Israel Supports U.S. Airstrikes On Syria

Barack Obama's announcement that the U.S. will begin airstrikes in Syria in an effort to combat the Islamic State has received applause from Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backing the effort.

Netanyahu commended the president's decision at a press conference on Thursday, telling reporters "Israel fully supports Obama's call for a united action against ISIS."

In a televised address to the American people on Wednesday, the president laid out a strategy for confronting the Islamic State, a terrorist group which recently beheaded two American journalists in an unknown desert location in Syria.

In his speech, Obama promised that the "counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground."

"Our objective is clear: we will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy," the president added.

House Speaker John Boehner backed the president's strategy in a statement, saying "He has finally begun to make the case the nation has needed him to make for quite some time: that destroying this terrorist threat requires decisive action and must be the highest priority for the United States and other nations of the free world."

Whether the U.S. has the support of other nations in its airstrikes remains undecided. Germany announced that it would not help with the U.S. airstrikes, saying it did not find Obama's solution to be thorough enough. Turkey said it would only cooperate with humanitarian missions in the Middle East, and Great Britain's participation in the airstrikes remains unclear.