Israel and state-sponsored terrorism

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The

Palestinian territories.[2] Countries that have condemned Israel's role as a perpetrator of state-sponsored terrorism or state terrorism include Bolivia,[3] Iran, Lebanon,[4] Oman,[5] Saudi Arabia,[6] Syria,[7] Turkey,[8] and Yemen.[9]

An early example of Israeli state-sponsored terrorism was the 1954

Iran–Israel proxy conflict
.

1950–51 Baghdad bombings

Main article:
1950–51 Baghdad bombings

1950–1951 Baghdad bombings refers to a series of bombings of Jewish targets in Baghdad, Iraq, between April 1950 and June 1951. There is a dispute around the true identity and objective of the offenders behind the bombings, and this issue remains unresolved.

Two activists in the Iraqi Zionist underground were found guilty by an Iraqi court for a number of the bombings, and were sentenced to death. Another was sentenced to life imprisonment and seventeen more were given long prison sentences.

Iraqi Jews in Israel.[11] Many of the Iraqi Jews in Israel who lived in poor conditions blamed their ills and misfortunes on the Israeli Zionist emissaries or Iraqi Zionist underground movement.[12] The theory that "certain Jews" carried out the attacks "in order to focus the attention of the Israel Government on the plight of the Jews" was viewed as "more plausible than most" by the British Foreign Office.[13][14] Telegrams between the Mossad agents in Baghdad and their superiors in Tel Aviv give the impression that neither group knew who was responsible for the attack.[14]
Israel has consistently denied involvement in the bombings.[15]

1954 Lavon Affair

Israeli Defense Minister
Pinhas Lavon
Main article: Lavon Affair

The 'Lavon Affair' was an unsuccessful

Communists, "unspecified malcontents" or "local nationalists" with the aim of creating a climate of sufficient violence and instability to induce the British government to maintain its occupying troops in Egypt's Suez Canal zone.[17]
The explosions were timed to happen several hours after closing time, and did not cause any fatalities. However, an operative died when a bomb he was taking to a movie theater ignited prematurely in his pocket. In addition, two operatives committed suicide after being captured and two more operatives who were tried, convicted and executed by Egypt.

The operation ultimately became known as the 'Lavon Affair'. Following this operation the Israeli defense minister

Moshe Katzav in 2005.[18] The operation is cited as a case study in critical terrorism studies.[19]

1954 forced landing of Syrian civilian aircraft

On 12 December, the Israeli Air Force intercepted a Syrian civilian plane and forced it to land at Lod Airport[20] where the passengers were held for two days.[21] The Syrian Airways (Compagnie Arienne Syrienne) Dakota plane was flying from Damascus to Cairo with five passengers and five crew members, when two Israeli fighter jets ordered it to divert course and land, by (according to a Syrian statement) threatening to fire upon it. Detained passengers included Cherif Kotmeh of the Syrian Embassy in Cairo, two other Syrian nationals, and an Egyptian lawyer's wife.[22] These foreign nationals were later taken to their respective borders and released.[23] An American businessman was released immediately.[22]

Israeli authorities claimed that the aircraft crossed into Israeli territory near Acre before it was forced down,[23] while Syrian official statements claimed the plane had been flying over the high seas.[24] At the United Nations, Syrian delegate Ahmed Shukairi denounced “a shocking act of aggression.”[25] Reporting to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs Defense Committee the following week, Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett stated that the plane had not been in Israeli airspace, but merely in an area managed by Lod's air traffic controllers, and there was "no precedent" for "requiring a plane to land" in such circumstances.[26] The Syrian government immediately alleged that the detention was connected to the detention of five Israeli soldiers involved in a December 8 border confrontation.[22]

Livia Rokach,[27] Kameel Nasr,[28] Noam Chomsky,[29] and Donald Neff[30] have each described the incident as state-sponsored hijacking or terrorism. Historian of airline hijacking Philip Baum concluded instead that it was far from terrorism.[31] Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett's diary states that Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan intended "to get hostages in order to obtain the release of our soldiers in Damascus."[32] Sharett wrote to Defense Minister Lavon that, "our action was without precedent in the history of international practice. What shocks and worries me is the narrow-mindedness and the short-sightedness of our military leaders. They seem to presume that the state of Israel may—or even must—behave in the realm of international relations according to the laws of the jungle."[33][34]

1970s–1980s military support to dictatorships

Since the 1970s, Israel has provided military support to a range of dictatorial regimes in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia.

Timorese in the late 1970s.[35]

Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners

Main article: Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners

After the 1979

Druze communities were recruited. The aim of the series of operations was to "cause chaos among the Palestinians and Syrians in Lebanon, without leaving an Israeli fingerprint, to give them the feeling that they were constantly under attack and to instill them with a sense of insecurity."[37]

Beginning in July 1981, with a bomb attack on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) offices at Fakhani Road in West Beirut,[38] these attacks were claimed by a group called the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners. The FLLF was itself a front for Israeli agents,[37] and it killed hundreds of people between 1979 and 1983.[39][40]

By September 1981, the Front's operations consisted of car bombs exploding regularly in the Palestinian neighborhoods of Beirut and other Lebanese cities.

