Lone-wolf or terror organization members acting alone: new look at the last Israeli–Palestine incidents

ABSTRACT

The ‘sacrificial attacks’ in Jerusalem and throughout all of Israel, from July 2014 until August 2015, were the promo of the full-scale knife-attack that started from October 2015 until now. The uniqueness of this wave of terror is its length – over a year – and its use of the old-new ‘white weapons’ which, since October 2015, has included women and children. This research answers how and why these lone-wolf attacks started. The ‘lone-wolf’ attacks, as nicknamed in the Israeli and worldwide press, are, in reality, a continuation of the organized terror activities of the Palestinian liberation organizations especially the Islamic Jihad and Hamas. This is not a popular intifada drawing the masses, nor an armed intifada, but a wave of terror that includes a large number of initiated attacks by known anti-Israel Palestinians connected to terrorist organizations by their past activities or through relatives (prisoners or martyrs) or inspired by the Internet sites and social media. The Palestinian liberation organizations are all protecting al-Aqsa and supporting, without any restrictions, a continuation of the attacks against Israeli targets in Jerusalem and competing with each other.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) for their support of the current research and the research grant which enabled this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

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3. Al-Takbīr: The call Allāhu Akbar (God is great!). An Islamic saying often used as a battle cry as in the Abu Sirhan case. Ibid.

4. R.H. Al-Baba, Jahud Haraka al-Muqāwama al-Islamiyah Hamas fi Intifadha al-Filastiniya 1987–1994 (Gaza, Palestine: al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, 2010), pp.85–9. Rajab al-Baba describes four stabbing incidents initiated by Hamas in the first intifada against men from the Israeli security services and passers-by. The first attack, on 3 April 1988, was a reaction to the Israeli massacre in the Gaza Strip. The second attack, on 18 March 1988, was a reaction to Israeli activities in the Sheikh Radwan section of Gaza. The third attack, the Jaffa attack, where three Jewish passers-by were killed in Jaffa, also commemorates the day that Hamas was founded – 14 Dec. 1990. The fourth attack, which took place in 1990, was a stabbing attack in Baq'a by Omar Abu Sirhan who is mentioned above.

5. Maha, Abu al-'Arimer, ‘Qudah al-Qassam: Id'a Fardhat al-Muwajaha Fanahan Laha Waal-Sahayunah Sayadefa'aun Ghalyah Thaman ay Jarima’ (Al-Riadh, Saudi Arabia, 26 Dec. 2010), Izz ad-Din al-Qassam website, accessed 15 May 2015, http://www.alqassam.ps/arabic/.

6. O. Crowcroft, ‘Hamas Official: We Were Behind the Kidnapping of Three Israeli Teenagers’, The Guardian, 21 Aug. 2014; The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Center, Saleh al-Arouri, Turkish-based senior Hamas operative handling military-terrorist networks in Judea and Samaria, admitted that Hamas was behind the abduction and murder of the three Jewish youths from Gush Etzion, http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/article/20706.

7. M. al-Zahar, official Facebook page, retrieved 16 Oct. 2014, https://www.facebook.com/DrMahmoudALZahar?fref=pb&hc_location=profile_browser.

8. J. Stern and J.M. Berger, ISIS, The State of Terror (London: William Collins, 2016), pp.94–9.

9. From conversations with security and police forces in the city of Jerusalem. (Names saved by the author.)

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12. From the Certificate of Appreciation received by the Hijazi family photographed by the author.

13. Certificate of Appreciation.

14. The State of Israel vs. Mutaz Hijazi, Judgment: 15 June 2003, Ramle Magistrates Court, file no. 2806–2002; Judgment: 21 March 2005, Ramle Magistrates Court, file no. 2630–2005.

15. The State of Israel vs. Mutaz Hijazi. Judgment: 22 April 2001, Jerusalem Central Court, file no. 1267–2000.

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17. Ibid.

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22. Car terrorist attacks which took place in 2008.

23. A. Abu 'Amer, ‘Amaliyat al-Fardiya…waja Jadid,’ al-Jazeera, 19 Nov. 2014, http://www.aljazeera.net/knowledgegate/opinions/2014/11/19/

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25. Court judgment in the case of the State of Israel vs. Salah Barakat, 26 Aug. 2004, Central Court, Jerusalem.

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34. A.M. Amer, Al-Madkhal ila al-Darasah Darasah al-Masjid al-Aqsa al-Mubarak (Umm-al-Fahm: Muasasat 'Amarat al-Aqsa wa-al-Muqadasat, n.d.), p.131.

35. Like Program 'Bilaa Hudud ma Raed Salah,' Al-Jazeera, 19 Nov. 2014.

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37. M. Abu Ata (ed.), Madinat al-Quds wa-Masjid al-Aqsa min 2009 ila Ayna? (Umm al-Fahm, Muasasat al-Quds li-al waqf wal-thrath, Feb. 2009), p.1.

