Jerusalem – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday expressed Israel’s support for the United States’ plan to strike the radical Islamist group Islamic State that has taken control of parts of Syria and Iraq.
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“Israel fully supports Obama’s call for a united action against ISIS,” he said at the annual conference held by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya.
Speaking on the 13th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrors attacks conducted by al-Qaida that killed nearly 3,000 in the United States, Netanyahu warned of the existing threat of radical Islamist terrorism.
The premier cautioned that the groups Hamas, al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Islamic State and Boko Haram all stem from “branches of the same poisonous tree.”
Netanyahu pointed to the new alliances being formed by Arab states in the region as a result of the threat of extremist Islamist terrorism, which he predicted will eventually perish.
“As a result of this they [the states] are reevaluating their relationships with Israel and realizing that Israel is not their enemy, but their ally,” he said.
“I’m confident that militant Islam will perish but we shall not let anyone perish with it before it goes down,” he added.
Netanyahu’s address came the day after US President Barack Obama announced in a speech to the American people that he would be expanding strikes against the Islamic State terrorist organization to Syria as well as Iraq.
Netanyahu convened a meeting in his office Wednesday to discuss terror threats from organizations like Islamic State and other similar groups.
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Yoram Cohen, Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino, and Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein were among those at the meeting where the participants discussed what legal measures could be taken against those expressing sympathy for these groups, and what tools could be used to keep the organizations from using the Internet to further their goals.
Measures were discussed during the meeting to prevent the possibility of the establishment in Israel of Islamic State cells or those that identify or seek to aid the extremist organization.
A review of the danger posed by Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS, to nearby countries in the region was also presented along with an overview of the international organization being former against the group.
Except that Obuma didn’t say that Hamas etal all stem from the same core, he ignores those who attack Israel.