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Richard Bourke's (2018) "What is conservatism? History, ideology, party" critically discusses (inter alia) Samuel P. Huntington's (1957) "Conservatism as an Ideology." Yes, that Huntington (1927–2008). What follows is not about the clash of civilizations, promise. Bourke claims that "the conservatism of Oakeshott and Huntington, like the liberalism of Hayek and Rawls, reflects an effort to fabricate an […]

"The lesson is not that you can win in urban warfare by protecting civilians. The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting civilians," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently made headlines by warning.

"You see, in this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population," he said. "And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat."

Austin's remarks, made at the Reagan National Defense Forum in December, should be sobering for the sizable cohort of Israeli and Western officials and commentators who insist that a "military solution" to Hamas is the only way for Israel to ensure its long-term security. While the horrendous civilian death toll of Israel's military campaign is regrettable, this line of thinking goes, the threat from Hamas means Israel has no choice but to prosecute the war until the group is eliminated, as long as it takes, and no matter the cost.

If it's allowed to survive, it will simply choose another moment in the future to attack, and Israeli citizens will never know peace.

Yet Austin is only one prominent voice in recent months that has pointed out the faultiness of this logic, and reminded the world that when a state battling terrorism leaves a trail of human carnage in its wake, the resulting rage, bitterness and despair fuel the very problem it's fighting, and many times over.

When Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. was asked directly if he feared that high civilian casualty numbers would create future Hamas members, he replied, "Yes, very much so." "We'll be fighting their sons in four or five years," former Shin Bet chief Ya'akov Peri told the New York Times.

"Israel Is Fostering the Next Generation of Hatred Against Itself," read the headline of a recent column by Haaretz's Gideon Levy, as he warned readers to "look what hatred was sown in the hearts of almost all Israelis by one barbaric attack," and consider what an even worse, prolonged slaughter might do to the Palestinian population. "These children will never forgive the soldiers. You're raising another generation of resistance," one Palestinian father, his young son killed by Israeli soldiers, told Levy.

Former UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace recently warned, with reference to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, "that radicalisation follows oppression" and that "a disproportionate response by the state can serve as a terrorist organisation's best recruiting sergeant."

Security services in the United States and around the world have already backed up these warnings. FBI Director Chris Wray cautioned last month that U.S. support for Israel's war had led multiple terrorist organizations to call for attacks against Americans and the West, and had significantly "raised the threat of an attack" inside the United States.

That's on top of advisories and intelligence findings by various U.S. government agencies warning of credible threats by groups like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah over U.S. support for the war. Both the German and British spy agencies have likewise sounded the alarm over the war potentially fueling militant radicalization, citing specific threats being made by jihadist groups and those sympathetic to them.

There's good reason to believe them. Earlier this month, a 26-year-old French man killed one man and injured two others in a knife and hammer attack in central Paris, before telling police he was upset that "so many Muslims are dying in Afghanistan and in Palestine" and that he thought France was complicit in what was happening in Gaza. A day after Hezbollah called for a "day of rage" in retaliation for the October 17 explosion in Al-Ahli hospital, two people threw petrol bombs at a Berlin synagogue. Just last week, German authorities arrested suspected Hamas members who had allegedly been tasked with drawing on a secret weapons depot in Europe for attacks on Jewish sites on the continent.

Taking Tunisia as a bellwether for the rest of the region, a series of Arab Barometer surveys of the country found that the proportion of Tunisians favoring armed resistance to Israeli occupation had shot up dramatically in the three weeks after Hamas' October 7 attack and the onset of Israel's military offensive. Already, U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria have been attacked a total of 97 times since October 7, while the Houthi rebels who control most of Yemen have launched a series of successful attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, prompting possible U.S. military strikes in response.