Chyah quarter of the Southern suburbs of Beirut that claimed the lives of 12 people and maimed over 80.[45]

The FLLF disbanded after 1983.[39]

Proxies against Iran

Abdolmalek Rigi, who according to Iranian officials, admitted to his extensive contacts with the Israeli Mossad.[46]
See also:
Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists

Israel and Iran are belligerent enemies. Though they have never been at war, both nations make efforts to undermine the other's influence in the region through various means: diplomatic, economic, and military. This includes the use of (often armed) proxies, which facilitate indirect conflict between the powers, and in the case of Iranian proxies

which?
]

Four Iranian nuclear scientists—

People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK).[51][52]

According to a

New York Times article, the Israeli government, with knowledge and support from the US government, assassinated Fakhrizadeh on 27 November 2020 in a road ambush in Absard using an innovative autonomous satellite-operated gun.[53]

According to a 2012 report in Foreign Policy, Mossad agents disguised as Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers also recruited members of Jundallah—"a Pakistan-based Sunni terrorist organization ... responsible for assassinating Iranian government officials and killing Iranian women and children"—to carry out "false flag" operations against Iran, straining Israel's relations with the United States.[54][55]

Syrian civil war

Israel provided funding,

Tahrir al-Sham).[59] Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi notes that "this[,] however[,] does not prove that it is a matter of Israeli policy to provide treatment for Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham members."[60] Israeli officials stated that they provide humanitarian aid to wounded combatants and civilians regardless of their identity.[61][62] According to a March 2015 report in The Wall Street Journal, two-thirds of "the Syrians treated in Israel" were military-age men.[59] One UNDOF report stated that two boxes of unspecified content were transferred from Israel to Syrian rebels and that the soldiers of IDF met with Syrian rebels in the east of the border.[61] Israel is believed to share intelligence with the rebels.[63] "Former head of Israel's military intelligence Amos Yadlin explained Israel's rationale: "There is no doubt that Hezbollah and Iran are the major threat to Israel, much more than the radical Sunni Islamists, who are also an enemy."[59]

IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot has acknowledged that Israel has provided weapons to rebel groups in Syria.[57]

Activities in the occupied territories

In the aftermath of the

South Beirut during the 2006 Lebanon War at the expense of civilian infrastructure.[64]

Likewise, in the 2008–09 conflict, Falk observed how the

Goldstone Report concluded that the Israeli strategy was "designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population".[64] Falk stated: "The civilian infrastructure of adversaries such as Hamas or Hezbollah are treated as permissible military targets, which is not only an overt violation of the most elementary norms of the law of war and of universal morality, but an avowal of a doctrine of violence that needs to be called by its proper name: state terrorism."[64]

2024 Lebanon pager explosions

Main article:
2024 Lebanon pager explosions

On 17 and 18 September 2024, thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies intended for use by Hezbollah exploded simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria in an Israeli attack.[65] The attack killed at least 42 people, including at least 12 civilians, and wounded more than 3,000.[66]

Belgian deputy prime minister

CIA director, stated, "I don't think there's any question it's a form of terrorism."[70] European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell condemned the attack, saying they were aimed "to spread terror in Lebanon".[71]

Main articles: Yasser Abu Shabab, Collaboration with the Islamic State § Israel, and Popular Forces

