ISIL sends video message to Hamas threatening over their disapproval of Salafists

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

IDF v ISIL would be quite a battle

Not really.

It'd be over in a few hours and result in mountains of dead Islamists.

Anyway, hopefully ISIS and Hamas start killing each other. Two repugnant, facist organisations.

ISIS would invade Isreal in a heartbeat were it not for the power of the IDF. They'd see it as home to a few too many independent women, open homosexuals and democrats who could do with having the joys of Islam imposed upon them.

OneOfThem wrote: »

Hmm. Israel would seem to be in a position to gain a lot by going in all guns blazing? They have international PR issues pretty much globally. Imagine if they took down ISIL? That'd be quite a shot in the arm to their reputation? Hamas would be somewhat in their debt. Which would be nice. Might earn them quite a lot of goodwill from the occupied territories? Get to be seen somewhat as liberators of Muslim nations? And they'd be taking out a new and ever more capable looking enemy, that they may end having to deal with at a future date anyway.

Israel would crush Daesh easily, it's the one army in situ in the area that could demolish them (the turks probably could too but the turks fear the kurds more than they fear Daesh).

However I think you're under a misapprehension if you think the arabs or persians would thank Israel for doing so. The thing is, the arabs don't particularly hate Israel for what is happening to the palestinians (arabs have treated palestinians badly too), they hate Israel because it is Israel and because it exists. They hate it because it is a non-muslim country in a muslim region, it is much more of an existential hatred rather than a rational anger.

Israel would need the agreement of Syria, Iran and Iraq at the very least in order to operate on Syrian territory but Israel is still technically at war with Syria, there has been an armistice in place since the Yom Kippur war but that's merely a cessation of hostilities, it isn't a peace agreement. Also neither Iran or Iraq recognise Israel or have diplomatic relations with it.

If Israel unilaterally acted against Daesh with ground forces then the likely result would be for arab and persians to unite with Daesh against Israel. In order for Israel to act it would need an absolutely unprecedented diplomatic turnaround from the arab nations and Iran towards Israel, a recognition of Israels right to exist and a peace agreement with Syria. That just seems so unlikely.

OneOfThem wrote: »

Hmm. Israel would seem to be in a position to gain a lot by going in all guns blazing? They have international PR issues pretty much globally. Imagine if they took down ISIL? That'd be quite a shot in the arm to their reputation? Hamas would be somewhat in their debt. Which would be nice. Might earn them quite a lot of goodwill from the occupied territories? Get to be seen somewhat as liberators of Muslim nations? And they'd be taking out a new and ever more capable looking enemy, that they may end having to deal with at a future date anyway.

Looks like it'd be a win all round for them?

Have ISIL released any official Israel themed statements, out of interest?

In as much as anyone can do an "official" statement for that rabble of human dirt, I read some stuff earlier today after wondering the same. Haaretz and a few other sources had reference to threats made, overthrow of palestine and destruction of Israel.

The usual stuff.

What might happen is the IDF will be presented with a perfect opportunity to level Palestine, the residents are those who will suffer again of course.

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

And IS is an ideology. Hard to fight that. Whole cities and towns may buy into the ideology but most would be passive (civil population) with a few (thousands) that fight.

I think this point needs expanding a little. When people see the word ‘ideology’ it gives them certain connotations, some appropriate to here and some not. It is important to realise that the IS ideology isn’t just some form of radicalised Islam, it also includes strong anti-Western and nationalist (I don’t have a better word and ‘regionalist’ just seems silly) sentiments.

For IS adherents the fight to rid their region of the invading Westerners is central to their faith. I would argue that this aspect of the ideology is the biggest allure for IS recruits. To attempt a dodgy parallel, you could describe the rebellions in Ireland as being founded on a type of Catholic ideology, and there would be some truth to it – but that came secondarily to the desire to drive back a foreign invader.

This is what makes IS a difficult enemy to defeat through conventional warfare. You bomb a location and the relatives of the victims (which would likely include innocents) have reason to sign up to IS. Much of the region’s population already have a distrust, if not an outright hatred, for ‘the West’. To put it bluntly, from WW1 to the present day ‘the West’ has given the population plenty of reason to harbour hatreds, and those hatreds are being tapped into by IS’s ideology.