A top Israeli counter-terrorism official acknowledged that “more than a few dozen” Muslim Israelis have joined ISIS, but said the government is succeeding in keeping the problem under control, Reuters reported on Thursday.
Eitan Ben-David, who heads the Counter-Terrorism Bureau in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, said “no more than 100” Israelis Arabs had joined the ranks of the terrorist group that is conducting atrocities in Iraq and Syria and has local affiliates in Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, and other countries.
“These foreign terrorists can certainly pose a grave danger internally, so the Shin Bet (security service) and all the state system is doing very good work in foiling this threat, which could be a kind of spreading cancer,” Ben-David told Reuters.
“To our satisfaction, the situation is reasonable. It is not like any European country, nor even America, or places like China or Russia which have had a great number of homegrown ISIS terrorists,” he said.
Concerns about defections to ISIS led to a warning in January by President Reuven Rivlin, who said that “considerable radicalization” was occurring among Arab Israelis.
“The Islamic State is already here, that is no longer a secret,” Rivlin said at the time. I am not speaking about territories bordering the State of Israel, but within the State itself.
“Research studies, arrests, testimonies, and overt and covert analyses – many by the INSS – clearly indicate that there is increasing support for ISIS among Israeli Arabs, while some are actually joining ISIS.”
The terrorist group was made illegal in Israel in 2014.
There have been several legal cases against Israelis accused of trying to join the group or of planning attacks inspired by the group.
In December 2015, Israeli security forces arrested five Arab Israelis from Nazareth on suspicion of establishing an ISIS cell in Israel.
In October, a 23-year-old Arab-Israeli crossed the border between Syria and Israel using a paraglider, prompting the government to crack down on the phenomenon.
ISIS has also released videos showing ISIS terrorists speaking in Arabic-accented Hebrew and promising to strike Israel. In a video that surfaced in November, a jihadist delivered genocidal threats couched in coarsely anti-Semitic language, including references to Jews as “the grandchildren of monkeys and pigs.”
A video released by the group’s affiliate in the Sinai Peninsula that same month showed a masked ISIS terrorist saying: “The time is coming. You will pay for your crimes and sins and that you are big atheists.”
“With the help of Allah, we will reach Um Al-Rashrash (Eilat) and we’ll attack it very soon,” he says. “You [the Jews] will be sorry for all that you have done to Muslims.”
In December, the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi threatened attacks against Israel, saying that “ISIS will soon be heard in Palestine.
“The Jews thought that we forgot to Palestine and that they had diverted our attention from it,” said Al Baghdadi in the recording posted to social media outlets.
“Not at all, Jews. We have not forgotten Palestine. Allah will not forget it. Soon soon, with Allah: Listen to the boiling emotions of jihad fighters,” he added.
“We will soon meet in Palestine. Israel will pay a heavy price.”
But Ben-David said other dangers may be more immediate. “When it comes to ISIS, we worry about terrorist attacks against Israeli or Jewish targets, including abroad, but we are not a main target right now,” he said.
