The leader of the Islamic State announced that he’s planning to attack Israel.
The Spanish newspaper where I read this news stated that it’s unclear why al-Bagdadi singled out Israel. Yes, what an inscrutable mystery.
What a Mystery!
Opinions, art, debate
Clarissa's Blog 
Probably a bluff — it would be a big mistake on ISIS’s part.
If ISIS is stupid enough to provoke a large-scale war with Israel that the Israeli government perceives as an existential threat to the Jewish state, Israel won’t show the ridiculous restraint that it has displayed over the years in dealing with the Palestinian terrorist attacks. It will be all-out war, and the IDF will win it.
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Who knows, these freaks are not exactly guided by reason. But I hope you are right.
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\ that the Israeli government perceives as an existential threat to the Jewish state
Why must my government be so stupid, in your eyes?
Just today I read an opinion column by “Major-General (res.) Amos Yadlin is the director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and served as head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate”
The column’s title? “ISIS is no existential threat to Israel.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4567128,00.html
Israeli Jews talk this way “we are lucky Arabs are busy slaughtering each other, instead of uniting and attacking Israel together. Good luck for both sides!”
It is kind of ugly, but that’s the widespread view by “Israelis on the street.” The busier Arabs are with each other, the less power they have to turn against us.
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There can’t be a bigger gift to Putin than if ISIS attacks Israel.
Yes, I’m human and am entitled to my obsessions as much as anybody else.
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@el
You are aware that “Ynet.news” publishes OPINION articles, and this article paints a ridiculously optimistic view of how the war against ISIS is going.
“In fact, ISIS has led to an almost unbelievable broad coalition against it, all of whom seek to destroy it. Here is a short, clockwise list: Russia, Turkey, Iran, the Kurdish militias (Pêşmerge), the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Syrian army, the Lebanese army, Hezbollah and Israel.” Do you really believe that Russia, Turkey, and Syria have the destruction of ISIS as their main goal? This article is so full of wishful thinking that it could have been written by John Kerry.
(And yes, I think that MY government is quite stupid concerning international affairs.)
I said that if ISIS provokes a LARGE-SCALE WAR with Israel (one on multiple fronts with massive forces), as ISIS has threatened to do, then this could constitute an existentialist threat to the state. http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2014/12/24/isis-prepares-to-attack-israel-in-north-and-south-pincer-movement/
I also said I think in this case ISIS is bluffing, because it knows the IDF would smash the hell out of it.
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\There can’t be a bigger gift to Putin than if ISIS attacks Israel.
I do not understand why. The attack may happen, however, it is not like ISIS stands out (yet). I read such:
IDF increasing fight against ISIS in Sinai
ISIS-Sinai Province has become the terrorist group’s most effective branch in the Middle East; Military Intelligence believe that an attack is likely be carried out in one of the towns near the Sinai border.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4744711,00.html
And then another article is titled
“The Hezbollah Secretary General gave a speech during a ceremony marking a week after the assassination of organization operative Samir Kuntar, threatening to attack Israel in response.”
And other articles are about
“Two soldiers hurt in stabbing near Hawara checkpoint; two terrorists shot dead; in early morning attack, soldier stabbed near J’lem’s Central Bus Terminal, and fought off his attacker; terrorist was overpowered, arrested.”
ISIS fails to stand out to me.
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Putin’s greatest goal is to return to the Yalta-era division of the world between Russia and the US. If ISIS were to attack Israel, the US will be forced to bring in troops. That will allow Putin to push his vision of pro-Islamic Russia vs anti-Islamic US.
Let’s not forget that Hamas and Hezbollah were trained by the same organization where Putin worked before the collapse of the USSR.
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\ If ISIS were to attack Israel, the US will be forced to bring in troops.
This sounds very weird to me. When Hezbollah talks about attacking Israel and when Israel talks how the entire Lebanese civil infrastructure should be destroyed in such a case to create deterrence, no USA troops are expected. None were sent during 2006 Lebanon War and none are expected in case of future wars either. When a (probably) weaker organization succeeds to do less damage than Palestinians do regularly, USA troops appear? It does not make sense to me.
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There is a strong anti-ISIS feeling in the US while there is zero anti-Hezbollah feeling. Nobody knows it exists, pretty much.
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I’m not so sure about this. Whenever Israel has fought actual, full-scale wars against organized military forces much more powerful than ISIS (The Six-Day War, the Yom Kuppur War, etc.), the IDF has decisively won them all. The U.S. aided Israel by supplying it with massive amounts of military hardware, but never sent a single combat soldier.
The IDF is a force to be reckoned with, when it’s actually unleashed to fight.
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