The Israeli and Palestinian conflict is one of the most intense disputes of the century. It is rooted in issues of land and sovereignty, national pride, religion, and governance. The dispute resulted in the existence of two competing governments in the Palestinian territories, one in the West Bank controlled by the Palestine Liberation Organization and one in the Gaza Strip controlled by the radical militant group Hamas. Many agreements have been brokered since 2007 to unify both governments, but all have failed. In January 2019, the Prime Minister of the Palestine Authority government, Rami Hamdallah, tendered his resignation, reflecting the rise of public displeasure over failed efforts to reunite the government. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have long rivaled each other for power over Palestinian territories. Hamas, refusing to renounce violence, is not just a radical Islamic group but a political faction with parliamentary seats. Their rise and growing popularity before the 2006 parliamentary elections reflected Palestinian sense of alienation from their government’s efforts to rebuke the Israeli occupation. Most significantly, it showed that Hamas’s embracement of radicalism and militancy resonated well with many Palestinians. But how and why did Hamas’ popularity grow?

The events surrounding the initial creation of Israel in 1948 and the Six Day War of 1967 may put the conflict and rise of Hamas in perspective. Even though they are 19 years apart, both events are emblematic of the complexity and fragility of peace prospects between Israel and Palestine, a process that the PA has been embracing and Hamas has been rejecting.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the so-called Jewish question was articulated as a predicament: could Jews ever find acceptance as Jews in a nation made up of non-Jews? Most Eastern European Jews did not believe they could assimilate or ever be accepted in any non-Jew nation. Zionism, an Eastern European phenomenon, quickly emerged as a response to that predicament and emphasized the need for a central Jewish home. That led to the settlement of Jews in Palestine, igniting issues of belonging and sovereignty. Pressured by the United States, the United Nations voted for a partition proposal that divided the land into seven parts, three for the Jews, three for the Arabs, leaving Jerusalem under UN control. As many as 700,000 Palestinians either fled the region or were driven out. As they failed to regain the territory, Palestinians refused to assimilate and demanded a return to their home land. Their efforts were futile and Arab states eventually signed separate armistice agreements with Israel in 1949.

The question of land has always been center stage in the struggle between Israel and Arab counties. It has greatly influenced the concept of Zionism and Arab nationalism. The question of land and sovereignty: who leaves and who stays? Who has the right? Who is stronger? That has become a central issue in Arab nationalist grievances, one that still controls both the foreign relations between the Israeli and Arab governments, and local relationship between Jews and Arabs.

The Six Day War of 1967 was a brief conflict between multiple Arab states and Israel which ended in the defeat of the Arab coalition led by Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.  Israel’s victory allowed it to capture Sinai, West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.

It also led to the absolute humiliation and loss of legitimacy of Arab leaders, specifically signaled the end of Arab nationalism personified by President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. It forced Syria, Jordan and Egypt to accept a cease-fire proposed by the UN Security Council after enduring very heavy losses. Finally, it created more political refugees and brought one million more Palestinians under Israeli rule.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, exacerbated by the Six Day War and the expansion of settlements in Palestinian territories increased existing hostilities and complicated peace prospects. Arab defeat in 1967 alone had significant territorial and demographic ramifications. Sinai and the Gaza Strip were captured from Egypt. Israeli control over the strip meant that 90 percent of the 360,000 Palestinians who lived there have become refugees. The West Bank was a more integral region. It is about one-quarter as large as pre-1967 Israel and it gave Israel control over territories that had been allocated for Palestine by the UN in 1947.  By the end of 1967, Israel controlled all of the land that had been previously allocated for a Palestinian state in 1948 and more than a million Palestinians were living under Israeli control. Furthermore, Israel separated East Jerusalem from the rest of the West bank and the government announced the unification of Jerusalem under Israeli control, thereby removing all barriers and military installations that divided the city in half. Israel also announced the application of Israeli law in all Palestinian area.

