(Israel Defense) Amir Rapaport - In Israel, ISIS is more of a concept than an organization. According to the Israel Security Agency, there are three hubs of solidarity with ISIS that amounted to the establishment of small ISIS cells - in the north, among the Bedouin in the Negev, and in eastern Jerusalem. In the north, in 2014, seven Israeli Arabs, mostly from Sakhnin, were arrested for involvement in ISIS-related activity. The cell members admitted they had organized around an ideology of "Salafi-jihadism" which advocates global jihad, and they had pledged their allegiance to the ideology of ISIS. Members of the group communicated with ISIS activists in Syria, including Israeli Arabs who had travelled to Syria to join ISIS. In the Bedouin village of Khureh near Dimona, some individuals who had worked as teachers in the Israeli educational system were subsequently accused of being members of ISIS. No significant ISIS activity takes place in the West Bank, as any attempt to establish an ISIS infrastructure is dealt with by the Palestinian security forces. So far, 60 Israeli Arabs have gone to fight for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and 11 of them have been killed. The high percentage of deaths and the defeats that ISIS has sustained have stopped its recruitment efforts in Israel almost completely.
2017-01-16 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive