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in an ambush and had already been fighting them in Syria. 
killing infidels?
Your comment says a lot more about you than it says about me.
Personally, I prefer adult conversation 
Did you notice them? 
They may be militants but they're not crazy.
Israel would fight back and fight back hard. Before they'd attack Israel, they'd want to do a few different things if they're not raving loons.
They'd want secure, safe borders. They don't have any.
They'd want a secure source of manpower, financing, and materiel. They don't have that.
They'd want peace and security in their interior. They don't have that.
And they'd have to worry about not what we think their primary goal should be, but what they think their primary goal should be. For now that seems to be establishing the caliphate, not staging what would amount to a suicide car bombing with the caliphate in the driver's seat.
First unite most of the Sunnis and get peace, commanding what is right and forbidding what is evil.
Then they can worry about "tough" enemies that are oppressing Sunnis. Perhaps the Zionist occupiers, enemies that will consume a lot of gold, supplies, and blood, while providing not so much in return. Perhaps Assad. Perhaps the Shi'ites in S. Iraq. Or in Lebanon. Most religions find heretics to be much worse than infidels. On the other hand, I really suspect that the anti-Hamas assault on Gaza has a little to do with IS(IL). What could be worse, than having a raging horde of Islamists swarming over the Litani and in the Golan, while suddenly Hamas comes swarming out of tunnels on the southern border? (Remember, Israel is postage-stamp sized country.)
Erdogan should be worried. Because part of the Sunni territory that was the core of the caliphate was Turkey.
This kind of thing has happened a few times. The Sa'udis came out of nowhere, as far as most people were concerned, to unite various "countries" in the Arabian Peninsula (the "jazeerah"
.
There was a pan-Arab uprising of sorts against the Ottomans. Very messy. And sort of promoted by the West to help weaken the Ottomans.
Sudan had its on little "khalifa" that was mahdist. The state lasted for a decade or so before succumbing, but gave various neighboring countries a run for their money.
Then, of course, there was the Islamic Conquest, which seems to not be mentioned in most world history classes as an actual conquest, with armies and bloodshed and even, at times, genocide or forced conversion. Not usually--at least not at first.
IS(IL) is just another in a long line of these things, and they almost always end in one of two ways: Either they form a stable government that isn't too incredibly oppressive and is stable, or they disintegrate and smaller states form in the rubble.
A caliphate (in Arabic: خلافة? khilāfa, meaning "succession"
is an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader known as a caliph – i.e. "successor" – to Muhammad. The succession of Muslim empires that have existed in the Muslim world are usually described as "caliphates". Conceptually, a caliphate represents a sovereign polity (state) of the entire Muslim faithful (the Ummah, i.e. a sovereign nation state) ruled by a single caliph under the Constitution of Medina and Islamic law (sharia).[citation needed]
In its earliest days, the first caliphate, the Rashidun Caliphate, exhibited elements of direct democracy (shura).[1] It was led, at first, by Muhammad's immediate disciples and family as a continuation of the religious systems he had introduced.
The Sunni branch of Islam stipulates that as a head of state, a caliph should be elected by Muslims or their representatives.[2] Followers of Shia Islam, however, believe a caliph should be an Imam chosen by God (Allah) from the Ahl al-Bayt (the "Family of the House", Muhammad's direct descendents). From the end of the Rashidun period until 1924, caliphates, sometimes two at a single time, real and illusory, were ruled by dynasties. The first of these was the Umayyad dynasty, followed by the several other sometimes competing claimants and finally the Ottoman dynasty. Though non-political, the Ahmadiyya Caliphate had been the only caliphate in existence for over a century. In 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant proclaimed another.[3]
The caliphate was "the core leader concept of Sunni Islam, by the consensus of the Muslim majority in the early centuries".[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate
Look at all the countries we are talking about today. Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the little alphabet nations there.