The 1967 war gave the international community new incentives to address the Arab-Israeli conflict. Various draft resolutions were proposed in the UN and many were rejected by both sides. Perhaps the most important resolution was UNSCR 2334. It called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories annexed as a result of the 1967 war, the termination of aspects of sovereignty for any state in the area, guarantee of civil freedoms for all citizens and a “just settlement of the refugee problem.” The vagueness of each demand lead to disagreements over how the resolution should be implemented. The Arab states expectantly wanted Israel to begin withdrawal from captured areas and the Israelis demanded the Arab states recognize Israel first. Extremely distrustful of one another, each side did not want to be first to surrender. This distrust continues to underline Arab and Israeli relations today as well.

Continuous defeat and failure to restore Palestinian land and rights gave Hamas an opportunity to influence the Palestinian people. It provided Hamas with a source of secure funding and recruitment as they exploited Palestinians’ frustration. Hamas was also uniquely effective at delivering and offering services to the people of Palestine which increased public content with the radical group.

Hamas’s primary objectives have been the complete destruction of the Israeli state and the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. They have continuously rejected any two-state solution, refusing any negotiations with Israel. The PA’s goal is similar in that it wishes to create a Palestinian state on the1967, but they believe in negotiations with Israel and have renounced militancy. Hamas on the other hand embraced direct confrontation with Israel. Their tactics include suicide bombings, rocket attacks, military blockades, etc.

In 2006, they participated in national elections of the Palestinian Legislative Council, signaling their intention to become a represented political party. They won a slight majority of seats which put them in a commanding position for the Gaza Strip. This led to a brief unity with the PLO which soon disintegrated as Hamas refused to accept previous agreements the PLO negotiated with Israel. The Mideast Quartet, an ongoing diplomatic effort led by the United States, United Nations, European Union, and Russia, responded to Hamas’ electoral victory in 2006 by offering support only if Hamas renounced violence, recognized Israel and abided by past Mideast agreements. Hamas rejected all three pillars prompting foreign nations to freeze aid to Palestine. Tensions between both factions ultimately escalated into a civil war that divided Palestine even more: Gaza became independently governed by Hamas and the West Bank fell under the PLO’s governance. Peace talks have been initiated multiple times since then, but always disintegrated due to internal rifts and external pressures.

Hamas’s rejection of any agreement between Israel and Palestine is not only due to their ideological beliefs. Hamas is also fearful of losing its power if it embraces negotiations. Hamas came to power because they capitalized on the PA’s weakness and willingness to compromise with Israel. Even attempting negotiations would open the door to rivalries to challenge Hamas’s rule just like Hamas challenged the PA in 2006.

The question of sovereignty and land, mistrust that both Palestine and Israel will fulfill their promises, the divide between Hamas and the PA, and both of their eagerness to control the levers of power have always and will continue to put a dent in peace efforts. It will also continue to alienate Palestinians towards militancy as they attempt to restore their human rights and sovereignty from Israel.

The rise of radical groups who claim to be Islamic, growing instability in Muslim-majority countries, habits and norms that constitute “anti-modernity” to Western norms all tend to distort Islamic values and what Muslims hold dear. That specifically influences politics. Islam has a particular relationship to politics. It is broadly shaped by cultural practices, religious scripts and traditions. Since Islam’s emergence in Mecca, there has been a strong emphasis on Islam as an Ummah, or a political community. Muhammed was the Ummah’s political and religious leaders. Over time, the emphasis on the creation of an Ummah spilled up to the political sphere and became more heavily underlined. However, the structure and the core beliefs of the Islamic community has been open to interpretation. Neither the hadith nor the Quran outline a blueprint of an Islamic State or its governance. Throughout history, many Islamic theorist used the notion of the Ummah to unify and gain Muslim support but that was also the foundation of their respective sensation theory of Islam.  The notion of an Islamic state continuously emerges as something desirable and can be more accurately described as Islamic Revivalism: “a revolutionary force whose aim is to topple the established order in the Muslim world, be they authoritarian or democratic” (Dekmejian). It is a persistent and continuous phenomenon that has occurred in virtually every Islamic society. Revivalism is generally a natural response to multi-dimensional crises facing global Islamic communities: political, economic and military catalysts, legitimacy crises and inadequate leadership.

