Despite a long history of grievances, only a handful of Palestinian citizens of Israel have joined the Islamic State. The Israeli experience, while unique, may offer long-term lessons for other countries.
On the evening of October 24, 2015, an Israeli man was seen paragliding into Syria from the Golan Heights in Israel. Israeli authorities soon discovered that the man – a 23-year-old from the Israeli Arab town of Jaljuliyah – had entered Syria to join what we now call the Islamic State (IS).
Although the paraglider is an exceptional feature, tens of thousands of individuals from around the globe, including almost 9,000 from former Soviet republics and 6,000 from Western Europe, have also traveled to Iraq and Syria to join IS and other radical Islamist groups. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Tunisia account for the largest sources of foreign fighters in the Middle East, with approximately 3,000 fighters from each, while about 1,000 come from Southeast Asia.
These regions seem like logical origins for Islamist foreign fighters. The former Soviet Union contained multiple Muslim-majority regions, including Chechnya, Dagestan, and the Central Asian republics, many of which have experienced periods of unrest. Muslim-majority Middle Eastern countries close to IS’s area of operations have historically served as platforms for radical Islamist recruitment. Europe has an increasing presence of radical Islamist groups. Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia have histories of contact with Islamist groups like Jemaah Islamiyah. In many of these countries, a considerable number of foreign fighters have returned home, posing a new domestic security threat.
Interestingly, Israel is the source for only 60 foreign fighters, ten of whom have returned. Israel shares a border with Syria, constantly comes into conflict with radical Islamist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and has a population that is about one-fifth Muslim. Why does Israel account for so few foreign fighters?
This apparent anomaly can be understood through four factors that Hafez and Mullins identify contributing to radicalization: grievances relating to marginalization or policy, preexisting ties to radicals, ideological commitment to a jihadist cause, and environments that enable radicalization and travel to a conflict zone. These key factors allow us to understand the relative lack of radicalization in Israel.
Grievances
Arab Israelis – Palestinian citizens of Israel, most of whom are Muslim – have long expressed grievances with the Israeli government. The Israel-Palestinian conflict is a major point of tension, splitting up Arab families over periodically redrawn borders (like Bartaa) and fueling animosity toward the Israeli government. In addition, Palestinians in the West Bank, often with Arab Israeli family members, hold deep-seated grievances against the Israeli military presence in the West Bank. Although Arab Israelis enjoy equal citizenship, many hold grievances relating to the definition of Israel as a Jewish state, wealth inequality, building permit acquisition, and marginalization. Despite some representation in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, Arab parties have never played significant roles in the Israeli government.
Nonetheless, Israeli Arab political activism remains moderate on the whole. Israel’s democratic process exists as a means to effect societal change without violence; peaceful political activism also serves as a viable alternative to violence. Still, the influx of foreign fighters from Western Europe shows that democratic government is not strong enough on its own to deter foreign fighters.
Preexisting ties to radicals
Hafez and Mullins explain in their analysis of the Islamist foreign fighter phenomenon that maintaining personal connections with radical Islamists can facilitate efforts to join a foreign fighter movement. Those with such connections in Israel most likely affiliate with localized groups, notably Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, and PIJ.
The local nature of these Palestinian radical Islamist groups entails that they do not generally participate in international activities. Both Hamas and PIJ are concerned solely with carrying out a violent struggle to turn Israel into a state governed by Islamic law, or sharia, and establish a Palestinian state to replace Israel. They maintain ties to other groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, but rarely operate outside Israel or the Palestinian territories. Hence, Hamas and PIJ supporters are far less likely to operate outside of Israel. This may also account for the relatively low numbers of foreign fighters coming from Afghanistan and India, where localized groups like the Taliban have a strong presence.
Commitment to a group ideology
Ideological commitment to radical Islamist activities is perhaps the most difficult factor to combat and the most serious threat terrorist groups pose to Israel’s security. Hamas, PIJ, and other radical Islamist groups all espouse ideologies calling for the destruction of Israel. These groups mostly favor a local approach and have clashed with smaller groups claiming allegiance to IS and other international organizations. For example, in 2015, a Gaza-based group called Jaish al-Islam pledged allegiance to IS and came into conflict with Hamas. Hamas itself has perceived the presence of other radical Islamist groups in Gaza as such a threat that it set up its own “deradicalization program.”
IS and other international radical Islamist organizations have failed to garner support for their ideologies among Arab Israelis. This is largely a result of the conflicts between Palestinian Islamist groups and international Islamist forces. The ideology of IS particularly lacks appeal since it explicitly rejects any kind of national identity, a key component of Palestinian nationalism, as well as part of Hamas’ ideology. Yet more appealing alternatives exist within Fatah, the Palestinian nationalist party in charge of the Palestinian Authority, or one of the various political parties of Israel.
Enabling environments
Those few who do become radicalized must bypass the robust Israeli security apparatus to join organizations like IS. Israeli security services closely work with Palestinian intelligence and monitor terrorist activity to prevent attacks and terrorist recruitment. The Israeli Security Agency (or Shin Bet, Israel’s FBI equivalent), military, and police have made dozens of arrests of IS supporters since 2014, when Israel officially designated IS as an illegal organization. In January 2015, the military and Shin Bet arrested at least three Palestinians in the West Bank who formed an IS-linked cell and plotted attacks against Israel. In July 2015, police arrested six residents of the Bedouin village Hura accused of preaching IS propaganda and trying to convince relatives to join IS. Israel strengthened its borders through a network of physical barriers around the West Bank and Gaza, making it difficult for foreign fighters to evade security forces on the way to Syria. Finally, Israel instituted legal measures to deter terrorist recruitment, including allowing the Ministry of Interior to revoke the citizenships of foreign terrorist recruits and passing a new comprehensive counter-terrorism law in 2016 that increases penalties for convicted terrorists and grants police special powers under certain circumstances. These new measures followed United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178, which called on countries to strengthen counter-terrorism measures to deter foreign fighters.
In sum, Israeli security services make Israel a hazardous environment for aspiring foreign fighters, but at a cost. While Israel’s strong security makes it difficult to form IS cells and send people across borders, the high cost of joining IS may cause an aspiring militant to seek membership in one of the more localized groups inside Israel or the Palestinian territories.
Implications for policy
The peculiarly local character of radicalism in Israel may not be as common in countries where international groups have an established presence. In this case, security services may increase border security and target key organization members who maintain international contacts. Organizations with more ties to external actors tend to survive longer than those with less. The Israeli case reveals that democratic society and localized loyalties among the populace, coupled with robust security, can hinder movement of foreign fighters, and the Israeli model, where possible, may hold merit in the long-run for policymakers. While radicalization will likely remain a significant challenge for the Middle East, utilizing successful attributes of the Israeli model can help localize radicalism and make it easier to manage.
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Photo of U.S. aircraft flying over northern Iraq to bomb ISIS targets in Syria via U.S. Defense Department on Flicker
Ido Levy is the editor-in-chief of Georgetown Public Policy Review. He is a second-year MPP student at the McCourt School of Public Policy. He earned a BA in government from Israel’s IDC Herzliya. He has completed research work for the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Institute for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, and Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. After graduating, he hopes to enter the security research world through a think tank or academia.