Despite the difficulty in envisioning the final outcome of the campaign in Syria, and under the assumption that Syria will not return to the situation that existed there prior to the outbreak of the civil war, Israel must prepare for the future. It must update the strategic considerations that until now have driven the current policy of non-intervention. This demands proposing a competing approach to the existing conception, which claims that Iran is the main threat, and identifies the Islamic State as a threat that is more severe...
The Islamic State, now marking its first anniversary, is an autonomous entity controlling a considerable geographical area within the territory of Iraq and Syria. Assessing the first year of his tenure as caliph of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi can crown his gamble a success, at least in the meantime. • The terrorist attacks that were carried out last week in Tunisia, Kuwait, and France are sharp new indicators that the campaign to defeat the Islamic State can be expected to exact a heavy price in human casualties in...
On April 25, 2015, Egypt celebrated Sinai Liberation Day: the thirty-third anniversary of the return of most of the peninsula back to Egyptian sovereignty, following the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty in 1979. In a speech marking the occasion, Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi noted, “Sinai residents have also been playing a vital role in our battle with terrorist groups, and we have been making all efforts to provide them with security.”
The jihadist insurgency in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is taking an increasing toll on the local population and its tribal society. To confront this challenge, leaders of tribes from across the peninsula met on May 10, 2015 to discuss a plan of action. The resulting statement from the “Sinai Tribal Union” was not a declaration of war against the Islamic State-affiliated “State of Sinai.” However, its recommendations for action have significant implications for the Egyptian military campaign in the North Sinai governorate and for Egyptian...
Recent weeks have seen an escalation in the conflict in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and the Salafi jihad groups that support the Islamic State organization. Israel clearly has much interest in the conflict, especially given the possibility that an Islamic State infrastructure or a satellite of the group backed by al-Baghdadi could be established in Gaza. Any development in this direction is liable to translate into activity against Israel. It is possible that in the framework of the effort to halt the expansion of the Islamic...
The success of the Islamic State (ISIS) includes the integration of interrelated elements in a way that helps the organization consolidate its control of extensive regions, serve as the current spearhead in the global Jihad effort, and threaten the world with terrorist attacks carried out by its agents holding citizenship in a Western country. These agents are liable to return to their homeland and along with “lone wolves” they are liable to carry out terrorist attacks against targets in the West. The aim of this article is to...
The turmoil that has beset the Middle East since December 2010 deepened the instability and surfaced various conflicts and tensions that have been characteristic of the region throughout history. These events reveal the importance of non-state actors in the Middle East and give rise to the need to rethink “facts,” terms, and concepts connected to the phenomenon of the nation-state, practically and theoretically. Although non-state actors are not new in the global or Middle Eastern political landscape, it is evident that the...
