FIRST, SOME BASIC DEFINITIONS
Islamism
Islamism is political Islam. In other words, Islamists believe that the doctrines of Islam — such as Sharia Law — should be congruent with those of the state. It’s important to note that not all Muslims — that is, people who follow the religion of Islam — are Islamists.
Jihadism
Jihadists believe that waging armed conflict is the best -- or only -- means to create an Islamist state, ruled under Islamic law.
ISIS
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or simply as the Islamic State (IS), is an internationally-recognized Islamist and jihadist terrorist group that aims to establish a Sunni Islamic Caliphate (empire) in what it considers rightfully “Islamic” lands. ISIS originated from al-Qaeda in Iraq — though al-Qaeda and ISIS are now at odds — and is notorious for committing a long list of crimes against humanity, including the genocide and sex enslavement of the Yazidi minority in Iraq.
WHAT DOES ISIS THINK OF ISRAEL?
ISIS is an Islamist, jihadist group that aims to establish an Islamic Caliphate (empire) in the Levant — a swathe of territory that includes the State of Israel — and other lands that it considers rightfully “Islamic.” In other words, there is no place for a Jewish state in ISIS’s vision.
Where ISIS differs from some other jihadist groups — such as Hamas — is that it does not consider the “liberation of Al Aqsa” in Jerusalem the most pressing Islamic issue. In 2016, the ISIS weekly newspaper al-Naba explained, “…jihad in Palestine is equal to jihad elsewhere.” Rather, in the same article, ISIS claimed that the most urgent Islamic battle was for the liberation of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam, from the “tyranny” of the Saudi royal family.
According to ISIS, once Saudi Arabia and other “infidel” Arab regimes fall, their attention will turn to liberating Palestine from the Jews. This is consistent with ISIS’s belief that the true and final battle against the Jews — or the Jewish state, in this case — will not come until Judgment Day (i.e. end times), as described in the Hadith quoted in the original 1988 Hamas Charter: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him..."
Nevertheless, ISIS also believes that Muslims living among Jews — such as Palestinian Muslims or Israeli Arab Muslims — have a duty to carry out jihad against them.
WHAT DOES ISIS THINK OF JEWS?
Despite ISIS’s lack of “urgency” in destroying Israel, antisemitism plays an enormous role in ISIS propaganda. For instance, a June 2014 official ISIS propaganda video claimed that “wherever our war goes, Jewish rabbis are humiliated.”
ISIS also uses antisemitic rhetoric as a recruiting tactic, both to recruit fighters from the Arab and Muslim worlds and to recruit people in the West to join ISIS. For example, as early as 2014, ISIS carried out social media campaigns on Twitter aimed at recruiting Westerners to their cause; in such campaigns, “death to Jews” was a common underlying theme.
Shortly after ISIS declared itself a Caliphate in 2014, the group’s spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, blamed “the Jews” for the international coalition fighting ISIS. “The jews [sic]! The jews [sic]! Save the jews[sic]! This is the reason they [the U.S.] came,” he wrote (notably, Nazi propaganda during World War II portrayed the Allied powers using the same language. So did the Soviet Union about the west, and so does the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is a prime example of how different groups with different ideologies recycle the same antisemitic rhetoric to mobilize toward their respective causes). Al-Adnani also called then-American president Barack Obama “the mule of the Jews.”
ISIS supporters outside of Israel have carried out a number of terrorist attacks against Jews, such as the May 2014 shooting at the Brussels Jewish Museum, which killed three, and the January 2015 Paris kosher supermarket shooting, which killed four. ISIS itself took responsibility for the kosher supermarket shooting.
WHERE DOES THE ISRAEL = ISIS CONSPIRACY COME FROM?
Historically, propagandists have often relied on the strategy of truth, truth, and a lie. Anti-Israel propagandists often use this very tactic. For example, while Israel did not intervene in the Syrian Civil War until the recent downfall of Bashar al-Assad, it did institute what it called “Operation Good Neighbor,” in which it carried out humanitarian missions to provide injured Syrian civilians with medical treatment in Israel. Proponents of the conspiracy that Israel is behind ISIS now claim that Israel treated ISIS fighters during the Syrian Civil War.