Islamic societies have faced a legitimacy crisis due to the failures of their intellectual elites to create social cohesion for Islamic legitimacy, especially in regard to European countries. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, nationalism emerged in Islamic societies, but it mimicked a number of other countries’ norms and practices: European, German idealism, Marxism and socialism. After decades of experimentation, “of the major attempts to forge a synthesis of political thought as a guide to political action, two-Ataturkism and Nasirism- appear to have failed after some temporary success.” Ataturk of Turkey attempted to formulate a viable political community after WWI using charismatic legitimacy. He had charisma and was attributed as a hero. He undertook sweeping cultural, bureaucratic, economic and military reforms, adopted Western models of military and bureaucratic organization and rapid industrialization.

Ataturk also sought to de-emphasize Islam as he viewed it as the “vestige of the Ottoman past he was seeking to eradicate”, according to Peter Mandaville in his Islam and Politics book. In contrast, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s formula for legitimization did not rely on a wholesale rejection of the past, but on “an eclectic synthesis of pre-revolutionary political thought and action” (Dekmejian). He emerged after a coup d’état by the Free Officers Movement against Farouk I (Mandaville). He fused elements of nationalism, socialism and nonalignment in Cold War geopolitics and managed to play both sides of the war to Egypt’s advantage. That made him even more popular. However, just like Ataturk, the legitimization Nasser created was only based on his charismatic leadership. Thus, it faded away after his death. Both of Ataturk and Nasser’s failures further emphasized the need for revivalism as a method of establishing legitimacy and a united Islamic community. That notion was only further reinforced by the failure of Middle Eastern leaders to fulfil their promises of social justice and development.

There is no clear sense of what Islamic governance should look like. Nasser, Ataturk, and other Islamic theorists took different approaches simply because they can. There is no Pope or middle man in Islam. Today, there is an extremely radical version of an Islamic State. Their strategies and goals are unacceptable and completely incompatible with the theorists and scholars that came before them. However, looking at multiple intersections of politics and Islam throughout history, the emergence of the Islamic State can be understood as a response to a larger historical crisis: abandonment of Islamic values, Western unacceptance and colonization of ideals. Furthermore, theorists or self-proclaimed leaders always use nostalgia as a weapon and strategy for unification: nostalgia to the old days of the caliphates and prophet Muhammed. This suggests that the concept of Islamic revivalism is a foundational strategy that has been used to justify the Islamic State’s existence.

Following the horrific events of 9/11, media narratives created a paranoid fantasy in which terrorist groups obtain and deploy nuclear weapons of mass destruction. In 2017, Mathew Bunn and Nickolas Roth, a professor and a research associate at Harvard University argued that a “nuclear nightmare” is possible and could result from a single terrorist nuclear attack on a major city. They articulate the fatal consequences of another Hiroshima and Nagasaki event: long-term radioactive fallout, a nuclear counterattack, and a half million people dead. However, those scenarios are extremely overblown and exaggerated and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were acts of war by a state actor, not terrorists.

Bunn and Roth argue that a nuclear terror attack is possible if a terrorist group acquired the necessary nuclear material, but such a scenario is highly unlikely, according to Leonard Weiss, a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Only nine states have nuclear weapons capabilities: The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, North Korea, India, and Pakistan. A scenario in which nuclear materials are stolen from any one of those nations is almost impossible. All nuclear weapon states have multiple layers of safeguards that prevent security breaches. Any scenario for seizure would require major security breakdowns followed by an extremely fast takeover of weapons by terrorist groups with no time for other state actors like the United States to intervene. No existing non-state actor terrorist group has ever reached such sophistication. Even Al-Qaeda, who perpetrated the worst terror attack in modern history, could not acquire nuclear weapons. Furthermore, none of the nuclear weapon states would willingly give nuclear weapons or materials to any terrorist group due to existing nuclear deterrence. If a terrorist group manages to deploy a nuclear bomb as a result of a transfer from a sovereign nation, that will ultimately result in the transferring nation becoming a nuclear target as a form of retaliation. No country will risk absolute annihilation in favor of any terrorist organization.

