The International Dimension of Palestinian Terrorism by Ariel Merari & Shlomi Elad

Author:Ariel Merari & Shlomi Elad [Merari, Ariel & Elad, Shlomi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Middle Eastern, Social Science, Political Science, World, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781000302530
Google: F_utDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 52931249
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

The Function of International Terrorism in the Overall Palestinian Armed Struggle

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the resort to the use of international terrorism came as a result of the desire to expand the scope of the Palestinian struggle in a particularly conspicuous way. It was motivated primarily by the adoption of stringent security measures within Israel, and by the limitations posed by some Arab states on terrorist activities emanating from their territory. Within this context the question arises as to how the struggle inside and outside of Israel was divided within the overall terrorist complex; was there a direct connection between actions undertaken within Israel, in the administered territories and on Israel's frontiers on the one hand, and acts committed outside of these areas on the other (see Table 9)?

Between 1968 and 1984 only 3.9 percent of all Palestinian terror acts occurred outside of Israel. In the years 1971-1984 international incidents comprised 10.7 percent of total Palestinian terrorist activity. While this percentage too seems very low, three brief observations appear in order. First, after 1971 the bulk of Palestinian terrorism occurred within Israel. Many of these incidents were the spontaneous acts of individuals rather than carefully planned operations by terrorist organizations; as such, the data concerning the organized effort inside Israel as indicated in Table 9, are somewhat exaggerated.

Secondly, in general specific terrorist actions outside of Israel occurred on a more sophisticated and grandiose scale than their internal Israeli counterparts: while there is an obvious qualitative difference between leaving a small bomb near a bus stop in Jerusalem and hijacking an airplane in Rome, both appear without statistical distinction in the tables chronicling terrorist acts. Finally, there is a salient difference between the efforts of Palestinian terrorists acting outside of their target country and those of other organizations: even groups such as the Italian Brigate Rosse, the French Action Directe or the German Red Army Faction tend to restrict their operations to their home countries. Small separatist-nationalist organizations like the anti-Turkish Armenians or the anti-Yugoslav Croats, only operate outside their natural "base" countries because of the lack of infrastructure there or due to strict security measures taken by their target governments. Thus the resort to terrorism abroad in these cases is actually a matter of having no other option, though even here foreign operations usually take place in countries where exiles reside. Those terror groups which do possess an infrastructural base in the target country – for example, the Irish Republican Army, or the Basque ETA – tend to operate within that country (Northern Ireland and the Basque region of Spain) and only infrequently hit at targets in the "mother country" – England or non-Basque Spain. Unlike the Palestinians, they almost never operate in neutral foreign locales.

Palestinian organizations have been unique in the sense that their international activity occurs not only in the Arab world (their natural base) but, to a great extent, in neutral countries. In their case, and unlike other organizations, the launching of terrorist campaigns in the international arena stems from their strategic perception of the armed struggle.

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