Another thing to consider? The majority of ISIS victims were civilians in Iraq and Syria, where most of the population is, statistically, deeply hostile to Israel and Jews. The way that antisemitism functions is that it turns Jews — or, in recent decades, the Jewish state — into whatever any particular society reviles the most. It’s not a huge jump for those who suffered tremendously under ISIS and were already hostile to Israel to then assume that Israel must somehow be behind ISIS.
A number of Arab and Muslim governments and prominent figures have fanned the flames of this conspiracy theory, including Egyptian state propaganda, Islamic Republic of Iran state propaganda, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, and more. The Islamic Republic, for example, has frequently alleged that ISIS is an Israeli/Western plot to destroy Iran.
Ironically (or not so ironically, if you understand how antisemitism works), ISIS themselves has also accused its enemies, including enemy Muslim and Arab regimes (for example, the Egyptian government), of working on behalf of the Jews and/or Israel.
DOES HAMAS ACTUALLY HAVE TIES TO ISIS?
Since the October 7 massacre, a common pro-Israel slogan has been “Hamas is ISIS.” Though both groups are Islamist jihadist groups that ultimately envision an Islamic Caliphate, and though both have used similarly barbaric tactics, the relationship between Hamas and ISIS is a lot more complicated.
As mentioned, ISIS does not see the “liberation” of Al Aqsa and Jerusalem from Israel as its most pressing goal, whereas Hamas does. ISIS is opposed to nationalism — including Palestinian nationalism — because it considers anything other than a pure Islamic Caliphate invalid. On the other hand, Hamas combines Palestinian nationalism with its eventual vision for an Islamic Caliphate.
ISIS has historically been hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). While both ISIS and the MB are Sunni Muslims, ISIS also follows Salafism — a revival movement within Sunni Islam — and regards the MB as apostates. Hamas started as the Palestinian branch of the MB.
Nevertheless, the Egyptian branch of ISIS played a major role in smuggling arms to Hamas via the Sinai Peninsula. Many of the Gazans who had joined the Sinai ISIS during Mohamed Morsi’s brief rule of Egypt (2012-2013) later returned to Gaza and became involved with Hamas. Some even may have participated in the October 7 massacre, given ISIS signs, symbols, flags, and gear were found on some of the October 7 terrorists or in the wreckage they left behind.
In 2014, an 11-year-old Yazidi girl was captured by ISIS in Iraq and sold as a sex slave. Eventually she was sold to a member of Hamas in Gaza and languished in captivity until she was rescued last year thanks to the efforts of a Jewish philanthropist and the IDF. Experts expect there may be many more Yazidi sex slaves in captivity in Gaza.
Another concerning factor to pay attention to is the growing support for ISIS in the West Bank, particularly in Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams, a phenomenon that has been documented by Palestinian media outlets. A number of terrorists affiliated with Palestinian groups, namely Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, have been photographed with ISIS paraphernalia in the West Bank.
DID OCTOBER 7 INSPIRE ISIS?
Many pro-Israel commentators have noticed that terrorist attacks like the recent one in New Orleans are unsurprising when we’ve heard pro-Palestine protestors call to “globalize the intifada” for over a year since the October 7 massacre. So is there a direct link between October 7, calls for a global intifada, and the recent ISIS terrorist attacks we are seeing in the west?
ISIS themselves have made statements that seem to at least indirectly imply so. Shortly after the massacre, on October 19, 2023, ISIS wrote an article in its weekly newsletter titled “The Steps of the Operation to Fight the Jews,” in which it referenced the October 7 massacre. Then, on January 4, 2024, ISIS released an audio message titled “And Kill Them Wherever You Overtake Them,” encouraging their followers to attack nearby Jewish and Christian targets, including civilians, to demonstrate “solidarity” with the Muslims in the Gaza Strip.
According to the January 4, 2024 ISIS message, 610 people were killed and wounded in a series of 110 operations that the terrorist group carried out in “solidarity” with Gaza.
ISIS has released a number of videos of their terrorists in the year since the October 7 massacre expressing their solidarity with Gaza. For example, ISIS released a video of one of their own fighters in Mali firing rockets inscribed with the message “Revenge for the Muslims in Gaza.”
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