Another scenario for a nuclear terror attack outlined by Bunn and Roth is the acquisition of nuclear material. However, necessary material such as uranium and plutonium are highly protected. Even if a terrorist organization were to acquire the necessary materials, it is extremely difficult to build and denote, requiring high level of expertise that no non-state actor can access. Technical hurdles and logistical difficulties is a huge challenge to nuclear terrorists

Deployment of a nuclear weapon by stateless terrorist organization should be the least of our worries in a world where minor provocations between any nuclear weapons states, such as Pakistan and India, are more likely to escalate. There have been no instances in which a terrorist group acquired and deployed a nuclear weapon. Terrorist groups do not have the capability, expertise or sophistication to carry out a catastrophic nuclear attack.

Image courtesy of AP/The Independent.

Society currently has a strong need for a new topic of discussion. Almost everyone has social media profiles that keep them up to date on current events going on around the world. Many members of society want to gain followers or notoriety and be one of these topics of discussion. Acts of terror are the perfect opportunity for people to gain notoriety. The recent shooting in New Zealand by white nationalist Brenton Tarratt which he live streamed on social media is a perfect example of the power of social media in the digital age and how it acts as a conduit for terrorists to spread their message.

There are estimated to be at least 2.8 billion users of social media worldwide. This number is expected to grow even more in the next few years as our world becomes more globalized. This is a huge audience for terrorists to spread their message to the rest of the world. The power of social media has given a voice to those who feel like they have been marginalized, it amplifies their voice so they can reach the masses. When these terrorists send out their message to the masses it has two jobs:  1) To instill fear in their opponents and 2) to recruit others to their cause with similar mindsets. This is the Islamic State’s modus operandi which has raised their threat from the confines of their region to a worldwide threat. This has inspired many other terror groups or lone wolves to adopt similar methods and mindsets. It is not just jihadists either who are using the media to spread to the masses. Right wing nationalists have also used this method and have even formed their own networks such as 4Chan and Fachosphere in America and France respectively, to communicate with those with similar ideologies.

Many terrorists now rely on shock value and the “theater of terror” which forces the media to write reports on various terror attacks and this is what the terrorists live for because it gives them the notoriety they were hoping for. Sharing or retweeting acts of terror it gives them exactly what they wanted, as seen in the aforementioned shooting in New Zealand. The shooter live streamed his malicious act and a couple hours later it was all over social media. One way to prevent the spread of violent extremist ideals is to not share these heinous acts and not give these terrorists the notoriety that they want. Conversations about terror attacks on social media creates fear and perpetuates rumors which causes hysteria. This is exactly what the terrorists feed off of. The problem is that society is beginning to become desensitized to such violent acts because they happen so often. However, Cliff Staten a political science professor believes that this desensitization can serve as a deterrent to terrorists. He stated, “One could argue that becoming less sensitive to these terrorist events will make it more difficult for groups like ISIS or Al Qaeda to achieve their goals.” The terrorists prey on fear and if they don’t find it, then they can’t achieve their goals.

Social media can also help raise awareness about different terror attacks, especially those that may not get the same attention as others. Terrorism is not something that can be resolved in a day, a number of measures need to be put in place to raise awareness to prevent these acts from happening. The rise of social has provided the tools necessary to make change in the world. This can happen through sharing counterterrorism efforts around the world or reporting terrorist propaganda that found on social media feeds. People have the means to rid the world of the violence of terrorism.