Having declared a caliphate stretching across Iraq and Syria, the Sunni jihadists of ISIS may now pose a threat to the kingdom of Jordan. If they do, Israel will feel its own interests would be directly threatened, and could ultimately intervene.

Watching the Arab Spring degenerate into sectarian slaughter, Israel has sought to protect itself from the chaos, and, above all, avoid being sucked into the tribal, religious, and sectarian conflicts that have been eroding the Sykes-Picot borders and are now dissolving the “countries” established after 1918.

However, the victories of ISIS, its thrust southward, and its open threat to overthrow Jordan’s King Abdullah could change all that. If the ISIS danger to Jordan becomes real and present, Israel may feel compelled to respond.

“Our first challenge is to protect our borders. Extremist Islamic forces are knocking on our doors,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a conference at Tel Aviv University recently. His proposed response: building a fence along the full length of Israel’s border with Jordan, insisting on a security presence in the West Bank as part of any future peace agreement with the Palestinians, and building a regional axis against ISIS, including by strengthening Jordan.

Israel has a history of acting to preserve Jordan’s territorial integrity. In the Jordanian civil war in 1970, Israel acted to deter regional enemies of the Hashemite monarchy contributing to its collapse.

Now, as then, Jordanian stability is a strategic Israeli interest for obvious reasons, not least its location and its pro-Western orientation. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said that Israel’s national interest dictates an intense concern with Jordan’s survival and has made it clear that Israel is ready to do whatever it takes to defend it.

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