Meanwhile, the war has been a boon for Hamas, despite — or arguably, because of — the human devastation caused by the war provoked by the group's horrifying October atrocities. Polling shows that the group's popularity has risen in both Gaza and, especially, in the much larger West Bank, where its standing has been bolstered by the events of the past few months and its popular support has risen by more than 30 points. At the same time, the position of more moderate forces has weakened, with an overwhelming majority of Palestinians favoring the resignation of President Mahmoud Abbas and a smaller, nearly two-thirds majority preferring the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority he governs.

None of this should be surprising or controversial. The United States' own, more-than-two-decade-long attempt to bomb and shoot terrorism out of existence has demonstrated the counter-productive nature of such a strategy. Domestic terrorists have regularly pointed to U.S. and other Western governments' military operations in the Middle East over the years to explain the motivations for their own violence. A decade or more after assassinating Osama bin Laden, as well as killing or capturing a spate of other 9/11 plotters and terrorist leaders while neutralizing terrorist groups like ISIS, U.S. forces continue to engage in ground combat against terrorists in at least nine countries, while taking part in counterterrorism training in a total of 73.

Meanwhile, terrorist attacks in Africa have exploded by 75,000 percent since the U.S. started conducting counterterrorism operations there two decades ago, and the number of transnational terror groups there has gone from zero at the time of September 11 to dozens, with the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point declaring the continent "the new global epicenter of jihadi violence" as of summer 2021.
All of this should inspire extreme skepticism of the Israeli leadership's claims that taking out a few top Hamas leaders and killing the group's fighters at the cost of causing extreme human suffering will end its security problems. Indeed, all evidence quite clearly suggests the opposite. And that means the only real solution is the long-term political settlement that Israeli officials reject and Netanyahu now boasts of having blocked for decades.
Otherwise, Israel and its U.S. supporters may only succeed in destroying an entity called "Hamas," and face the exact same problems from one or more groups that have a different name, but the exact same violent designs.

Research on extremism and related phenomena such as radicalization or terrorism is emotionally demanding and can even become dangerous, in part because it frequently means engaging with intense, and at times violent, societal conflict. The most recent escalation in the Israel-Palestine conflict is a poignant example of this, in which researchers specialized in antisemitism, Islamophobia, or Islamist and right-wing extremism are expected to keep up with fast-paced developments while simultaneously navigating the emotional impact of unfolding violence. This blog post highlights the difficulties researchers face in this field and proposes suggestions for addressing these challenges at the institutional and structural levels.
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Reem Ahmed



Reem Ahmed is a Researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) and a PhD candidate at the University of Hamburg. Her research focuses on extremism, (counter-)terrorism, and platform regulation. She is currently part of a research project team on social and political practices in dealing with Islamism in Germany (KURI). | Twitter: @RAhmed105

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Der Beitrag How can research on topics surrounding radicalization, extremism, and terrorism be safe and socially sustainable? erschien zuerst auf PRIF BLOG.

For decades, the US trended towards greater levels of social inclusion, a pattern which has seemingly stopped and potentially begun to reverse since around 2015. Montgomery van Wart, Miranda McIntyre, and Jeremy L. Hall look at why social exclusion has been on the rise in the US, writing that declining social capital has led to … Continued

© Originally published: PONARS EURASIA
Georgia, once hyped as a "beacon of democracy" in New Eastern Europe, has recently become the sick man of the region. The country has become caught in a spiraling process of radicalization and polarization between the ruling party

In Europa ist die Debatte über islamistische Radikalisierung bei jungen Menschen und wirksame Präventionsmaßnahmen in vollem Gange. Dieser Blogbeitrag beleuchtet Herausforderungen und Chancen, denen Schulen im Umgang mit Radikalisierung und Prävention begegnen. Schulen fungieren nicht nur als Bildungseinrichtungen, sondern auch als Sozialisationsinstanzen, in denen Diversität und Toleranz gefördert werden können. Doch sie werden gleichzeitig mit hohen Anforderungen konfrontiert, wenn von ihnen verlangt wird, Anzeichen von Radikalisierung zu erkennen und damit umzugehen. Dieser Beitrag betont die Notwendigkeit eines sensiblen und differenzierten Ansatzes, um Diskriminierung und Ausgrenzung in der Präventionsarbeit zu vermeiden.
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Mehmet Kart



