Jerusalem News (30 November 2015, 18 Kislev, 5776)
Contents:
1. Time to Take Over? "Syria is dead, Israel must prepare," top defense official warns
Amos Gilad says Bashar Assad's grip on his country is failing and it has become 'a land without rule'
2. MK Michael Oren: Obama Inserted Islamic Values into the White House
3. An ISIS defector explained a key reason people continue joining the group by Pamela Engel
4. Dabiq at heart of Islamic State's vision of the 'apocalypse'Â by Tom Allard
5. Druze in Syria forced by USA Backed Sunnis to Become Muslims!
Al Nusra Atrocities against Syrian Druze Belie Its Rebranding
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
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1. Time to Take Over? 'Syria is dead, Israel must prepare,' top defense official warns
Amos Gilad says Bashar Assad's grip on his country is failing and it has become 'a land without rule'
http://www.timesofisrael.com/syria-is-dead-israel-must-prepare-security-official-warns/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=e58a6c4215-2015_11_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-e58a6c4215-55237018
BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF November 28, 2015, 2:49 pm 70
Extracts:
The nation state of Syria has collapsed, a fact that Israel must internalize about its northern neighbor, a senior Israeli defense official said Saturday.
'Syria is a dead state, and Israel must understand this and prepare accordingly,' Amos Gilad, the director of the political-security division in the Defense Ministry and a former senior Military Intelligence official, told a cultural event in Beersheba.
'[Syrian President Bashar] Assad's grip on the country is faltering, it is a land without rule,' Gilad said, according to Army Radio.
With swathes of Syria falling into the hands of opposition forces, including jihadist groups, Assad has increasingly relied on support from allies Iran and the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah, both sworn enemies of Israel.
During a September meeting in Moscow, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin in 'no uncertain terms' that Israel would not tolerate Tehran's efforts to arm its enemies in the region, and that Jerusalem has taken and will continue to take action against any such attempts.
Netanyahu told Putin that Iran and Syria have been providing Hezbollah with advanced weapons, thousands of which are directed at Israeli cities. 'At the same time, Iran, under the auspices of the Syrian army, is attempting to build a second terrorist front against us from the Golan Heights.'
The prime minister also said that Israel's policy is to prevent these weapons transfers, and to prevent the creation of a terrorist front and attacks on us from the Golan Heights. Â Netanyahu came to the Kremlin to 'clarify our policies, and to make sure that there is no misunderstanding between our forces,' he said.
Russia is currently conducting air strikes in Syria that, while ostensibly targeting the Islamic State group, have also attacked Assad's Western-backed foes. But a senior Israeli military official said Thursday that the Israel Air Force will still operate as normal in Syria, thanks to constant coordination between Tel Aviv and Moscow.
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2. MK Michael Oren: Obama Inserted Islamic Values into the White House
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/mk-michael-oren-obama-inserted-islamic-values-into-the-white-house/2015/11/28/
By:JNi.Media
Published: November 28th, 2015
Extracts:
(JNi.media) Israeli Ambassador to the US during Obama's first term, Michael Oren, currently a Knesset Member in the coalition party Kulanu, on Saturday accused President Barack Obama of 'inserting radical Islamic values into the White House,' Walla reported.
Oren added that 'Obama will never express the term 'radical Islam' because Obama has been exposed to the Muslim world and its values.' Oren's comments Saturday corresponded with the theory he presented a few months ago, that Obama's Middle East policy is influenced by his childhood in Indonesia, and the fact that his mother lived for several years in a relationship with a Muslim man.
Oren did say, however, that the relationship between Israel and the United States consists of many layers, and strategic ties between the two countries are expected to remain unchanged despite the current tensions between the Prime Minister and the President.
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3. An ISIS defector explained a key reason people continue joining the group by Pamela Engel
http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-defector-explains-why-people-continue-joining-group-2015-11
Extracts:
Despite ISIS's claims of ruling over a Islamic "caliphate" in line with Sharia law, a large number of the group's fighters joined for reasons having little to do with religion, according to a defector from the group that The Daily Beast's Michael Weiss interviewed in Istanbul, Turkey.
Instead, people are joining the organization because they are desperate for money and are struggling to find a way to survive in Syria, where four years of civil war have decimated the economy.
The ISIS defector, who goes by the pseudonym Abu Khaled, spoke with Weiss about the group's internal dynamics, and what it was like to live under ISIS's rule.
According to Abu Khaled, a large number of people are joining ISIS because they need money. After joining the militants, people are paid in US dollars instead of Syrian liras. Abu Khaled said that ISIS also runs its own currency exchanges.
ISIS members receive additional incentives to fight for the group. 'I rented a house, which was paid for by ISIS,' Abu Khaled, who worked for ISIS's internal-security forces and "provided training for foreign operatives," told Weiss. 'It cost $50 per month. They paid for the house, the electricity. Plus, I was married, so I got an additional $50 per month for my wife. If you have kids, you get $35 for each. If you have parents, they pay $50 for each parent. This is a welfare state.'
