Waging war against global terror

Dr Max Abrahms, a distinguished expert in international security, geopolitics, and relations, joins IndusLens to discuss pressing topics of the global anti-terrorism movement and India's strong stance and role. This is part one of the two-part series. In part one, Dr Abrahms talks about the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, its relation to the Moscow attack, the importance of acknowledging acts of terrorism amidst the rising global radicalisation, and the significance of India's firm stance against terrorism in these times. 

Q. Recently, there was a fatal terrorist attack at a concert in Moscow, Russia, which the Islamic State claimed responsibility for. Hamas, a terrorist group, has condemned these attacks. But then Hamas did the same on October 7th in Israel. What is happening here? 

Most people keep these attacks and these terrorist groups very separate. But of course, they are both acts of terrorism. Operation Al-Aqsa flood, the Hamas attack on October 7th, was much larger in terms of the number of fatalities. The attack in Moscow was quite substantial in relative terms compared to most attacks. The attack was the largest in Russia in about two decades. Something like 140-plus people were killed. The attack on October 7th in Israel killed almost 1,200 people. Both of them were directed against civilian targets. Interestingly, according to Politico, Putin did not think that Russia was going to be attacked by IS because of Russia's support for Hamas.

Furthermore, immediately after the Hamas attack on October 7th, we saw a rise in all sorts of chatter and direct warnings from the global jihad, particularly from Al-Qaeda and its affiliates about its renewed interest in terms of striking the West and particularly Jewish targets. Allegedly, IS-K had eyes on striking a Jewish target in Russia as well before the Crocus City Hall attack, presumably to appeal to the global intifada movement that has burgeoned since the October 7th Hamas terrorist massacre. 

Q. What has caused the current conflict between Israel and Hamas in the present context? What are Israel's goals in this conflict?

Going back historically, the conflict ultimately is about incompatible goals over Israel-Palestine. And there hasn't been a successful peace process, not because of any sort of misunderstanding, but because the nature of the demands is essentially zero-sum because they're fighting over territory. Hamas is a maximalist group, which according to its own rhetoric, requires (territory) from the river to the sea, leaving no place for an Israeli state there. Historically, Israel, however, has been much more willing to make territorial compromises. It accepted the original UN Resolution 181 to divide up the territory, which would have made Palestine substantially larger than Israel. Israel also tried to negotiate right after the Six-Day War in 1967.

During the Oslo peace process, there was substantial Israeli support for territorial concessions, according to surveys of the Israeli public. In 2008, there was an even more generous proposal for a two-state solution. But since the emergence of Hamas in the late 1980s, it has continuously opposed any two-state solution. And then, after October 7th, Israel determined that Hamas was a genocidal group that could not be deterred. And, indeed, the Hamas leadership said that not only was it happy about the October 7th attack, which was the second most lethal terrorist attack in world history since the advent of international terrorism in 1970, but that it intends to try to carry out subsequent attacks every single day of greater lethality than the October 7th attack.

Subsequently, Israel has been trying to destroy Hamas as a terrorist organisation and, at the very least, topple it from power in Gaza to substantially degrade its military capability. But additionally, and I think that this point doesn't get emphasised enough, what Israel is also trying to do is restore its deterrence because all countries depend on deterrence for their security. You can't have adversaries attacking all of the time—for it would be prohibitively costly. And Israel has terrorist adversaries like no other country in the world, at least at the present. Even beyond Hamas, which has, let's say, 30,000 fighters, you have countless other Palestinian terrorist groups based not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, and even terrorists within the 1967 Israeli borders. You have Hezbollah to the north, which according to the leadership claims 100,000 terrorist fighters who are of a higher quality than Hamas fighters. They have more experience fighting in the Syrian civil war, and they have better state backing because of Iran. Moreover, Israel has to attend to the Houthis increasingly, and they increasingly are backed by Iran.

