Whether it’s Nazism, Communism, Ebola or some other plague, the worst thing you can do is underestimate an existential threat.
That’s what I fear the U.S. – and Israel – are doing with regard to ISIS.
I just returned from Israel where I stood on the Golan Heights at an Israeli military base where officers pointed to the nearby Syrian border and explained that ISIS is under observation a mere 10 miles from Jewish and Druze communities there.
“We don’t expect them to attack us,” said one of the officers. “We are watching them. They would be crazy to try to infiltrate Israel territory.”
True enough – right now.
But ISIS’ ability to recruit terrorists from all over the world – not just Arab countries but even Western nations including the U.S. – is noteworthy, even astonishing.
In October, Palestinian security forces in Judea and Samaria arrested dozens of ISIS supporters, some of whom were trying to set up secret cells and carry out terror attacks. Because of ISIS’ daring, action-oriented campaign of unspeakable violence in the name of Allah and the restoring of the Caliphate, it is garnering strong support in the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, not to mention some among Israeli Arab citizens.
How do we know?
It was ISIS that launched a campaign involving vehicular and stabbing attacks in the West Bank. Last month, similar attacks began taking place within the borders of Israel, including Jerusalem – perpetrated by Israeli Arabs.
There is no other conclusion one can draw but this: ISIS, which has declared support for self-appointed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has fundamentally changed the reality of the Middle East in its bid to redraw the region’s map.
Last weekend, any doubts about Turkey’s tacit, low-key support of ISIS were removed when the terrorist group launched its first attack on the Syrian town of Kobani from within Turkey’s borders.
Turkey doesn’t publicly want the public relations baggage of ISIS, but it clearly doesn’t want to miss what it sees as an opportunity to restore the Islamic Caliphate that permitted it to dominate the Middle East map for hundreds of years until 100 years ago when World War I put an end to one of the world’s longest-running and largest empires.
ISIS, clearly linked with Turkey, can no longer be mistaken for a JV team.
The dream of restoring the glory of Islam, roll up opposition, defy the U.S. and the West and place more and more territory under its control is attracting a growing army of fanatics and inspiring copycats the world over.
The threat to the Middle East and the free world simply cannot be overstated.
What propelled Hamas to embark on a hopeless and costly campaign of rocket attacks and tunnel warfare against Israel last summer?
Some believe it was a bid to keep up with ISIS, whose tactics and successes on the battlefield have been winning hearts and minds in Gaza.
That the U.S. doesn’t yet recognize ISIS as a potential existential threat is not surprising. More disconcerting, however, is Israel’s laissez-faire attitude. Both the U.S. and Israel seem more interested in deposing Syria’s Hafez Assad than in recognizing that his main opposition – and thus alternative – is ISIS.
Israel is far more sophisticated in assessing threats than is the U.S. It must be because of the dangerous neighborhood Israel lives in. But Israel has made careless mistakes in the past – either through miscalculations or hubris.
Just remember Yom Kippur 1973.
Still gloating in its 1967 sweeping and stunning victory over the Arab coalition, Israel didn’t take seriously the military threat posed by Syria and Egypt. Israel nearly paid the ultimate price. On the verge of going nuclear after major military setbacks on two fronts, the tide of the war changed thanks to a miracle or two and some emergency U.S. military aid.
Israel’s intelligence may be good, but it’s not infallible.
It would do well to recognize that ISIS is something very new on the scene – something very dangerous, a movement unlike any the world has seen perhaps since the seventh century.
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