And those financial benefits are not just limited to the organization's fighters. According to Abu Khaled, any member of ISIS, ranging from construction workers to doctors, receives similar compensation. In war-torn Syria, these salaries are a powerful lure for people who might not otherwise be able to support their families, or for people just hoping to get rich.
'I knew a mason who worked construction. He used to get 1,000 lira per day. That's nothing," Abu Khaled told Weiss. "Now he's joined ISIS and gets 35,000 lira - $100 for himself, $50 for his wife, $35 for his kids. He makes $600 to $700 per month. He gave up masonry. He's just a fighter now, but he joined for the income. -Reuters
Yassin al-Jassem, a Syrian refugee from near ISIS's de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria, shared his experience with The Washington Post.
"There is no work, so you have to join them in order to live," al-Jassem told the Post. "So many local people have joined them. They were pushed into Daesh by hunger."
ISIS can afford to pay people seeking to join its ranks through four main sources of income: oil, the sale of looted antiquities, taxation, and kidnapping ransoms.
ISIS taxes nearly every possible economic activity, with the revenue ultimately covering the expenses of waging continuous war along multiple fronts. Foreign Policy notes that taxes are put in place for militants who loot archaeological sites. Non-Muslims must pay religious taxes, and all ISIS subjects pay a base welfare and salary tax in support of the fighters. All vehicles passing through ISIS territory, which may carry the only food available to those living under ISIS control,must pay taxes often totaling hundreds of dollars.
This ad hoc war economy means that ISIS has little money to spend on improving the lives of those who are forced to live under its rule. But as Abu Khaled's account confirms, it still finds the money for conducting military operations and incentivizing militants to join the group.
That money and the other benefits that ISIS fighters receive means that Syrians join ISIS out of desperation, Â and not necessarily out of religious or ideological conviction.
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4. Dabiq at heart of Islamic State's vision of the 'apocalypse'Â by Tom Allard
http://www.theage.com.au/world/islamic-states-apocalypse-is-propaganda-not-military-strategy-20151116-gl09uv
Â
Extracts:
Islamic State is soaked in an apocalyptic vision in which its self-styled caliphate is merely a staging point for the ultimate destination, a battle between Muslims and the army of infidels.
Foreshadowed in the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and appropriated by Islamic State propagandists, the prophecy predicts the final conflict will take place in the northern Syrian towns of Dabiq or al-Amaq.
Total victory for the forces of Islam will be accompanied by the return of the messiah - Jesus, the Mahdi, or both, depending on the version, and the end of the suffering of Muslims.
So enamoured are the cadres of the barbaric terrorist group with the armageddon augury, they beheaded Western journalists and aid workers in Dabiq . In videos of the decapitations, IS fighters dared the armed forces of the West to meet them there and face inevitable destruction.
IS named its English-language propaganda magazine after the town. It frequently quotes the deceased founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor of IS, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, forecasting that the "spark" lit by the group in Iraq will "intensify until it burns the crusader armies in Dabiq".
As France declares "a merciless war" on Islamic State and world leaders ponder more aggressive military action, it leaves open the question: was the slaughter of civilians in Paris designed to enrage and provoke the West into a full-scale invasion?
The answer is no. At least, not yet.
To be sure, after the painful experience of US-led forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, the idea that the West can again be goaded into a long, bloody ground war has appeal for the militant group.
But the evidence suggests something different is afoot.
Rather than encourage an invasion, the attack on Paris, the claimed downing of a Russian passenger jet and suicide bombings in Beirut and Ankara are designed instead to dissuade France, the US and its allies from their bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria.
In its statement claiming responsibility for the Paris atrocity, IS warns the "smell of death will never leave their noses as long as they lead the convoy of the Crusader campaign, [while they are] striking the Muslims in land of the caliphate with their planes".
In other words, this is retribution. There is a terrible price to pay for attempting to destroy the caliphate. The IS attacks, many have noted, coincide with the caliphate suffering a series of small but significant military reversals in recent weeks.
"[IS] wants to control territory. It wants to end up as a porcupine," says Deakin University terrorism expert Greg Barton. "A prey you cannot eat because you get a mouthful of spikes if you try."
Barton says the apparent contradiction between the objective of a cataclysmic end-of-days battle and a terrorist campaign designed to deter attacks by the West has its own peculiar logic.
"IS is part apocalyptic cult but it's also run by former senior Iraqi military officers," he says. "To have these rational military planners and religious crazies side by side creates a certain symbiosis that works for them."
The fervent embrace of an impending apocalypse is much more about recruitment than military strategy.
It convinces young Muslims that they are taking part in a divinely sanctioned campaign of profound import, and that dying for the cause is worthwhile, indeed, blessed.
Islamic State relies heavily on suicide bombers, especially those driving explosive laden vehicles, as its vanguard force.
An endless supply of "martyrs" underpins its military tactics and remains critical to the survival of its besieged caliphate.
