Ami Pedahzur - Jewish Terrorism in Israel

JEWISH TERRORISM IN ISRAEL

COLUMBIA STUDIES IN TERRORISM AND IRREGULAR WARFARE

COLUMBIA STUDIES IN TERRORISM AND IRREGULAR WARFARE

Bruce Hoffman, Series Editor

This series seeks to fill a conspicuous gap in the burgeoning literature on terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and insurgency. The series adheres to the highest standards of scholarship and discourse and publishes books that elucidate the strategy, operations, means, motivations, and effects posed by terrorist, guerrilla, and insurgent organizations and movements. It thereby provides a solid and increasingly expanding foundation of knowledge on these subjects for students, established scholars, and informed reading audiences alike.

Ami Pedahzur, The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism

AMI PEDAHZUR & ARIE PERLIGER JEWISH
TERRORISM IN ISRAEL

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

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COPYRIGHT 2009 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

PAPERBACK EDITION, 2011

All rights reserved

E-ISBN 978-0-231-52075-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pedahzur, Ami.

Jewish terrorism in Israel / Ami Pedahzur and Arie Perliger.

p. cm.(Columbia studies in terrorism and irregular warfare)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-231-15446-8 (cloth : alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-231-15447-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-231-52075-1 (ebook)

1. TerrorismPalestineHistory20th century. 2. TerrorismPalestineHistory. 3. ViolencePolitical aspectsIsrael. 4. Political violenceReligious aspectsJudaism. 5. JewsPalestinePolitical activity. 6. JewsIsraelPolitical activity. 7. Arab-Israeli conflictInfluence. I. Perliger, Arie. II. Title. III. Series.

HV6433.I75P473 2009

363.325095694dc22

2009011597

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BOOK DESIGN BY MARTIN N. HINZE

CONTENTS

The fact that many of those responsible for the pervasive wave of terrorism in recent de cades have acted in the name of religion has generated an academic debate, which has focused on the direct responsibility of religions in general and Islam in particular in the perpetration of political violence.

Both approaches offer some very important insights. However, over the years they have become somewhat dogmatic and lost a large amount of their explanatory power. The claims of the first can be discounted by the fact that religious terrorist groups have always been in the minority and, indeed, have made up less than 15 percent of

Given the inability of the approaches presented here to exclusively define the relationship between religion and political violence in general and fundamentalist terrorism in particular, we will offer an alternative framework for explaining the phenomenon. This framework focuses on the analysis of the sociological and cultural conditions that contribute to the radicalization of communities and the socialization processes among peers that eventually lead to the formation of terrorist cells.

Totalistic ideologies are based on an absolute division of humanity into dual categories such as saved versus damned, godly versus demonic, and dark forces versus light forces. The psychology of totalism features the

The mere existence of a counterculture community whose behaviors and norms represent a clear break from mainstream practices will not necessarily lead to terrorism. Crossing the line from objection to the values and ways of other cultures to an attempt to inflict harm on them involves two stages. The first is the occurrence of an external event that poses a potential threat to the community or its most cherished values. The second is community leaders framing the event as catastrophic.

Countercultures with members who hold totalistic worldviews are led by intermediaries, in many cases clerics, who are most often charismatic leaders.

Who are the members of the counterculture who have crossed the line and taken areas.

Because the subject of this book is terrorism, and because we did not want to extend the scope of this research to other manifestations of political protest and violence, the selection of the groups and acts of terrorism that are the focus of this book requires a clear and concise definition of Jewish terrorism. It is well known that one feature of the academic study of the field to strike fear among the victims and their community. Finally, the victims of terrorism are civilians or noncombatants. This also includes victims who may belong to the security forces but are not on duty or engaged in formal operational activity.

Terrorism is a problematic field to study. It is hard to interview terrorists in a neutral environment that enables free discussion. Furthermore, most the documents, interviews, secondary sources, and surveys, we have been able to put together a historical mosaic of Jewish terrorism in Palestine and later in the State of Israel.

To test our main hypotheses we created three databases. The first includes detailed information on each of the 309 Jewish terrorist attacks perpetrated in Palestine and the State of Israel between 1932 and 2008. and the third describes the type of ties between the members of each of the Jewish terrorist networks.

The importance of the latter dataset is that it enabled us to perform a social network analysis. We will analyze the types of ties inside the networks, how they are constructed and maintained,

Therefore, unlike the two first datasets, which were instrumental in the description and aggregate analysis of the attributes of those events or actors who make up the research population, the network analysis enabled us to

We argue that religious terrorism is not a one-faith phenomenon. In fact, identical patterns of radicalization and the uses of terrorism can be traced to any counterculture that adheres to a totalistic ideology, be it religious or secular. The wealth of information we have gathered and the in-depth look into processes that take place in countercultures, groups, and even on the individual level in the case of Jewish terrorism in Israel allow us to shed light on similar processes in other radicalized communities around the world that so far have been a puzzle to researchers and public alike.

The book is structured around two axes: analytical to investigate the motives behind these actions and why the perpetrators decided to take an individual path, differing from that of the more common manifestations of Jewish terrorism. In the concluding chapter we offer a comparison between Jewish terrorism and other manifestations of religious terrorism and test the power of our theory beyond the Israeli case.

IN CONTEMPORARY DISCUSSIONS of insurgencies and terrorism, very few mention the fact that one of the first manifestations of terrorism can be traced back to the second century B.C.E. It occurred during Hellenistic rule in ancient Israel, which began in 332 B.C.E. with the occupation of the country by Alexander the Great and continued under his Hellenist successors, the Ptolemies and Seleucids, until 160 B.C.E. Those who often refer to this historical period are contemporary Jewish terrorists who admire the heroism of the ancient Jewish militants and aspire to follow their example.

The most prominent Jewish group to use organized violence in the Second Temple era was the Hashmonai (Hasmonean) family. For the sake