Prof. Dr. phil. Mehmet Kart ist Professor für Soziale Arbeit an der IU Internationale Hochschule. Seine aktuellen Forschungsschwerpunkte liegen in den Bereichen Radikalisierung und Prävention im Bereich des islamistischen Extremismus sowie Flucht und Migration. Er ist Gründungsmitglied des Zentrums für Radikalisierungsforschung und Prävention (ZRP). // Prof. Dr phil. Mehmet Kart is professor of Social Work at IU International University of Applied Sciences. His current research focuses on radicalization and prevention in the field of Islamist extremism as well as migration studies. He is a founding member of the Center for Radicalization Research and Prevention (ZRP). | E-Mail: mehmet.kart@iu.org

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Der Beitrag Die Schlüsselrolle der Schulen in der Prävention von islamistischer Radikalisierung erschien zuerst auf PRIF BLOG.

The protracted Palestine-Israel conflict has ignited widespread public protests in South Asia, revealing a growing anti-Semitic sentiment among certain segments of the population. This surge in anti-Semitism, coupled with covert radicalization efforts, underscores the complex interplay of visible solidarity and hidden extremist influences, raising concerns about the potential for a militant resurgence in the region.

Dr. Eviane Leidig, Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at Tilburg University, discusses her book “The Women of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers and Online Radicalization.“ We break down the role of social media for the alt-right movement, and how platforms like Instagram and YouTube work to mainstream extremist views. These insights come from Dr. Leidigs...
The post #172: Far Right Women Influencers on YouTube and Instagram, with Dr. Eviane Leidig appeared first on Social Media and Politics.

In the latest episode in a decades-long conversation about militant democracy, the growing electoral success and radicalization of Alternative for Germany have relaunched debates about the appropriateness of restricting the political rights of those who might use those rights to undermine the liberal democratic order. While it is typical for dictatorships to ban parties, democracies also do so, but for different reasons and with compunction. Party bans respond to varying rationales which have evolved over time. However, a ban on the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany would be out of step with more general patterns of opposition to such parties in Europe.

Im Zuge des von der Terrororganisation Hamas als "Operation al Aqsa-Flut" bezeichneten und von mehreren palästinensischen Terrorgruppen wie auch der Hisbollah im Libanon durchgeführten Angriffs auf Israel wurden an einem Tag mehr Jüdinnen*Juden aus antisemitischen Motiven ermordet, als an jedem anderen Tag seit der Shoah. In Reaktion auf die Angriffe und in der Folge auch auf die Reaktionen Israels, kam es vielerorts zu einer Vielzahl antisemitischer Vorfälle – so auch in Deutschland. Der Beitrag liefert einen Überblick über diese antisemitischen Phänomene in Deutschland und ihre Akteur*innen sowie über antisemitische Kontinuitäten. Die sprunghafte Zunahme antisemitischer Vorfälle erfordert konsequente gesellschaftliche Reaktionen.
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Constantin Winkler



Constantin Winkler ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter und Doktorand im Projekt RadiGaMe. Er forscht zu Antisemitismus und Radikalisierung in Communitys digitaler Spiele. Seine Schwerpunkte sind Antisemitismusforschung, Kultursoziologie und Kritische Theorie. // Constantin Winkler is a Doctoral Researcher at the RadiGaMe Project. He investigates antisemitism and radicalization in digital games communities. He focuses on antisemitism research, cultural sociology and Critical Theory.

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Der Beitrag Massaker unter Applaus: Antisemitische Reaktionen auf den Terror gegen Israel in Deutschland erschien zuerst auf PRIF BLOG.

