ANT KATZ

ISIS: Topple Arab regimes first

The Times of Israel quoted ISIS as saying: “If we look at the reality of the world today, we will find that it is completely ruled by polytheism and its laws, except for the regions where Allah made it possible for the Islamic State to establish the religion…Therefore, jihad in Palestine is equal to jihad elsewhere.”

The Times quoted from a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute of the al-Naba article, calling for jihadists to fight the “infidels” nearest to them, and leaving the fight against Israel to “the Muslim Palestinians”.

RIGHT: An armed French soldier securing the access to the La Source Jewish school in Marseille, southern France a day after a teenager, armed with a machete and a knife, wounded a teacher slightly before being stopped and arrested on January 12. (Boris Horvat/AFP/Getty Images) 

The al-Naba story was also critical of the commonly-held viewpoint by more secular Muslim leaders that: “Palestine is the Muslims’ primary cause.” It named past secular Arab leaders such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, for this.

Al-Naba postulated that jihadists should focus first on toppling the Arab regimes which it believes defend Israel – and only when that is accomplished should they approach “the borders of [Israel] and confront its army directly”.

But, notes The Times’ report, Muslims have a religious duty to bring Palestine back into the “house of Islam” and should send aid to Palestinians who are fighting Israel.

It encourages those unable to travel to the Middle East to fight Israel: “the Jews and their allies wherever they find them, killing them, destroying their property, and harming their interests in any way they can”.