King Abdullah, Mahmoud Abbas
King Abdullah, Mahmoud AbbasReuters

King Abdullah II of Jordan claimed Tuesday that a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) would help combating Islamic extremists, saying the conflict served as a rallying cry for jihadists.

Abdullah told the European Parliament that the battle against the Islamic State (ISIS) group in Iraq and Syria was "first and foremost" a fight for Muslim nations to carry out, reports AFP.

Jordan, which has a signed peace treaty with Israel it has often threatened to revoke, has stepped up its role in the US-led coalition against ISIS after the group burned to death a captured Jordanian military pilot in a grisly video released last month.

But Abdullah claimed the root problem was the world's failure to "defend Palestinian rights," saying "this failure sends a dangerous message."

"And it has given the extremists a powerful rallying cry. They exploit the injustices and the lingering conflict, to build legitimacy and recruit foreign fighters across Europe and the world," he claimed. "How can we fight the ideological battle, if we do not chart the way forward towards Palestinian-Israeli peace?"

Despite Abdullah's assertions, ISIS has focused its efforts in Iraq and Syria not on targeting Israel, but rather on implementing its brutal Muslim Sharia law and executing Shi'ite Muslims together with Yazidi minorities and others who do not conform, as part of a religious push to establish a Muslim caliphate system of global domination.

In fact, where ISIS has been active in Israel, it has threatened to depose Hamas and the PA and is suspected of being behind attacks against officials in the two groups, a state of affairs debunking Abdullah's claims that opposition to Israeli "injustices" is core.

Around 20,000 foreign fighters are believed to have left their homelands to join extremist Muslim groups in the past few years - including an estimated 4,000 since 2012 from western Europe.

Abdullah said that Muslim countries had to lead the fight against ISIS and other extremists, saying "this is a fight that has to be carried out by Muslim nations first and foremost. A fight within Islam."

Introducing the king to European lawmakers, Parliament President Martin Schulz offered his sympathies over the murder of the pilot. "It's hard to imagine people could commit such gruesome acts," he said.