Last updated: 24.12.2023, 06:52 a.m.
By: Foreign Policy
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The militant group seems to be hoping that its ideology, cause, and brand will become global, just as the Islamic State has done.
- The scale of the Hamas massacres in southern Israel surprised many terrorism experts.
- Ideologically, the organization is quite ready for jihadist terror against the West.
- The radicalization of Hamas and the anti-Israel protests in the West could lead to a terrorist threat, as after the rise of the "Islamic State" in Syria and Iraq.
- This article is available in German for the first time – it was first published by Foreign Policy magazine on December 19, 2023.
Gaza – The scale and sophistication of Hamas' Oct. 7 terrorist attacks have prompted many counterterrorism analysts to rethink their assumptions about the group's intentions and capabilities. And one of the biggest questions is whether the group, which has never carried out a successful attack abroad in its 36 years of existence, could evolve into a global threat rather than remain just a regional threat.
Suspected Hamas Terrorists Detained in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands
On Thursday, seven people were arrested in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands on suspicion of preparing terrorist attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe. Three of the suspects detained in Berlin and another in Rotterdam were suspected Hamas members with ties to the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing. According to the German authorities, the suspects were tasked with locating an existing weapons cache that would facilitate future attacks. The orders allegedly came from the Hamas leadership in Lebanon.
imago0196603844h.jpg © IMAGO/Ahmed Zakot
FBI and EU raise terror alert level
In the United States, FBI Director Christopher Wray has warned the U.S. Congress of an increased terrorist threat since the October 7 attacks: "We believe that the actions of Hamas and its allies are an inspiration not seen since [the Islamic State] established the so-called caliphate years ago. Europeans are also worried. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson recently stated: "With the war between Israel and Hamas and the polarisation it is causing in our society, and with the holiday season approaching, there is a great risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union."
Hamas Ideology: Islamism and Palestinian Nationalism
Hamas has been a kind of dualism from the beginning. The group is both a nationalist movement dedicated to establishing a Palestinian state and a violent Islamist resistance movement with an ideology derived from the Muslim Brotherhood, originally dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel, according to the organization's founding document. (The charter was revised in 2017 to allow for the possibility of a two-state solution, but the group remains committed to the "complete and unconditional liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.")
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While the group's ideology is steeped in references to jihad, it is not the global jihad represented by al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, or their respective affiliates worldwide. Accordingly, the Islamic State has repeatedly disparaged Hamas as an apostate and criticized the group for its participation in elections and its heavy reliance on Shiite Iran, which supports and patronizes it.
Hamas has not yet completed a terrorist attack abroad
Although Hamas has never carried out a successful attack abroad, several Hamas-related attacks have been foiled. In 1997, three people were arrested in New York City for allegedly planning an attack on the subway, and they were investigated for possible ties to Hamas. In November 2003, a Gaza-born Canadian citizen named Jamal Akal was detained by Israeli authorities while attempting to leave the Gaza Strip and return to Canada, where he was allegedly planning terrorist attacks against Jewish communities in the United States and Canada.
Akal pleaded guilty and served a four-year prison sentence in Israel before being released to Canada. However, he claimed he had been tortured to sign a confession, and his lawyer said Akal accepted a settlement because he believed a conviction was inevitable. Israel denied that Akal had been mistreated.
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While Hamas does not prohibit the killing of Westerners — its indiscriminate suicide bombings have killed citizens of Western countries — it has mostly avoided targeting Western interests, focusing instead on attacks against Israel at home. However, Hamas has long maintained networks for fundraising and propaganda dissemination in the West, including in the United States.
The Holy Land Foundation was a Hamas-affiliated charity based in Texas that was convicted in 2008 of providing material support to Hamas and has transferred more than $12 million to the group over the years.
Iran's "Axis of Resistance": Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel
As a member of Tehran's "Axis of Resistance," Hamas enjoys Iranian generosity in the form of funding, training, and logistical support provided by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force. Since the early 1980s, Iran has helped build Lebanese Hezbollah into a full-scale terrorist organization with global reach and world-class capabilities that has carried out terrorist attacks in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Tehran may now decide to do the same with Hamas and even help the group build an external attack network, as it did with Hezbollah.
Arab support for the mullah regime in Iran is growing
In the Arab world, support for the Iranian regime seems to be growing after October 7. A recent poll by the Arab Barometer shows that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, enjoys the same or higher approval rating than Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed. Popular support in the Arab world is important, especially when it crosses sectarian lines, because it can provide cover for the Iranian regime if it decides to turn Hamas into the next Hezbollah.
For years, until the horrific October 7 attack, the conventional wisdom was that Hamas was content to reap the financial benefits of its arrangement in the Gaza Strip — where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and others encouraged and facilitated Qatar's financial injections for economic development — and that it therefore had little interest in attacking Israel.
Senior Hamas leader calls for violence against the West on television
But October 7 may have been a turning point for the group, and they may begin to turn their attention to destinations outside their immediate surroundings. In early December, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri, in a speech on Al-Aqsa television, called for attacks on Israel's allies, especially the United States and the United Kingdom. "We need acts of violence everywhere against American and British interests, as well as against the interests of all countries that support the occupation," Zuhri said.
As terrorism researcher Tore Hamming recently noted, there are a number of factors that are likely to contribute to the development of the terrorist threat posed by Hamas in the West: the duration of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the extent and intensity of the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, and the degree of support for Israel by Western states. These factors will be taken into account, along with the daily images of suffering and destruction pouring out of the Gaza Strip, causing the death toll among the civilian population to continue to rise.
Hamas could evolve into a new Islamic State
Hamas seems to hope that its ideology, cause and brand will become known worldwide, similar to that of the Islamic State. Their propaganda resonates with much of the Western public, especially the younger generation and many students who participate in large numbers in anti-Israel demonstrations and protests. Even if only a small proportion of these people are radicalized, this increases the likelihood of a single attack.
Hamas is a different organization after the October 7 attacks, and intelligence and security agencies should be prepared for this. As the holiday season is in full swing, a number of soft targets — from synagogues to Christmas markets — remain vulnerable to potential attacks, either inspired or directed by Hamas, which has openly stated that it wants to ensure that the war is not confined to the Gaza Strip, but threatens Israel and its supporters worldwide.
About the author
Colin P. Clarke is Director of Research at The Soufan Group, a New York City-based intelligence and security consulting firm. Twitter (X): @ColinPClarke
We are currently testing machine translations. This article has been automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English in the magazine "ForeignPolicy.com" on December 19, 2023 - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to the readers of IPPEN. MEDIA portals.