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Old December 3rd, 2015 #1
Karl Radl
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Default Islamic State's Propaganda Videos on the Jews and Israel

Islamic State's Propaganda Videos on the Jews and Israel


As an aside to the second edition of my article on the relationship between Islamic State and Israel; (1) I thought I would discuss the Islamic State online propaganda offensive and its representation of Israel as coordinated by the al-Hayat Media Centre.

First things first; we need to note that we know that Israel has directly interfered militarily in Syria as its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently admitted. (2) Further, as former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni has stated: Islamic State is not a priority for the Israeli government. (3) This is despite the fact that for the last year and a half Israel has publicly lied about its involvement in the Syrian conflict. (4)

In addition we know that Israel has actively supported Sunni Islamist rebels in Syria against President Assad, (5) which, according to senior figures in Israeli intelligence also includes the Al-Qaeda aligned fighters of Al-Nusra Front (6) (although Israel officially denies doing so). (7)

This denial is however debunked by the fact that Israel doesn't ask about the politico-religious affiliation of rebels according to the official spokesman of the IDF in December 2014 (i.e. it cannot deny doing it as Israel intentionally made sure it didn't know whether they treated jihadis or not in the first place). (8) Further in the same month the United Nations publicly stated that Israel was directly involved in supporting Sunni rebel factions, including Islamic State (then ISIS/ISIL), in Syria. (9)

That tells us that at the very least Israel has been providing some support (directly or indirectly) to Islamic State for a variety of reasons. (10)

Islamic State for their part issued a statement on 10th July 2014 to the effect that Israel is not a strategic priority for them. (11) This is odd precisely because Israel, both in the depictions of its friends and opponents, is at the very centre of the web when it comes to understanding the various grievances and religious/ideological movements that make up the mainstay of regional politics in the Middle East.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah have significantly benefited in propagandistic terms in the Arab world from taking on Israel militarily in asymmetrical warfare even though neither could win a prolonged battle with the jewish state. Islamic State are widely credited with trying to do the same thing, but to the United States. (12)

The question is why would Islamic State pick that fight with the United States who are less hated in the Middle East than Israel is and Israel also happens to be right next door to Islamic State's neo-Caliphate (making it a lot easier to provoke).

The answer I think is a relatively simple one.

It is much the same reason that Islamic State doesn't attack Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey with its fighters or in its propaganda as a rule. In other words Israel has provided significant support to the Islamic State in order to weaken the Shia bloc (Assad's Syria, Iran and Hezbollah) who it is sees as its real enemies and enemies that it happens to share with both the Sunni bloc and the Islamic State.

After all we know that Iran and Hezbollah are regarded by the Israeli government and the IDF as their two main strategic regional opponents. (13) Recent Israeli actions aimed at these two opponents have included attempting to sabotage the US formed coalition's military and intelligence cooperation with the Shia bloc who are Islamic State's main opponents on the ground. (14) This is further evidenced by the fact that Israel is working closely with the Sunni bloc (i.e. the primary financial donors to Islamic State such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar) (15) to coordinate anti-Shia bloc policies and interventions in Syria, Iraq and further abroad. (16)

All this strongly suggests that Israel has had, and continues to have, a big hand to play in creating and sustaining the Islamic State.

We find this mirrored in Islamic State propaganda in so far as statements regarding Israel and the jews are rare. When they come they are usually provoked by some external propaganda need on the part of Islamic State not because of deep ideological motive or 'bitter jew hatred'.

For example by December 2014 it had begun to be the subject of notice and gossip that Islamic State had little to say on the subject of the Israel-Palestine conflict; so the Islamic State promptly published an article in their official magazine calling Benjamin Netanyahu 'a tyrant'. (17)

Yes I know; strong words there from the people who regularly cut people's heads off on a whim.

Another more recent example occurred in October 2015 when Islamic State released videos praising attacks on jews after an upsurge in violence between Israel and the Palestinians. One video in particular, in modern Hebrew, drew the attention of the mainstream media as a masked Islamic State fighters claims in it that 'not one jew will left alive'.

However as Will McCants of the Brookings Institution notes this is a propagandistic response to an unforeseen geopolitical situation (i.e. a possible third intifada), which Islamic State cannot ignore without losing credibility and seeing significant negative impact on its fund-raising and recruiting effort, rather than an actual desire to combat Israel which he rightly points out that Islamic State 'rarely' talks about. (18)

Similarly another mention of Israel and jews occurred in March 2015 when Islamic State released a video of a child soldier murdering a man named Mohammed Said Ismail Musallam for allegedly being an Israeli-Arab spy in Islamic State's ranks for Mossad. (19) The video naturally included vague threats against Israel and the jewish Diaspora, but given Islamic State's rare engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict these are rather obviously just piss and wind intended to win Islamic State a bit more credibility in the Islamic world.