Reaktionen in Deutschland auf den terroristischen Angriff der Hamas auf Israel am 7. Oktober zeigten auf drastische Weise, dass extremistische, antisemitische und antimuslimische Haltungen hier weit verbreitet und mutmaßlich tief verwurzelt sind. Infolge des Angriffs ist ein massiver Anstieg antisemitischer Äußerungen, Straf- und Gewalttaten sowie eine deutliche Zunahme von antimuslimischem Rassismus und damit zusammenhängender Taten zu beobachten. Diese Tendenzen werden durch den verengten und stark polarisierten Diskurs, insbesondere in den sozialen Medien, weiter verstärkt. Unsere neue Blogserie liefert Analysen, die über die jüngsten Ereignisse hinaus dabei helfen, aktuelle gesellschaftliche Dynamiken rund um Islamismus und Radikalisierung zu verstehen und damit umzugehen.
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Shaimaa Abdellah



Shaimaa Abdellah ist wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin im Transferprojekt RADIS im Programmbereich "Transnationale Politik" am PRIF. Ihr Arbeitsschwerpunkt ist die islamistische Radikalisierung in Deutschland und Europa. // Shaimaa Abdellah is a Research Associate in the RADIS transfer project at PRIF's Research Department "Transnational Politics". Her main area of focus is Islamist radicalization in Germany and Europe.

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Der Beitrag Islamistische Radikalisierung, Antisemitismus und antimuslimischer Rassismus: Eine neue Blogserie greift aktuelle Debatten rund um Islamismus in Deutschland auf erschien zuerst auf PRIF BLOG.

Seit den Terroranschlägen vom 7. Oktober 2023 und der anhaltenden Eskalation des Nahostkonfliktes kommt es auf anti-israelischen Demonstrationen wiederholt zu Anzeigen wegen Aufrufen zur Gewalt und Volkverhetzung. Dieser Trend ist bei genauerem Hinsehen gar nicht so neu: Bereits seit längerem gibt es Stimmen, die vor einem islamisierten Antisemitismus in Deutschland warnen. Eine entsprechende gesellschaftliche Debatte gestaltet sich jedoch als schwierig, weil rechte Akteure die Situation nutzen, um Muslim*innen und Geflüchtete unter einen Generalverdacht zu stellen. Der Beitrag beleuchtet die daraus resultierenden verzerrten Kommunikationsbedingungen sowie die Genese des islamisierten Antisemitismus und präsentiert empirische Erkenntnisse über seine Verbreitung und Ursachen.
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Cemal Öztürk



Dr. des. Cemal Öztürk ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter von Prof. Dr. Susanne Pickel am Lehrstuhl für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft an der Universität Duisburg-Essen und Assistent im BMBF geförderten Projektes "Radikaler Islam – Radikaler Anti-Islam" (RIRA). Seine Forschung dreht sich um die sozialpsychologischen Triebkräfte gruppenbezogener Vorurteile und Ressentiments und ihre politischen und gesellschaftlichen Folgen (z. B. Rückwirkungen auf die politische Kultur, die Wahl rechtspopulistischer Parteien, Rechtsextremismus und Radikalisierung). // Dr. des. Cemal Öztürk is a research assistant to Prof. Dr. Susanne Pickel at the Chair of Comparative Politics at the University of Duisburg-Essen. University of Duisburg-Essen and assistant in the BMBF-funded project "Radical Islam - Radical Anti-Islam" (RIRA). His research focuses on the socio-psychological drivers of prejudices and resentments and their political and social consequences (e.g. effects on political culture, right-wing populist parties, right-wing extremism and radicalization).

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Der Beitrag Der islamisierte Antisemitismus: Aufgebauschtes Schreckgespenst oder bagatellisiertes Ressentiment? erschien zuerst auf PRIF BLOG.