Note the Ottoman Empire at its height. We're talking about all of the current nations as well as those that bordered it now:
Ottoman Empire (/ˈɒtəmən/; Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِيّهٔ عُثمَانِیّه, Devlet-i Aliyye-i Osmâniyye, Modern Turkish: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu), also historically referred to as the Turkish Empire or Turkey, was an empire founded by Oghuz Turks under Osman Bey in north-western Anatolia in 1299.[7] With the conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed II in 1453, the Ottoman state was transformed into an empire.[8][9][10]
During the 16th and 17th centuries, in particular at the height of its power under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire was a powerful multinational, multilingual empire controlling much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, the Caucasus, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa.[11] At the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries.[dn 5]
With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries. The empire was dissolved in the aftermath of World War I, leading to the emergence of the new state of Turkey in the Ottoman Anatolian heartland, as well as the creation of modern Balkan and Middle Eastern states.[12]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire
As the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the Armenian Genocide occured and other nations were made. The Russians are tending to historical factions there.
That eventually included the state of Israel. Contrary to a mantra often repeated, Israel was not a gift from Europe and the USA for Nazi atrocities.
It had been contemplated in 1917:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
And also in 1926:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1926
True, it was an European creation, but so were most of the other countries that evolved out of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. It just so happened that the rulers were different, is all that happened to that huge chunk of the world's surface. Looking at it in those terms explains the resistance of the parties involved to listen to the United Nations. Their viewpoint extends many centuries beyond the founding of that organization, or even the definitions of the nation state.
One side pushed one way over centuries, and then the other pushed back. We have movements in all the western nations, Russia, China, the islands and in the Americas that call for a world caliphate. This is not a conspiracy theory. It's how people organize themselves for what they think is a good thing.
Those who believe in setting up or expanding a caliphate believe it is a great plan to bring about world peace. There are costs along the road to empire. ISIL is showing us what they'll be. They want to bring back that empire and their version of peace in which all the people will agree on everything they say is the right thing to do.
The caliphate(s) once extended further and was contracted only by armed resistance. It was during long, bloody centuries. IMO, America is much too young to grasp this.
Our idea of how those regions in the two images here should fit onto a map, is not theirs. It was only a temporary hold. They have historical precedent for what they are doing. The more lands they can put in their resurrected empire, the more influence they'll have around the globe to establish their peace.
I don't know if they are right or if they will prevail. I've talked to eager young people online who think it's beautiful and promote it with messianic zeal, very happy to convert others to what they think is a good and holy thing.
It makes sense to those who believe in this. Those who don't, either accept their doing it or oppose it or try to escape it. I've known people from Egypt, Lebanon and other nations who moved to the USA to get away.
Some Americans say nothing will change their own lives. They may be right about it all. But I think they're unrealistic, because in history people don't stop wanting because other ignore their movement. That's not how the world works in the long term.
There always seems to be something amiss in periods of peace. A lack of justice, most likely, so people continue to make war with each other.
Just a few things to consider without any judgment on my part and I doubt anything I could do would change the outcome of these things. And some may not even respect Wikipedia, either.
... is why I love you, freshwest.
I find knowledge of, and understanding of the past very liberating.
Thank you! 
And may learn something during that process or afterward, because it's unknown.
Because I don't know!
And don't believe anyone else does, they just hope they do. But more power to 'em, if it leads to a happy place.
I've always figured my last words will be something along the lines of:
Who turned out the lights?
As the last moment of consciousness goes pop...
Thanks, ReRe:
That's right. The good, the bad, and the ugly. How else can we learn how to live? Learn how to get along with others who live next door to us or on the other side of the world?
When I was a kid (6-7 or so), the family all met at one or another of my aunts/uncles on New Year's Day. In the afternoon, the aunts would load all of the kids up and take them to see a movie. All the uncles and my dad stayed at home, broke out the case of Chevis, and discussed the problems of the
world. I cried to stay behind with them. But they made me go to the movies anyway. 
And one more dilly: When I got home every day from school, Grandma would ask what I learned that day. She said one has to learn something every day of their life. You're right. Every single day of my life now-days, I come to DU and learn so much I can barely keep up with it!
And when they come to get my old worn-out and abused body, they'll have to pry some book or another out of my cold dead fingers. 
