ISIS is stepping up its rhetoric towards Israel and many analysts believe this will be the year it attempts to expand it's influence in the Muslim world by targeting Israel with direct terror attacks.
A variety of news sources have recently pointed out some key developments in this regard:
1. The number of Israeli Arabs involved in Islamic State's activities has risen the past year. While eight incidents involving ISIS were uncovered in 2014, there have been 14 incidents and 34 arrests linked to the group in 2015. According to Shin Bet assessments, a few hundred Israeli Arabs support ISIS: 32 of whom have already gone to fight in Syria and Iraq, and seven of whom were killed in the fighting in Syria.
2. The Islamic State recently published a series of videos which included threats to attack Israel, some of which were attributed to the events at al-Aqsa mosque. Some of the films sought to encourage terrorists to carry out attacks while ISIS' Sinai branch directly threatened an attack on Eilat.
3. Five members of the same Arab-Israeli family have recently been charged with setting up an Islamic State (ISIS) terror cell with the intent to carry out terror attacks inside Israel. According to the Israel Security Agency (ISA), the five terrorists all of whom are from the northern Israeli town of Nazareth - exchanged Facebook messages extolling ISIS' jihadist ideology, trained with weapons and planned to wage a terrorist campaign inside the Jewish state. This is only one of a number of such groups that have been discovered and thwarted by security forces.
Ynetnews.com reported that in recognition of the ISIS attack threat, an IDF's General Staff drill was carried out last week, which portrayed a scenario in which ISIS carried out a big attack in southern Israel, leading to the deployment of a battalion of paratroopers.
According to the same sources, whereas regarding Hezbollah and Hamas the IDF knows exactly where to attack, this is not the case with Islamic State. Whether the attack originates in the Sinai or in Syria there are no concrete targets. "Who will we attack in Syria that the international coalition or the Russians are not already attacking?" questioned the security official.
Adding to this dilemma is the fact that ISIS has for a long time been working hard on specific strategies to destroy Israel both from within and without. In December of 2014, Breitbart.com reported that the terrorist network was planning what military strategists call a pincer movement to attack the Israeli homeland from the north and south.
In April this year, PJ media reported that the Islamic State laid out its plans for carving a path to Israel and overcoming the Jewish state's defenses, from working with established jihadists in the region to "hoping for impassioned geeky converts like Edward Snowden". ISIS hopes such "geeky converts"would provide it with a technological and intelligence edge over their adversaries.
Back then, a 150-page book had just been distributed on file sharing sites, following other titles in the ISIS series including an e-book on how the jihadists plan to sack Rome by 2020, and goes on to predict the "beginning of the end of Israel" by 2022.
They argue that since Israelis have compulsory military service, every civilian is a legitimate target. It further suggests using "open-source technology" such as 3-D printers and reverse engineering to mass produce replicas of captured Israeli weapons.
According to the PJ Media report, various angles were recommended by ISIS in the book to justify attacking Israel and the Jews.
One telling quote attacks the Jews spiritual integrity: "If they (the Jews) are righteous believers, then they make the people living under them good and righteous in this holy land, but if they are not righteous and cause corruption in this holy land then that makes them Allahs enemy. Allah will purify this land from corrupt people, even if they were Gods chosen people."
Yet another quote attacks the morality of Israel as a nation: "Israel is the country most similar to America in the Middle Eastern world. It is filled with crimes; murder, drugs, corruption, and even adultery and homosexuality is widespread within this holy land. People within Israel live a life of hedonism and materialism, and the whole system from the top to bottom is run on bribery, blackmail, and favors."
Another comment decries the reach of Israel's intelligence apparatus, claiming that they control Facebook and Twitter and that "any intelligence" the National Security Agency collects is "directly forwarded" to Israel. It swears that Israel's public relations strategy is based on "the dark arts of black magic," much like "a fake kebab burger made out of soya," including using magic to jam the weapons of mujahedin.
ISIS further claimed it could cause "information overload" in Israel's intelligence services by simply having too many fighters "using different creative techniques in their irregular/assymetric types of warfare."
Exactly echoing the fear that has been recently expressed by an Israel security official: there are no concrete ISIS targets.
The e-book also cited "growing" ISIS cells within Israel which is exactly what is taking place now, eight months later.
ISIS is also keen to pull down Arab regimes that do not support it in its quest to wage war against Israel, stating that these puppet Arab kings have been the greatest traitors to the Islamic cause for the entire past century... These Arab puppet kings cannot be negotiated with."
ISIS would likely consider Egypt one such example. Over the Fourth of July weekend last year, forces of the Caliphate launched a very well organized surprise attack on Egyptian soldiers and police in the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt has become an ISIS target at least in part due to its cooperation with Israel on security and intelligence matters.
The two nations share the Sinai border and were both caught off guard. The attack on Egypt was successfully repelled, but Fox News reported that missiles were fired into Israel from the Sinai Peninsula. The missiles themselves landed in empty fields, but they hit their target an ominous warning to Israel.
Fox News concluded its analysis by stating that "It is hard to imagine a harsher blow to Israeli security or the stability of the Middle East. A Caliphate regime in Egypt (or Jordan, another vulnerable target) would inevitably mean all-out regional warfare".
Which is the prized end-result that ISIS seems to be hoping for. Irrespective of its level of Caliphate control, attract the support of the remaining Arab countries against Israel.
As Breitbart.com noted a year ago, ISIS has proven that air power alone cannot defeat their network.
Luring Israel to make a preemptive ground attack against ISIS and declare the Caliphate as Israels main adversary would quickly undermine the stated and unstated Arab support against ISIS throughout the region.