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5. Druze in Syria forced by USA Backed Sunnis to Become Muslims!
Al Nusra Atrocities against Syrian Druze Belie Its Rebranding
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
Foreign Affairs
October 5, 2015
http://www.meforum.org/5561/al-nusra-druze
Extracts:
Syria's Druze community has borne the brunt of Al Nusra sectarian killings and forced conversions.
The market for extremism has been so disrupted by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (also known as ISIS) and its penchant for extraordinary brutality that even a group as notorious as al Qaeda is now able to reposition or, one might say, rebrand itself. In Syria, al Qaeda has tried to paint itself as a more reasonable jihadist force with which other rebels on the ground and outside states can cooperate.
One indication of al Qaeda's success in this regard is that its Syrian affiliate group, Jabhat al Nusra, now openly receives financial and other material support from major U.S. allies, an arrangement that would have been unthinkable four years ago. Al Nusra plays a critical role in Jaysh al Fatah, the rebel coalition fighting against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in northern Syria. Jaysh al Fatah, in turn, is backed by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. (The United States and other Western countries are more suspicious of the coalition and find regional powers' decisions to back it alarming, but they have not gone out of their way to end the support.) Despite the more reasonable face that al Nusra has tried to show the world, its treatment of the Druze of Idlib province is little better than the brutality ISIS has inflicted on Yezidis, Kurds, and other minorities unfortunate enough to find themselves within their reach.
ISIS itself has even helped to foster the view that al Nusra is a more moderate group that would protect religious minorities; in the tenth issue of Dabiq, ISIS' English-language magazine, it published a withering attack on the organization. A generic photo of the Druze in Dabiq was captioned "The wretched Druze, an apostate sect under the protection of the Julani front." It was followed by a lengthy screed about how the Druze and other "apostate" sects cannot be afforded the second-class dhimmi status given to Jews and Christians. Dabiq likewise took al Nusra's apology for a June 2015 massacre in one of the Druze villages in Idlib as indicative of the group's protection of the sect. "So according to the Julani front and their allies, spilling the blood of the apostate and treacherous Druze is oppression!" the publication thundered. Al Nusra has not directly responded to ISIS' attack on its policies toward the Druze.
ISIS' unchecked atrocities make al Nusra and al Qaeda appear more reasonable.
But despite al Nusra's softened image, its brutality toward the Druze is clear. The Druze in Idlib inhabit a region known as Jabal al-Summaq, over which al Nusra gained control in the summer of 2014. Al Nusra's emir for the area, Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Tunisi, forced the Druze to issue a statement from representatives of the various villages agreeing to renounce their religion. This was the second such statement that the Druze were compelled to issue, with the first coming when ISIS had control over Jabal al-Summaq. In the statement, the Druze agreed to allow their shrines to be leveled, to abide by al Nusra's regulations on public morality, and to submit to lessons on Islamic doctrine and jurisprudence.
In June, al Nusra militants slaughtered 20 Druze villagers in the Idlib village of Qalb Lawze. The incident received plenty of media attention, and al Nusra issued an apology, but nowhere does the statement refer to the Druze. Indeed, al Nusra's public rhetoric suggests that it views the process of coerced conversion codified in the Druze leaders' public renunciation as a fait accompli. The statement of apology affirms that "since the beginning of the conflict in the land of Sham, [Jabhat al Nusra] has not directed its weapons against anyone except those gangs from the criminal Nusayri army, deviant Khawarij, and corrupt factions, who transgressed and assaulted the lives and honor of the Muslims." Nusayri is a derogatory term for Alawites, in this context referring to Assad's Alawite-dominated army. Khawarij, originally meaning a sect in early Islamic history notorious for its extremism, is now a standard Sunni rebel term for ISIS. From al Nusra's perspective, this language, which does not mention the Druze sect at all, makes sense: the Druze of Jabal al-Summaq, after undergoing two separate renunciations of their faith, are no longer Druze in their view. The coerced renunciations of their faith have made them Sunnis.
Al Nusra's atrocities against Syrian Druze belie its efforts to portray itself as more moderate.
"In the area recently there has been some neglect in the realm of sharia dress," said Iraqi. He vowed that "if we see any woman displaying her adornment and unveiled, we will detain her husband, but if she is not married, we will detain her siblings or father. . . All must embrace sharia dress." He also called on locals to refrain from shirk (idolatrous practices) and observe the closure of shops during prayer time. For any inquiries on adherence to sharia, Iraqi said locals could consult him in his base in "Qalb al-Islam, Qalb Lawze previously." (The Islamized renaming of Qalb Lawze mentioned in Iraqi's speech comes amid demographic shifts, with an influx of Syrian Turkmen into the village.)
Although al Nusra has been attempting to portray itself as a more moderate jihadist group, its treatment of the Druze belies these efforts. Although al Nusra is capable of appearing moderate in comparison with ISIS, the latter group is a particularly poor point of comparison.