Several key architects of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq 21 years ago are presenting a plan for rebuilding and "de-radicalizing" the surviving population of Gaza, while ensuring that Israel retains "freedom of action" to continue operations against Hamas and Islamic Jihad.The plan, which was published as a report Thursday by the hard-line neo-conservative Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, or JINSA, and the Vandenberg Coalition, is calling for the creation of a private entity, the "International Trust for Gaza Relief and Reconstruction" to be led by "a group of Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates" and "supported by the United States and other nations."With regard to Palestinian participation, the report by the "Gaza Futures Task Force," envisages an advisory board "composed primarily of non-Hamas Gazans from Gaza, the West Bank, and diaspora." In addition, the Palestinian Authority, which is based on the West Bank, "should be consulted in, and publicly bless," the creation of the Trust while itself undergoing a process of "revamping."In addition to granting Israel license to intervene against Hamas and Islamic Jihad within Gaza, the plan calls for security to be provided by the Trust's leaders and "capable forces from non-regional states with close ties to Israel," as well as "vetted Gazans." The Trust should also be empowered to "hire private security contractors with good reputations among Western militaries" in "close coordination with Israeli security forces," according to the report.The task force that produced the report consists of nine members, four of whom played key roles as Middle East policymakers under former President George W. Bush and in the run-up to and aftermath of the disastrous Iraq invasion in 2003. The group is chaired by John Hannah, who served as deputy national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2001 to 2005 and then as Cheney's national security advisor (2005-2009), replacing Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who resigned his position after being indicted for perjury. Libby, who was later given a full pardon by former President Donald Trump, is also a member of the Gaza task force. Another prominent member of the task force is the founder and chairman of the hawkish Vandenberg Coalition, Elliott Abrams, who served as the senior director for Near East and North African Affairs in the National Security Council under Bush from 2002 to 2009 and more recently as the Special Envoy for Venezuela and Iran under Trump. Ironically, Abrams, who also served as the NSC's Senior Director for Democracy under Bush, played a key role in supporting an attempted armed coup by Hamas's chief rival, Fatah, in 2007 after Hamas swept the 2006 Palestinian elections. The coup attempt sparked a brief but bloody civil war in Gaza, which eventually resulted in Hamas' consolidation of power in the Strip.Amb. Eric Edelman (ret.), a fourth member of the task force, served as Cheney's principal deputy national security adviser from 2001 to 2003 and then as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the number three position at the Pentagon, under Rumsfeld and his successor, Robert Gates, from 2005 to 2009, as U.S. troops struggled to contain the mainly Sunni resistance to the U.S. occupation in Iraq.In addition to their collaboration during the Bush administration, the four men have long been associated with strongly pro-Israel neoconservative groups, having served on the boards or in advisory positions for such organizations and think tanks as the Hudson Institute, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the ultra-hawkish Center for Security Policy, as well as the Vandenberg Coalition and JINSA. Indeed, such groups have promoted policies that have been generally aligned with those of the Likud Party led by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.Thus, the report's "key findings" prioritize as considerations: [these are quotes]restoring the deterrence and security needs of Israel, both for its own people and its standing as a powerful regional ally and essential component of resisting Iran's ambitions; and dismantling Hamas as a military and governing force and protecting against its reconstitution through Israel's continued freedom of action against it and against Palestinian Islamic Jihad; and by de-militarizing, de-radicalizing, and improving conditions in Gaza such that major terrorist attacks like October 7 can't and won't happen again…Its proposed Trust, according to the report, should involve the United States and concerned states that accept Israel's role in the region" and "should provide the humanitarian assistance and help to restore essential services and rebuild civil society in Gaza as intense combat and over subsequent months. Its activities should be governed by an international board composed of 3 to 7 representatives from the key states supporting the Trust, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others. At least one notable omission from the list is Qatar, which has provided tens billions of dollars in assistance to Gaza over the last decade.In an echo of Washington's disastrous de-Baathification campaign in occupied Iraq, the report puts special stress on "deradicalization" efforts. "The Trust, recognizing that years of radicalization by Hamas has complicated the task of reforming and restoring Gaza, should focus on a long-term program for deradicalizing the media, schools and mosques," according to the report which adds that "Gazans and the Gazan diaspora should play an active role in developing and implementing these plans, alongside the Trust's Arab members who have hands-on experience in successful deradicalization efforts in their own societies." Such efforts in Gaza, it goes on, could "serve as a model to encourage a similar program there that will be essential if a credible two-state solution is to be revived."The task force urges the Trust to coordinate with other states' efforts and with those of NGOs and international organizations, including the United Nations. But, in an echo of a key Likud talking point, "it should recognize that the activities of UNRWA serve to perpetuate and deepen the Palestinian crisis." The report said UNRWA's immediate assistance in providing relief may be necessary, but "plans to replace it with local Palestinian institutions or other international organizations committed to peace should be developed and implemented."All of these efforts should be pursued within the more general context of countering "Iran's aggressive campaign to derail regional peace efforts, including by constraining the threat posed by Hezbollah and resuming progress toward normalizing Israel and Saudi Arabia," according to the report.