Considering the number of terrorists that are against Israel, their proximity to Israel, and their state backing, not to mention from Qatar as well as Turkey, Israel's terrorism threat is peerless in the world. Therefore, what it is trying to do is not only to substantially degrade Hamas but also signal to other terrorist adversaries, including their state sponsors, that if you attack Israel in any meaningful way, it will come at a very high price. Finally, of course, it should be pointed out that a substantial number of hostages were taken on October 7th, and Israel is doing everything possible to bring them home.

Q. How does the fight against Hamas relate to the broader international terrorism threat?

A lot of people want to keep that separate. And they don't even acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist group. They view Israel as stolen property by the Jews, a form of oppression against the Palestinian people. But whatever one's politics are and whatever one's understanding is of that territory, going back to biblical times, there's no question in the minds of terrorism scholars that what Hamas perpetrated on October 7th was terrorism. The October 7th attack was violence directed against civilians for a political goal, in this case, carried out to eradicate Israel. I believe that it's very important to make sure that Hamas doesn't get what it wants. If it does, it will incentivise terrorists all over the world to adopt the same terrorist tactics.

Terrorist leaders observe other conflicts around the world, from contemporary to historical ones, and try to draw lessons about how they can advance their political calls. As soon as governments start negotiating with terrorists, making concessions to them, it signals to other terrorists in the world that they should ramp up their violence against civilians because there's utility in this behaviour. What I'm saying is not just logical and theoretically intuitive, but it's empirically demonstrated. There are strong statistical studies that look at hostage-taking situations by militant groups. It turns out that when countries develop a reputation for negotiating with the hostage-takers, those countries are more likely to have hostage problems. Conversely, countries known to have a no -concessions policy are less likely to be preyed upon. For that reason, Israel's counterterrorism mission is a mission for counter terrorists around the world.

Q. How do you see India being an important ally for Israel given its strong anti-terrorism approach and its quick acknowledgement of the terrorism in Hamas' attack on Israel?

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of India and the government under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi in particular. I think what he's done for India has been amazing in terms of its economic ascendance and all sorts of areas. But my area in particular is terrorism. And I appreciate the fact that India takes counterterrorism very seriously. It takes counterterrorism seriously in its own country, which might be expected, although not all countries do that.

Additionally, India is very fair when it comes to counterterrorism in other countries. It condemns terrorism everywhere. If you're a country struck by terrorism, you can expect the Modi government to come out with an expression of condolences and offer support ahead of just about any other national leader. We saw this not only after October 7th but also after the attack in Moscow, where Modi lent his condolences to Putin. And so, there's a certain consistency coming out of India concerning their opposition to terrorism, especially Islamist terrorism, but not restricted to that. We've seen India's strong stance against Khalistan terrorism as well.

I appreciate the strong opposition to terrorism and the consistency against it, not only domestically, but around the world. I think that Israel and India have a natural connection in many ways, in terms of the industriousness of the populations, how hardworking they are, how they've exceeded expectations, and outperformed their neighbours, according to all sorts of important metrics, as well as the fact that both suffer very severe terrorism problems and have used smarts, intelligence, advancements in technology to help counter the threat.

Q. India and Israel have been carrying out joint operations for terrorism preparedness for years. How do you see these two countries, based on their experience of facing brutal terrorist attacks, joining forces to expose countries that harbour terrorists?

One thing that I think India has done, which is very important beyond just kinetic counter-terrorism activity, is its use of its voice in consistently condemning terrorism. You might take that for granted, but when it comes to terrorism against Israel, one shouldn't because you see large sections of the world not only failing to condemn terrorism but openly celebrating it.

There are mobs of people, the so-called global intifada movement, which turn out every weekend in cities in the United States and throughout Western Europe, sometimes with terrorist flags, the black flag, which is used by jihadist groups. We've seen pictures of Hamas spokespersons and terrorists. We've seen an alignment between some of the protest groups and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, particularly in Canada, which has become a real hotbed of radicalisation, not just Islamist radicals but also pro-Khalistani radicals. That's a unifying area, not only between the United States and India but also Israel. And, India has a big voice, especially in countries where the United States doesn't have the best reputation, for example, in the global south. So, I think that's important and helpful for India to do to change perceptions.