When jews are mentioned in regard to Islamic State's policies it is usually Western commentators seeing 'Christians and jews' in the words 'unbelievers'/'disbelievers' even when the Islamic State video concerned only deals with Christians. (20)

Symptomatic of the Islamic State view of Israel as 'being just another opponent', which is the opposite of just about every other Islamic and Arab analysis out there including that of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, Al-Qaeda, Ba'athism and so forth, is the fact that in their most recent video, specifically targeted against the United States doesn't even mention Israel in its analysis of the prolonged campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq (in which jewish neo-cons are well-known to have played a conspicuous part).

Indeed the only time that Israel is shown in the whole video is as part of the US coalition against Islamic State with the Israeli flag is put in a tiny montage alongside the flags of those notoriously anti-Islamic State powers: Albania, South Korea, Switzerland and Taiwan.

This therefore demonstrates that Islamic State have the opposite political analysis to just about every Islamic and Arab group out there (i.e. it is Christianity not jewish/Zionist political power that causes the United States to 'attack Islam') and it is difficult to explain why unless Islamic State have an ongoing positive relationship with the Israeli government.

When Islamic State claims responsibility for attacks on jews, such as the stabbing of a jewish teacher in Marseilles on 20th November 2015, it is always undertaken by individuals who have been radicalized in a Western environment where the more ordinary anti-jewish Islamo-Arab geopolitical analysis, and not that of the Islamic State, is dominant. It isn't Muslims educated by the Islamic State who kill jews, but rather it is Western-educated Muslims who murder jews on behalf of the Islamic State.

Therefore we can see that when we look at Islamic State's propaganda videos and what the message they convey (or rather the things they don't say) on the subject of Israel and the jews; it provides yet more evidence that Israel has some kind of beneficent relationship with the Islamic State.

Lazy explanations and claims that Israel has 'better security services' (which it doesn't) simply don't account for the discrepancy in both the lack of Islamic State anti-Israel propaganda as well as their lack of action against Israel. All while perpetrating attacks and propagandizing regularly against countries like Australia, Canada, France, Great Britain and the United States.

When you wonder why Islamic State targets Paris for a massacre by armed gunmen rather than the much closer and more propagandistically lucrative Tel Aviv; it becomes evidently clear that there must be a very simple and good reason that Islamic State aren't attempting or doing it.

And they certainly aren't scared of Israel as they are picking a fight with a country a hundred times as powerful: the United States.

It really makes you wonder: doesn't it?


References


(1) http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...mic-state.html
(2) http://www.sltrib.com/home/3250571-1...-acts-in-syria
(3) http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/23...uYPujBrppFI.97
(4) http://www.richardsilverstein.com/20...syria-attacks/
(5) http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/...-syrian-rebels
(6) http://www.richardsilverstein.com/20...st-extremists/ ; http://www.ibtimes.co.in/un-report-i...ng-isis-616404 ; http://www.richardsilverstein.com/20...tion-in-golan/
(7) http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Rep...vil-war-393862
(8) http://www.ibtimes.co.in/un-report-i...ng-isis-616404
(9) Ibid.
(10) http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debat...islamic-state/ ; http://www.palestinechronicle.com/fi.../#.VKQr8SusWSo
(11) http://www.algerie1.com/actualite/da...battre-israel/
(12) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...t-reveals.html ; http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...mmer-and-anvil
(13) http://www.westernjournalism.com/gat...FUDBwgkJ8ix.97 ; http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...608344,00.html
(14) http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Sen...mistake-380355
(15) https://opendemocracy.net/opensecuri...syrian-shadows ; cf. Patrick Cockburn, 2015, 'The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution', 2nd Edition, Verso: New York
(16) http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/US-...-Israel-392357 ; https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2...e-shall-named/ ; http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...an-saudia.html ; http://www.jewishaz.com/us_worldnews...2197d82e0.html
(17) http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/12/31...tate-magazine/
(18) https://news.vice.com/article/islami...s-against-jews
(19) http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31822703
(20) For example: http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/new...istians-67186/

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This was originally published at the following address: http://www.semiticcontroversies.blog...s-on-jews.html
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Old December 3rd, 2015 #2
Robbie Key
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Excellent article.
 
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