Hamas's surprise bloody attack on Israel on October 7, 50 years plus one day since the October 1973 war, and the massive Israeli military response in Gaza has dominated media coverage regionally and globally for the past two plus months.American mainstream media for the most part has avoided a serious discussion of the Hamas context, the "root causes" of the conflict, the long-term implications of Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, the morality, ethics, legality, and proportionality of the Israeli massive military operations in Gaza, and the diminishing stature and credibility of the United States among Arab and Muslim publics. The Hamas ContextHamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya—Islamic Resistance Movement; the acronym means Zeal) emerged in 1987 in the West Bank and Gaza under the Israeli occupation after the first Palestinian Intifada as an alternative to the secular PLO. Israel, Jordan, and a few other Arab states were concerend about the growing strength of the PLO's secular nationalist ideology and thus initially supported Hamas's creation. Like other local Sunni Islamic political parties and movements — for example, PAS in Malaysia, Refah and AKP in Turkey, the Islamic Action Front in Jordan, and the Islamic Movement in Israel — Hamas was grounded in the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.Hamas's political program and charter focused primarily on resisting the occupation and the state of Israel. Hamas never followed the Wahhabi Salafi radical Tawhidi doctrine of Islam emanating from Saudi Arabia. In most of its history, Hamas, unlike al-Qaida and ISIS, never subscribed to or practiced global jihad against the perceived enemies of Islam. Its operational context has always been Palestine and its leaders have always been Palestinians. Many of them spent years in Israeli jails where they learned Hebrew. Most of Hamas's political leaders are currently in exile in different Middle Eastern countries, especially in Qatar with whose leadership they maintained close relations.Hamas also comprises a political wing, which over the years participated in governing institutions in the West Bank and Gaza, and a military wing (Qassam Brigades) that has built a fighting force and planned and executed military operations against Israel. Hamas is not a monolithic group, which reflects the reality of Palestinian society in Gaza and the West Bank.Hamas's charter rejects the existence of the State of Israel in Palestine, but its political wing has engaged with Israel, especially since 2007, on pragmatic matters that affect the Palestinians' daily lives in Gaza and has shown a willingness to accept a two-state solution. Beginning in 2017, Hamas began to move slowly toward accepting a possible two-state solution to the conflict, implying recognition of Israel. Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzouk affirmed this position in a recent interview with the Washington based Al- Monitor but soon after tried to walk it back, claiming it was taken out of context.Israel, the U.S., and most other Western countries for years viewed Hamas as a local militant nationalist religious movement. And in order to further the cause of the two-state solution and undermine Israel's claim that there was no unified Palestinian interlocutor to negotiate with, some Palestinian leaders and Arab countries, particularly Qatar, suggested that the U.S. designate Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization, which it did in the late 1990s. After the Hamas election victory in Gaza in 2006, which incidentally was another intelligence failure, some important factions within Hamas sought a pragmatic engagement with Israel on such issues as labor, the power grid, water, fishing, and commerce. Some analysts within the U.S. government at the time judged that reaching out to the pro-engagement faction within Hamas would serve Israeli and U.S. national interests. Unfortunately, Israeli and U.S. policymakers rejected that judgement.Hamas's jihadism moves globalIsrael's goal of eliminating Hamas as a movement is unattainable. Liquidating the current military leaders of Hamas will bring a new cadre of leaders to the top. Hamas, like other resistance organizations, has developed leadership succession plans that go down to second, third, and fourth tiers. American and Israeli intelligence agencies for the most part have focused on the first tier with scant knowledge of the leadership tiers below that.Israeli and American policymakers have also yet to focus on the transformation of some of Hamas's military leaders shifting from a local, nationalist, religious ideology resisting the Israeli occupation and calling for a Palestinian state into a global jihadist ideology. If such a transformation takes root, Hamas would essentially move away from the Muslim Brotherhood ideology to a radical, Wahhabi Salafi jihadist paradigm. Extremists within the Wahhabi paradigm do not accept the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine.Much of the jihadist radicalization of many Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, occurred in Israeli jails. Although some were recruited by Israeli intelligence services, especially the Shin Beit, as assets and collaborators; others became more radicalized and secretive. Palestinian economic, social, and political dehumanization in Gaza and the West bank, together with Israeli hubris about its military power and presumed penetration of Palestinian society, have led many Palestinian activists, including within Hamas, to adopt a narrative of jihadism grounded in Wahhabism, al-Qaida, and ISIS. It's highly unlikely that Hamas's political leaders would be allowed to participate in any discussions about postwar Gaza unless the whole Hamas movement, including the military wing, jettisons the global anti-Jewish jihadist paradigm and returns to its local, anti-occupation resistance posture.The way forwardThe most recent public opinion poll in the West Bank and Gaza shows a significant rise in Hamas's popularity in both areas with nearly 90% calling on Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president in Ramallah, to resign. The poll, which was conducted between November 22 and December 2, finds that Palestinians view Hamas as the most legitimate group in the West Bank and Gaza.The path forward encompasses two crucial steps that are essential for a resolution of the conflict. First, the wider conflict must be viewed in the context of the political, security, economic, and human rights aspirations of both peoples between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.Second, Washington must engage government and community representatives from Israel, the Palestinians, Arab states, the EU, and the U.N. in a serious, initially private, conversation about the long-term political status of Palestine that goes beyond Hamas and the current PA regime in Ramallah.This might sound like a pipedream, but we see the alternative in Gaza — and it is ugly.

