No such thing as a ‘lone-wolf’ terrorist

Lone-wolf terrorists are cogs in an orchestrated attack, and action must also be taken against the states and organizations that support them.

By  Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, ISRAEL HAYOM

In recent weeks, various defense officials have raised their concerns over an apocalyptic scenario whereby applying sovereignty in parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley will trigger hundreds of stabbing and vehicular attacks by lone-wolf terrorists. The reference is to those terrorists who act independently, spontaneously, uncontrollably. Last week, the federal court of appeals in Washington D.C. issued an unprecedented ruling on the wave of stabbing attacks against Israelis in recent years, which sheds new light on the manner in which we can approach the term “lone-terrorist” and the way the phenomenon should be fought.

The American court unprecedentedly accepted the victims’ families’ claims and ruled there was no such thing as a “lone-wolf terrorist” – and that behind every act of terrorism brought before the court were guiding hands that recruited the terrorists, incited them to perpetrate their act, guided them and embraced them after their attacks. Those guiding hands belong to the terrorist organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, along with Iran and Syria who support them. The court placed responsibility for the terrorist attacks on these elements. Among the cases heard by the court was the murder of American tourist Taylor Force at the Jaffa Port, the murder of human rights activist Richard Lakin in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv, and others.

The court’s ruling, however, extends beyond the individual connection between the victims and their murderers. It also applies to the State of Israel’s diplomatic and security spheres, particularly amid the backdrop of Israel’s expected sovereignty bid in Judea and Samaria. Indeed, terrorist organizations use lone-wolf attacks to harm Israel without assuming direct responsibility:  A type of having their cake and eating it too. Hamas and PIJ use social media as a tool to instruct followers to carry out low-intensity attacks on Israeli targets, after which they only assume tacit responsibility that is understood by their Palestinian target audience.

These murderous acts, therefore, are anything but spontaneous; they can be predicted and perhaps even foiled in advance. A year prior to his attack, for example, the terrorist who murdered Taylor Force listened to a sermon by Sheikh Mohamad al-Arefe, a radical Islamist cleric from Saudi Arabia who preaches the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. About a month before carrying out his attack, the terrorist posted a message on his Facebook page that unmistakably implied his desire to die a shahid (martyr). Two days after his attack, Hamas proclaimed responsibility for the attack on various online platforms affiliated with the organization, calling the terrorist a shahid and a warrior.

The State of Israel must adopt the spirit behind the American court’s ruling and act accordingly. To eliminate the waves of “lone-wolf” attacks, Israel must also target the people who dispatch these terrorists, rather than just focus on direct prevention. Lone-wolf terrorists are cogs in an orchestrated attack, and action must also be taken against the states and organizations that support them.

Defeating terrorism, both practically and in terms of perception, requires a terminological shift. We must stop using misleading terms such as “lone-wolf terrorists” to make it unequivocally clear that the State of Israel knows the wolf is not alone, that an entire pack of wolves stands behind him, and that the war on terror doesn’t end with destroying the terrorist’s home but by exacting a price from the organization or state that sent him.