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ISIS Indoctrination Keeps Israel Vigilant
I
slamic State doesn’t appear to have
large-scale cells in Israel or the
Palestinian-controlled areas of the
West Bank or the Gaza Strip. But the terrorist
group commands sympathizers in all those
places.
So Israeli intelligence is respecting the
appeal of the global jihadist group — widely
known as ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria.
Israeli leaders believe
ISIS boasts more than 100
recruits within the Jewish
state’s borders. Active
recruitment continues not
only for fighters for battle
inside Syria and Iraq, but
also for attacks on Israeli
Robert Sklar soil, especially via Egypt’s
lawless Sinai Peninsula.
Contributing
Like Hamas, the Shiite
Editor
Muslim terrorist organiza-
tion ruling the Gaza Strip,
Sunni Muslim-leaning ISIS imagines Israel’s
destruction.
Underscoring ISIS’s allure, Israel has
announced the arrest of an Israeli Arab
couple who had become enamored with ISIS
content and videos. The couple later made
contact via Facebook with another Israeli
Arab who had joined ISIS in 2013, according
to Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security service.
The couple’s Sept. 22 arrest by the Shin
Bet, aided by the Israeli Police, is a stark
reminder of just how porous Middle East
defenses can be against ISIS propaganda.
While Israel has repelled most ISIS terror
plots within, the group has scored limited
success.
Take it from the Shin Bet, which declared
in a press bulletin following the arrest that
“the phenomena of Israelis leaving for Syria
and Iraq is grave and dangerous.”
OFFICIAL ACCOUNT
According to the Shin Bet: Wissam and
Sabarin Zabidat were indicted in Haifa
District Court on charges of leaving Israel
for an enemy country and joining a terror-
ist group. They are from the Arab town of
Sakhnin, 21 miles from Migdal HaEmek,
one of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit’s Partnership2Gether communities in
Israel’s Northern District.
Make no mistake about the couple’s attrac-
Israel eyes the U.S.-developed Lockheed
Martin F-35 Lightning II as a next-
generaton fighter jet.
Take it from the Shin
Bet: “The phenomena
of Israelis leaving for
Syria and Iraq is grave
and dangerous.”
tion to ISIS: When they left Israel in June
2015, the couple took along their three kids,
ages 8, 6 and 3. That kind of commitment to
terror in the face of raising three young chil-
dren is sobering, to say the least.
The Zabidats trekked to Romania and
Turkey, then into Syria. There, Wissam
traveled to an ISIS training camp in Iraq.
Fighting followed. He ended up in a hospital
in Mosul.
Against invading Iraqi-led forces, ISIS is
trying to salvage Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest
city, as the cultural capital of what the Wall
Street Journal called “ISIS’s envisaged caliph-
ate.” ISIS has held that northern Iraqi city for
about two years.
Harsh conditions in besieged Mosul,
including poverty, bombardment and disease
— none surprising — drove the Zabidats
away this past June despite resistance from
Islamic State fighters. The family was
detained in Turkey before being released.
They flew to Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport,
where they were arrested.
WARPED VIEW
ISIS has been known to enlist recruits not
only from the Middle East, but also from the
West, including the U.S. The draw: a better
community view continued from page 5
and 1980s, had the patience and willing-
ness when building the great I696 freeway
through our neighborhoods to ensure safe
walking passage for our Shomar Shabbos
as they cut through.
Those engineers stood with some of us
on the roof of Prentis Tower to see exactly
how far flung our people were. And with
loving care and the help of a very wise
6 November 3 • 2016
and persistent mayor of Oak Park, the
freeway opened on a bitter, blustery day
in 1989 with beautiful grassy crossovers
designed to hold us all together.
I stood on that overpass as the ribbons
were cut, tears of pride and elation freez-
ing on my cheeks. And I was not alone.
How very sad that the Michigan
Highway Department felt more compas-
or more adventurous life.
The Shin Bet’s press bulletin explained
that ISIS disseminates publications “designed
to construct a distorted image of itself as
allowing a good and respectable life under an
Islamic regime’’ or, alternatively, under the
guise “of religious and military adventure.”
The hitch, according to the Shin Bet, lies
in Israeli sympathizers returning from Syria
and Iraq after living under ISIS and reveal-
ing “a completely opposite picture about the
dangers and harsh living conditions.”
Shin Bet interrogators learned from the
Zabidats about ISIS enacting laws discrimi-
nating against women and employing such
brutal methods of punishment as behead-
ings and amputations, the Wall Street Journal
reported.
STAYING AWARE
Most Israeli Arabs are law abiding and
thankful they live in a society more demo-
cratic and inclusive than anything they
would find in a neighboring Arab country.
Still, you can’t diminish the draw of ISIS
indoctrination within Israel given Israel’s
proximity to the terrorist group’s heartland.
Col. Yehuda Cohen, immediate past
commander of the Israeli Defense Forces’
Sagi Brigade along the border with Egypt,
foresees when ISIS leaders will be capable
of acting on a yearning to make a dramatic
statement inside Israel.
“The reason they have not done it yet is
the deterrence,” Cohen said in an August
interview with Israel’s Maariv newspaper.
“They can conduct attacks on us at any time
on the border, but they are asking themselves
if it is worth it. They know we can take
action against anyone. That doesn’t mean
they will not try in the future. In any case, we
aren’t relying on being only a deterrence; we
are preparing for any scenario.”
Cohen added that ISIS “is an organization
that we have not yet met but are expecting to
meet in the future. We see their activities and
successes. We are studying and analyzing
their military doctrine.”
That’s a wise approach as Israel awaits U.S.
testing and final development of the next-
generation stealth fighter jet, the F-35.
Meanwhile, Israel will have to demonstrate
unswerving vigilance to keep a step ahead of
ISIS and its wily, unpredictable and terrorist
nature. *
sion and understanding of our obser-
vant neighborhoods’ needs than our
Federation and JCC. The lights have
gone out, and the powers that be seem
oblivious and uncaring.
A death knell has sounded.
The conscience of the greater com-
munity has turned to stone.
*
Ja net Birnkrant Levine is a resident of Huntington
Woods.
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