Like 9/11, the raid on Israel by the paramilitary wing of Hamas on October 7 is frequently held to be a game changer — an "inflection point." But, like 9/11, it seems instead to have been a desperate foray by an increasingly irrelevant group that got horribly lucky.After the attack, many in the United States, including President Joe Biden, urged the Israelis not to repeat the mistakes the U.S. made after 9/11. Those mistakes included exaggerating the strategic significance of the terrible event and of the capacities of those perpetrating it, and then understandably but counterproductively reacting in anger to the provocation in a manner that resulted in far more damage than the initiating event and created far more dedicated enemies than had existed before.9/11The 9/11 attack was horrific — indeed, scarcely any terrorist act in history, in war zones or outside them, has inflicted even ten percent as much total destruction.However, although the attacks were in many respects clever and well planned, their success was more the result of luck than of ingenuity. Before 9/11, al-Qaeda, a fringe group at the time, had launched several terrorist attacks, but even those that succeeded were laced with screw-ups, and there were many missteps in the execution of the 9/11 plot — participants took unauthorized foreign trips, failed to get trained, and loudly bragged about how they would soon be famous.In fact, it is not at all clear that the planners truly appreciated how successful they would be or why. Indeed, the 9/11 planners had been working on a "second wave" of hijackings, suggesting they were oblivious to the fact that the first attack would make a "second wave" vastly more difficult, and likely impossible because, as pilot Patrick Smith points out, "Any hijacker would face a planeload of angry and frightened people ready to fight back."Despite widespread fears (including that the group would get nuclear weapons), al-Qaeda central proved to be unable to do much of anything after 2001 except to issue videos full of sound and fury. Even under siege, it is difficult to see why it could not have organized attacks at least as costly and shocking as the shooting rampages (organized by different extremist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba) that took place in Mumbai, India in 2008.Nonetheless, the United States, often envisioning the group to pose an existential threat, reacted by launching two unnecessary wars that led to more than 100 times the number of deaths (including twice as many American ones) than the impelling event. The wars also served to motivate a generation of dedicated enemies. Overwhelmingly, for example, Islamist terrorists in the U.S. after 9/11 were motivated not by any sort of ideological "radicalization," but rather by an intense hostility to U.S. military activities in the Middle East which they saw as a murderous effort to destroy Islam. And others abroad were generated by, and drawn to, America's new occupations.10/7Direct wars between Israel and neighboring states have substantially subsided. There were four of these between 1948 and 1973, but none in the last half-century. Instead, a number of key Arab states have made their peace with Israel, albeit sometimes grudgingly, starting with Egypt, then Jordan, and more recently with the Abraham Accords states, which might even have come to include Saudi Arabia.As present events make all too dramatically clear, Israel still has to deal with substate paramilitary groups like Hamas in Gaza. But increasingly, international pressure on such groups had been