Israel Says Arab Who Served in its Army Joined ISIS
Image by getty images
An Israeli army veteran from the country’s Arab minority has joined Islamic State insurgents in Syria, an Israeli security official said on Sunday, confirming a local media report.
Israel says dozens of Muslim Arab citizens have illegally traveled to Islamic State’s Syrian or Iraqi fiefdoms, raising concerns they might return radicalized and trained to carry out armed attacks at home.
Arabs make up 20 percent of Israel’s population and are generally exempted from military service while most Jewish citizens are drafted. A few Israeli Arabs volunteer for the army or paramilitary police, however.
Walla News said one of the Islamic State recruits previously served in Israel’s Givati infantry brigade, a unit that has often operated in Gaza.
Walla did not name the man or provide details on when he left for Syria, saying only that he was a Muslim from a village in northern Israel, was estranged from his family and would have been discharged from the army in January 2014.
Asked about the report, an Israeli security official told Reuters: “We are familiar with this case.” The official did not elaborate.
Israel has been cracking down on suspected Islamic State sympathizers in its Arab communities and among Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The ultra-violent jihadi group also has a presence in the neighboring Gaza Strip and Egyptian Sinai.
Israeli concerns were raised in October after two videos surfaced in which militants identifying themselves as Islamic State members and speaking Arabic-accented Hebrew threatened to attack the country.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
