Extremist groups, polarised citizens as war threat spirals

Facing an international revolt against the brutal invasion of Gaza this week, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog warned Wednesday that Hamas posed an “existential threat” to the world.

“This war is a war that is not only between Israel and Hamas. It’s a war that is intended, really, truly, to save Western civilisation, to save the values of Western civilisation,” Herzog appealed on US television Wednesday.

The next day, UN chief António Guterres invoked an emergency Security Council clause. It was the first time it had been triggered in decades. He used Article 99 to summon the Security Council (China, France, Russia, the US, the UK, Albania, Brazil, Ecuador) to address the Gaza crisis “which, in my opinion, may aggravate existing threats to the maintenance of international peace and security”.

He wasn’t concerned about occupational armies streaming across borders.

He was fearful of the fallout of an impending “humanitarian disaster” triggered by Israel’s demands that 1.9 million Palestinians submit themselves to being herded into an eight-square-kilometre “safe zone”.

The “severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system”, he said, would lead “public order to completely break down”.

And that public order isn’t limited to the Gaza Strip.

Protests and acts of intimidation have resulted in clashes across the world since the horrors of Hamas’s October 7 assault. But Europe, in particular, has experienced physical assaults up to full-fledged terror attacks.

Several European countries have raised their terror threat alert levels. So far eight people have been arrested in relation to alleged Israel-Hamas terror plots. And several hundred have been detained for hate-based offences.

“This increase of hate speech and racially motivated crimes creates a feeling of insecurity among both Jewish and Muslim communities,” warns the Netherlands-based International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT).

Clear and present danger

“We were attacked by a Jihadist network, an empire of evil, emulating from Tehran with its forks in Lebanon with Hezbollah, with Hamas in Gaza, with the Houthis in Yemen. This empire is in Iraq, and this empire wants to conquer the entire Middle East,” President Herzog said. “And if it weren’t for us, Europe would be next, and the United States follows.”

Hamas is believed to have more than 20,000 fighters hidden in tunnels beneath the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon and Syria, says it has 100,000 active and reservist jihadists. And Iran’s loose-knit “Axis of Resistance” networking Middle Eastern extremist groups can threaten Israel with ballistic missiles carrying warheads much smaller than the thousands of 1000kg bombs Israel has been dropping on Gaza.

Israel can deploy 170,000 active and 465,000 reservist troops backed by modern tanks, attack helicopters, stealth jets and nuclear warheads.

“Existential threat” is not a scenario accepted by former director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency Tamir Pardo.

“I think Bibi [Netanyahu] told Biden that Israel was at risk of annihilation,” he told Politico. “But Israel has the best army in the Middle East. If they were going to do so, they would have done it (attack Israel) when Hamas attacked. They missed their opportunity.”

Instead, the ICCT says Europe is at risk from the social unrest such extreme rhetoric invokes.

“A true 360-degree approach is required from the security services to detect and counter the various threats … encompassing violent extremism, terrorism, and foreign influence,” its analysts argue in the Lawfare blog.

“More broadly, the overall environment of social polarisation, fuelled by emotions and extremist narratives, must be effectively managed.”

Values-based conflict

“We are here to defend the values of liberal societies, of LGBTQ, which Hamas fights endlessly, of women and children and free people, who all they want is peace, and they are times – and time again attacked and attacked and attacked,” insists President Herzog.

And those values are already under heavy assault in Europe.

“The rise of hate speech against Jews and Muslims in Europe, as well as images of massacred civilians on either side, could be conducive to the radicalisation of certain individuals and possibly result in violent acts,” the ICCT analysts argue.

The greatest threat at this point, they say, comes from individuals acting out their personal hate. Terrorism, however, tends to involve a greater degree of organisation.

“The Islamic State and al-Qaeda have both already taken advantage of the moment to call for individuals to act against Jewish targets in Europe and North America,” the Lawfare article reads. “The terrorist threat could also increase from the far right, as accelerationist groups and white supremacists amplify both antisemitic and Islamophobic content to further their agenda, which is to trigger a civil war.”

But it adds that deliberate manipulation of public sentiment by foreign agencies is also a real threat.

“State actors may take advantage of the situation to further undermine social cohesion and exacerbate political polarisation in Europe,” the ICCT authors state, pointing to French law enforcement agencies saying they believe Russian operatives to be behind the Star of David being smeared on buildings across Paris.

“Russia is also suspected of attempts to exacerbate anti-migrant narratives in Finland,” they add, “by facilitating the transportation of Middle Eastern migrants to the Finnish border, increasing populist fears that Muslims might overrun the country.

“Meanwhile, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed the security service Mossad to act against Hamas leaders ‘wherever they are’. This opens the door for possible targeted Israeli operations outside the Middle East.”

Crimes against humanity

“We didn’t want this war. God forbid. We went through hell. But we have to defend our people and enable everybody to go back to the region and live in peace,” insists Herzog. “That’s what we are doing for the sake of the entire world.”

Israel’s Shin Bet spy agency chief Ronen Bar calls the brutal murder of 1200 by the Hamas terror network a “crime against humanity”.

In a letter to UN chief Guterres last month, he reportedly insisted Israel was “determined to accomplish our mission” of destroying Hamas.

“Those who want the world to be a safer place should not try to stop us. We have hard evidence proving that the crimes against humanity, brutally committed on October 7, were a part of the Hamas operational plan. Thousands of Hamas terrorists did as they were instructed by their leaders: They raped our daughters, beheaded our babies and burned our houses with entire families inside. They tortured mothers in front of their children, and children in front of their mothers,” Bar wrote.

Israel’s Defence Force says its subsequent invasion of Gaza has killed more than 5000 Hamas fighters. Guterres, however, says he is alarmed at the related deaths of 10,000 civilian Palestinian women and children.

The ICCT warns that only honest confrontation of the truth behind the conflict can de-escalate the spread of international unrest.

“European governments should take a clear stance against all forms of hate speech and related violence and apply this equally to all citizens,” the authors write.

“At the same time, governments should be explicit about the ways in which citizens can legally express their opinions and protect them, and what would be considered illegal under current criminal codes.

“Restricting liberties or criminalising peaceful behaviours, particularly if appearing to be done with an ideological bias, will only further exacerbate polarisation and radicalisation.”

Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @JamieSeidel