building, effectively urging them to get a life, to stop bashing their heads against the Israeli rock, and to get used to coexistence—a message rejected by many outraged Palestinians.Hamas, in particular, also seemed to have been losing support among Palestinians. Polls conducted before its October 7 raid into Israel suggest that majorities in Gaza and the West Bank had come to be put off by its incompetence and corruption and did not support its eliminationist agenda for Israel.The destructiveness of the raid itself, like 9/11, was due more to luck than to adept planning and seems to have surprised even the perpetrators. As it happened, Israel's defenses on the Gaza border were undermanned, out of position, poorly organized, and operating under the conclusion that Hamas was neither interested in nor capable of launching such an invasion. About half of the soldiers were away, and just two days earlier the Israelis had transferred two commando companies to the West Bank. Moreover, the music festival where Hamas found half of its civilian victims had continued past its scheduled end the day before.Intelligence obviously underestimated the ability of Hamas to breach Israel's security fence and to rampage in the area for some time. However, the attack failed if, as some have suggested, Hamas's goals were broader — to inspire Palestinians and Arab populations to rise up or to even take over Israeli cities and storm military bases. The raiders did manage to take over all or parts of an important nearby military base at Re'im, but they were pushed out in a few hours.On the other hand, if Hamas's goal was, as one of its leaders put it, simply to show that it still exists and that its interests "must remain on the table," the group can claim a degree of success. And if the raid was motivated importantly by a desire to rally Palestinians to Hamas's cause and to stall or reverse the Abraham Accords process, Israel's outraged overreaction has played into Hamas's hands.9/11, 10/7, and the futureWhatever the plans and justifications, the Israeli military is now fully alerted to the danger, and any repetition will be much less effective and consequential. That is, like 9/11, the attack is more likely to prove to be an aberration than a harbinger. Apparently without really knowing it, Hamas exploited an opening, but that condition is unlikely to be repeated.Like the United States after 9/11, Israel enjoyed worldwide sympathy at first. But, ignoring American advice derived from its disastrous 9/11 experience, that sympathy has eroded as Israel propels itself into a massively destructive effort to "eliminate" an extremist group with limited capabilities. That effort has thus far resulted in upwards of 20 times more civilian deaths than the attack on Israel, and it is, as U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin suggests, essentially based on "irresponsible rhetoric." And, as he further notes, if you drive civilians "into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat."That outcome seems to be in the cards as Palestinians' support for Hamas grows and as governments in the area, under intense pressure from their citizenries, rally once more behind the Palestinian cause. In particular, the Israeli overreaction could lead to the creation of a generation or more of fighters (many of them currently children) who are bitterly determined to exact revenge against Israel. Like the destructive American overreaction to 9/11, the Israeli one after 10/7 may be, as many contend, in some sense immoral. But it may also prove to be profoundly stupid.