Unfortunately, even though there is collaboration between India and Israel in the counterterrorism sphere, I do expect there to be more terrorism. I think that the terrorism threat is at a high point now and rising. We're seeing a mass mobilisation of people, wherein a small but nonetheless non-trivial number of them may be genuinely violent and they want to commit harm. It's not clear at this point whether there'll be lone wolf attackers or small cells, how they'll affiliate themselves, and to what extent they'll have material support from larger organisations. But overall, the terrorism threat does seem to be moving upward. I think that we're seeing this very vividly this week when you look at the responses of European countries to the Moscow attack: France came out right away and said that it was raising its terrorism threat level with an eye towards IS; Germany has thwarted several attacks which are affiliated in various ways to Islamic State, along with an attack that was foiled, which reportedly had Hamas fingerprints on it; Greece has come out and said that it's concerned about the IS threat in particular since the Moscow attack, and as has Italy.

Reportedly, Islamic State is trying to recruit now out of Great Britain because there's a large pool of radicals that live in that country as well. We are dealing with a truly global threat, and I do think it's rising. And it is not particular to any country or group. For that reason, there must be international cooperation when it comes to counterterrorism. And by the way, that includes working with Russia. I would like to see Russia, and I've always wanted to see Russia brought in more when it comes to counterterrorism. I understand that Russia and the United States have many other differences geopolitically, for example, concerning Ukraine and Assad in Syria. But when it comes to Islamic State, when it comes to Islamist terrorism, that's an area where we need as much international support as possible.

Q. What are the implications of these increasing jihadist attacks? And you mentioned that the world needs to come together. So how can the world come together to address these attacks?

I think that countries need to try to put aside their other differences and just categorically recognise that terrorism is bad. When there are groups supported by governments, not only attacking civilians but maximising bloodshed, regardless of your politics, this is reprehensible behaviour and it needs to be condemned. It’s very sad that I have to make this statement. It did not need to be made after 9/11.

After 9/11, So many people around the world expressed their sympathy for the United States. I did not see open support for Al-Qaeda in the United States. Al-Qaeda was a pariah and the United States was able to build up a counterterrorism coalition. That was certainly the case against the Islamic State. Countries all around the world uniformly condemned the Islamic State. But the international response to the Hamas attack on October 7th has been very different. We see it over social media. We see it on the streets with these mass protests. We also see it within higher education. Student groups are openly supportive of Hamas. In some cases, faculty is openly supportive of Hamas. You have university administrations which continue to not protect Jewish students against radicalisation on campus. You have governments that come out explicitly and say that they are openly in support of Hamas. The Erdogan government of Turkey openly says that it supports Hamas, it harbours Hamas, and it is probably going to increasingly be a safe-haven for Hamas leaders. Turkey is a NATO country but simultaneously is the number one state supporter of the Islamic State. We need to categorically condemn terrorism. We need to say that not only is IS terrorism wrong, but Hamas terrorism is wrong. We need to get all countries in the world to oppose it.

Frankly, we need to punish state sponsors of terrorism more, whether that's Pakistan, whether that's Turkey, whether it's Qatar. We cannot allow governments to sponsor these groups because governments are much stronger than non-state actors. When they have the support of governments, these non-state actors become even more lethal. There needs to be very real consequences for these governments.

The official list by the United States of state sponsors of terrorism is an absolute joke. It is currently limited to three countries: North Korea, Iran, and Syria. That list needs to be expanded. It should have been expanded a long time ago. It needs to include Qatar. If we're honest, it should include Turkey. I'm not a Pakistan expert, but I very well know that it has long been a state sponsor of terrorism. If we're going to be honest, it should be included in that list. I know that many Indians would certainly agree with that. That is just a start. And we can't make exceptions. We can't make exceptions for NATO countries. We can't make exceptions for whether they have a military base that supports the United States. Doing so continues to cloud my view that terrorism is categorically unacceptable.

Read Part 2 here : https://induslens.com/articles/islamic-state-renewal-highlights-indias-old-concerns