much of one. Possibly resulting from the rise of ISIS.) The southern part seems interested in quietly living purely, as far as I can tell. But the northern part, based in the Galilee, has been agitating and working toward a) sending believers to ISIS in Syria, and b) preparing for conquering Israel from within. They've been very vocal since last September about protecting the Temple Mount from incursions by those dirty Jews, among other things, and their leader was recently arrested and jailed again, as I recall. We had that report at the time, though I can't find it to link -- sorry. Finally, while Israel is very concerned about their Muslims going to ISIS and then coming back, it must be noted that 50 out of 1.5 million Arab Israelis is not actually very many, and even if we add those who were arrested while they were preparing to leave, and those who were arrested while plotting attacks at home in the name of ISIS, it still isn't a very high percentage of Israel's Muslim population. Then too, at least one of those Arab Israelis who snuck off to ISIS in Syria was tortured and killed on the belief that the idiot was a Mossad spy. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2016-01-13 10:16 |