38. H. Yacoub (ed.), Eye on al-Aqsa a Report Monitoring Israeli Aggression on al-Aqsa from 1 August 2013-1 August 2014 (Beirut: Research and Information Department, al-Quds International Institution, Aug. 2014), p.4.

39. Haba al-Muqdasiyun Ta'aid al-I'atibar, Saraya al-Quds site, 31 Dec. 2014, http://saraya.ps/post/38720/2014-.

40. Their relative, Alaa Abu Jamal, is also a member of the PFLP operation on Malchai Yisrael St., ‘PFLP Salutes Resistance Operations and the Martyrs Bahaa Alayan and Alaa Abu Jamal’, PFLP site, 15 Oct. 2015. http://pflp.ps/english/2015/10/15/pflp-salutes-resistance-operations-and-the-martyrs-bahaa-alayan-and-alaa-abu-jamal/.

41. Y. Friedson, ‘A Sermon on the Temple Mount: ISIS will Free al-Aqsa’, NRG News, 21 Jan. 2015, http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/671/222.html; ‘Al-Aqsa Speaker: The Slaughter of the Jewish is Near’, The Times of Israel, 10 Dec. 2014, http://www.timesofisrael.com/al-aqsa-speaker-the-slaughter-of-the-jews-is-near/; The State of Israel vs Musbah abu Sbieh, file M"t 44657-01-15, decision by Judge Joya Scapa Shapira, Jerusalem Magistrates Court, 8 Feb. 2015.

42. Y. Krub, ‘An Indictment against a Muslim who Incited on Facebook’, Arutz 7 News, 21 Jan. 2015, http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/291594. A copy of the indictment can be downloaded from this site.

43. Shubaka filastin lil-Hawar, Hamas site, http://paldfmedia.paldf.net/.

44. M.H. Naqash, Al-Quds fi al-Khitab al-Siyasi, http://www.alquds-online.org/index.php?s=items&cat=1&subcat=4&id=95, Muasasat al-Quds al-Dawliyah site, protocol.

45. W. Booth, ‘Gaza Cease-fire Begins after Morning Exchange of Hostile Fire’, The Washington Post, 14 Aug. 2014. A united Palestinian delegation, headed by the Fatah representative, Azzam al-Ahmad, attended the negotiation talks.

46. Naqash, Al-Quds fi al-Khitab, pp.1–2, http://www.alquds-online.org/index.php?s=items&cat=1&subcat=4&id=95.

47. W. Booth and R. Eglash, ‘Kerry's Nine-month Quest for Middle East Peace Ends in Failure’, The Washington Post, 29 April 2014.

48. Naqash, Al-Quds fi al-Khitab, p.2, http://www.alquds-online.org/index.php?s=items&cat=1&subcat=4&id=95.

49. Ibid, p.4.

50. Nicknames in Palestinian terminology for all of the terrorist organizations carrying out activities against Israel including Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, the PFLP and others.

51. Naqash, Al-Quds fi al-Khitab, p.4, http://www.alquds-online.org/index.php?s=items&cat=1&subcat=4&id=95.

52. Ibid., p.5.

53. Ibid., pp.5–6.

54. ‘Al-Shahid Mohand Halbi, ‘Fajer al-Intifada wa-Thaar al Shuhadaa wa- al-Aqsa bi-Sakinehu,’ Saraya al-Quds website, 14 Oct. 2015. http://saraya.ps/post/43871/.

55. K. Maqdesi, ‘Occupation is Responsible for Escalation in Jerusalem’, PFLP official site, http://pflp.ps/english/2014/11/18/occupation-is-responsible-for-escalation-in-jerusalem/. Maqdesi is a member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and this is his statement.

56. ‘Hamas: Kafa al-Fasa'al ma Istimrar al-Intifada wa-Tatawr Adwatha,’ Muasasat al-Quds al-Dawliyah site, 31 Oct. 2015, http://alquds-online.org/index.php?s=news&cat=7&id=4434&skw=.

57. G. Michael, Lone Wolf Terror and the Rise of Leaderless Resistance (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000); J. Kaplan, ‘Leaderless Resistance’, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.9, no.3 (1997), pp.85–8.

58. Yacoub (ed.), Eye on al-Aqsa, pp.4–8.

59. Singh, Hamas and Suicide Terrorism, pp.17, 128–31.

60. ‘Palestinian Authority: Attempted Assassination Of Right Wing Activist In Jerusalem – A Legitimate Action,’ MEMRI, 7 Nov. 2014. http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8211.htm.

61. Singh, Hamas and Suicide Terrorism, pp.16, 128–31.

62. Ibid., pp.128–31.

63. E. Durkheim, On Suicide: A Study in Sociology, trans. by John A. Spaulding and George Simpson (New York: The Free Press, 1966), pp.217–40.

64. M. Hatina, ‘The Ulama and the Cult of Death in Palestine’, in Karsh Efraim and Kumaraswamy, P.R. Islamic Attitudes to Israel (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), p.41.

Additional information

Funding

Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa [Research Grant-2015 Conference].