Why has Islamic State not attacked Israel?

Answer 1

There are a few reasons why the Islamic State has not attacked Israel.

1) Consolidation of Control: At this point Islamic State is far more concerned with its territory in Iraq and Syria and wants to make sure that their power there is not abated in any serious way. While the Islamic State is more than willing to take other Jihadist organizations in distant places like Yemen, Egypt, Libya, and Nigeria under its wing, it is not providing significant direct assistance to those groups. If they were to attack Israel, they would need to allocate significant resources to this. (This is not to say that local Jihadists in Israel do not aspire to join with the Islamic State, but that they are not going to receive resources from Syria or Iraq.

2) Israeli Security Apparatus: There actually are nascent Islamic State cells that Israeli authorities have actually arrested. Israel has been able to prevent a massive attack because of the effectiveness of its security forces and not from lack of initiative in this regard. Two news articles show that the Shin Bet or Israeli internal security has discovered nascent cells in Nazareth in Israel-proper and Hebron in the West Bank.

WSJ: Israel Ties Palestinians Arrested to Islamic State
Xinhua: Israel arrests 5 Arabs for setting up IS cell

3) Islamic State genuinely fears the Israeli Military: Islamic State fighters believe that they can defeat U.S. and British ground troops because, in Islamic State’s estimation, they are inexperienced in urban warfare or terrorist strategies, but believe that Israelis are capable of taking the war to them and countering their current strategies. As a result, they are hesitant about confronting Israel without rethinking their methods of attack.

See more at: The Washington Free Beacon: Journalist: ‘The Only Country ISIS Fears is Israel’

4) Advances on Core Islamic State Territory: The recent taking of Ramadi by Iraqi soldiers, expansions from the Assad Regime in central Syria, and recent Kurdish successes in the north have required the Islamic State to spend more attention on maintaining its current borders than provoking new conflicts.

5) Not Conspiracy Theories: There are conspiracy theories that argue that Islamic State is somehow controlled by Israel and, therefore, does not attack it. However, such a theory has no evidence. Surely, if it were the case, Israeli finances could be demonstrated to be going to Islamic State or Israeli commandoes could be seen collaborating. The reason for this conspiracy theory is to make Israel responsible for what is a truly endemic Arab and Muslim movement.