Since it gained independence in 1948, Israel has been a beacon of liberalism, a state constantly threatened by the predations of surrounding nations and the aspirations of a Palestinian population too often manipulated by its neighboring countries. Now, however, Israel is struggling — like the United States — to understand and fight a changing face of terrorism. Israel must develop a new type of war on terror — one that supports its own basic premises of justice. After all, Israel’s struggles have defined the understanding and accomplishments of liberty in the Middle East.
However one views the sufferings and the tactics of Palestinians or the response of Israelis over the past few decades, it is undeniable that the mind and actions of both peoples have been shaped by ideas of territory and self-determination integral to the nation-state. In this context, it has been Israel’s aim to defend its territory and its national people against threats. Palestinian terrorists have resorted to violent measures to secure their own state, supported for strategic reasons by the military force of nations such as Syria and Egypt. The determination of Palestinian ideologues to secure Israel, the land in which they infuse their very identity and culture, has impeded peace efforts between the two nations for decades. But Israeli success in the defense of the nation was accomplished by a strategy described in two words: threat neutralization.
That essential conflict structure, however, is evolving. Israel’s brilliant success in neutralizing the existential threats of military assault and massive terrorism had previously enabled it to redefine and expand the purposes of its existence. Now, Israel protects not just a Jewish nation, but also a culture of opportunity and freedom for its citizens. The new terrorism, exemplified by al Qaeda and executed by Hamas and Hezbollah, assaults this very culture and seeks to establish what scholar Phillip Bobbitt calls “a state of terror” on the ruins of this “state of consent.”
The new Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists who have supplanted the Palestinian Liberation Organization in waging violence against Israel are becoming less concerned with the nationalist project. And their sponsors are even less so: Iran and Syria have offered only nominal support to actual attempts at Palestinian statehood. Instead, they are more concerned with the destruction of Israel as a regional power. In fact, al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has actually expressed positive disinterest in the establishment of Palestine, fixating instead on the annihilation of Israel and Western presence in the Muslim world entirely.
This desire for annihilation is born of the changed nature of the Israeli threat. Previously, Israel was merely an obstacle to the accomplishment of a Palestinian state. Now, Israel, like the nascent democracy of Iraq, is a threat to the very premises of the states that Syria, Iran and, most of all, al Qaeda seek to operate as. These premises are those of terror. If Muslims live under laws of consent, they substitute the will of man for that of God, so says al Qaeda. In Iran and Syria, this understanding is hybridized and incomplete, but it is becoming increasingly dominant among terrorists they support. No state of consent can be allowed to survive where Islam should rule.
To these people, who can accept nothing less than the extinction of Israel if their world is to survive, terrorism intended to persuade a change of border policy will not suffice. Terror must now undermine the very basis of the Israeli nation by destroying the security on which consent and opportunity depend. This terrorism is strategic, intending first to isolate Israel from international support, then to place upon the citizens of Israel a burden of fear they cannot bear. Unlike states such as Iran or Palestinians who truly seek a state, the new terrorists will not shrink from nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
Hamas and Hezbollah are not yet wholly creatures of this new form of terrorism; they are still being commanded by the aims of the poor and wretched Palestinian people. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, presently concerns itself with the global fight against the U.S. But al Qaeda’s gaze will not remain so singly fixed for long, and a new generation is rising in Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel and its allies must realize that anti-terrorism must now mean ensuring the survival of political consent, or else terror will rule. This will mean changing the nature of outreach to the Palestinians, helping establish a rule of law in Gaza and the West Bank that will allow business and society to thrive. Anti-terrorism now must be a matter not merely of destruction, but construction.