In June 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that Israel was arming a gang known as the Popular Forces led by Yasser Abu Shabab in Rafah with alleged ties to ISIS during the Gaza war.[72][73]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ISBN 9781135919665
    , Israel has been involved in sponsoring terrorist groups in Lebanon. In its struggle against Palestinian and Shiite terrorists, Israel generally relied on assassinations carried out by its special forces or on military reprisals, but also provided arms, training and military assistance to local militias such as the right-wing Phalange. Like other militias involved in Lebanon's civil war, Phalange carried out numerous terrorist attacks. The most notorious was the massacre of Palestinian civilians at Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps near Beirut in 1982.
  2. ^
  3. ^ Bolivia declares Israel a 'terrorist state', Times of Israel, 31 July 2014, archived from the original on 27 June 2019, retrieved 27 June 2019
  4. ^ "Siniora says Israel's attacks "state-sponsored terrorism"", Kuwait News Agency, 30 July 2006, archived from the original on 3 August 2021, retrieved 2 June 2018
  5. ^ "Malaysia condemns 'heinous and appalling attack' on al-Mawasi". Al Jazeera. 13 July 2024.
  6. ^ Angus McDowall; Rania El Gamal; Sami Aboudi (August 2014), Mark Heinrich (ed.), "Saudi king labels Israeli offensive in Gaza a war crime", Reuters, archived from the original on 2022-06-20, retrieved 2018-06-02, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah broke his silence on Friday over the three-week-old conflict in Gaza, condemning what he saw as international silence over Israel's offensive and describing this as a war crime and "state-sponsored terrorism".
  7. ISBN 9780787659110
    , Clearly Syria sees Israel as a terrorist state and has even suggested to Washington that Israel be added to the U.S. government's list of state sponsors.
  8. ^ *"Erdogan calls Israel 'terrorist', Netanyahu hits back", Euronews, 10 December 2017, archived from the original on 15 April 2021, retrieved 2 June 2018
    • Jeffrey Heller (9 June 2010), Diana Abdallah (ed.), "Netanyahu says ready to testify in flotilla inquiry", Reuters, archived from the original on 26 November 2021, retrieved 2 June 2018, The bloodshed triggered an international outcry and strained relations between Israel and its once-close Muslim ally, Turkey. Israel called the troops' actions "self-Defense." Turkey described the killings as "state-sponsored terrorism."
  9. ^ Yemeni Statement (PDF), United Nations, archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-07-03, retrieved 2018-06-02, We demand the Security Council to ensure the physical safety of the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, and to provide protection for the Palestinian people against Israeli state-sponsored terrorism, in addition to showing respect for the wishes and the will of the Palestinian people.
  10. ^ Morris & Black, 1992, p. 91
  11. JSTOR 23455343
    , Most of the 120,000 Iraqi Jews, transported to Israel through Operation Ezra and Nemehiah in 1950-1, believed they had been stampeded into fleeing by the Israeli Mossad. Many still believe that when registration for emigration slowed, members of the Zionist underground tossed hand grenades into Jewish institutions. This suspicion has contributed to the alienation of Iraqi immigrants from successive Labor governments.
  12. ISBN 9780802132864
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  13. ^ British Embassy in Baghdad, FO371, EQ1571, Baghdad to FO, 27 June 1951, "one theory which is more plausible than most is that certain Jews have endeavoured, by throwing bombs at certain buildings, to focus the attention of the Israel Government on the plight of the Jews in Iraq so that they would keep the airlift moving quickly, and, possibly as a second object, to induce those well-to-do Jews who had decided to remain in Iraq to change their mind and emigrate to Israel."
  14. ^ a b Tom Segev. Now it can be told. Haaretz. Archived from the original on 2008-05-04.
  15. ^ "To Baghdad and Back". Archived from the original on March 14, 2009.
  16. ISBN 0-415-70051-5
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  18. Ynetnews. Reuters. 30 March 2005. Archived
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  20. ^ Previously Lydda airport, later Ben Gurion Airport.
  21. ^ Middle East International No 268, 7 February 1986, Publishers Lord Mayhew, Dennis Walters. Michael Jansen p. 5
  22. ^
    ISSN 0362-4331
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  23. ^ a b "Syrian Plane, All Passengers, Released by Israel; Leaves for Cairo". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1954-12-15. Retrieved 2024-10-09.
  24. ^ Republic, Syrian Arab (1954-12-14), Letter dated 14 December 1954 from the Permanent Representative of Syria to the United Nations, addressed to the President of the Security Council, retrieved 2024-10-09
  25. ^ "Israel Releases Captain of Syrian Airplane; Four Still Detained". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1954-12-14. Retrieved 2024-10-09.
  26. ISBN 978-0-253-03736-7
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  27. ^ Rokach, Livia (1980). Israel's Sacred Terrorism. Belmont, MA: Association of Arab-American University Graduates.
  28. ISBN 978-0-7864-0280-9
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  29. ISBN 978-1-60846-442-5
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  30. ^ Neff, Donald (1994-11-09). "Israel Was First Nation to Skyjack A Civilian Airliner". WRMEA. Retrieved 2024-10-09.
  31. ISBN 978-1-78372-790-2
    . This statement [(Noam Chomsky's claim that it was 'the first airplane hijacking in the Middle East')] is far fetched; a naive error of judgement it may have been, calculated terrorist attack it was not.
  32. ISBN 978-1-60846-442-5
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  33. ISBN 978-0-253-03736-7
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  34. ^ "It must be clear to you that we had no justification whatsoever to seize the plane, and that once forced down we should have immediately released it and not held the passengers under interrogation for 48 hours. I have no reason to doubt the truth of the factual affirmation of the U.S. State Department that our action was without precedent in the history of international practice. ..... What shocks and worries me is the narrow-mindedness and the shortsightedness of our military leaders. They seem to presume that the State of Israel may or even must-behave in the realm of international relations according to the laws of the jungle. (22 December 1954, 607)" Rokach, Livia (1980). Israel's Sacred Terrorism. Belmont, MA: Association of Arab-American University Graduates.
  35. ^ a b c d e Pieterse 1984, p. 58-59.
  36. ^ Pieterse 1984, p. 64.
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  38. ^ "Sudden Death: Bombings rock P.L.O. offices". TIME Magazine. 28 September 1981. Archived from the original on October 15, 2010.
  39. ^ a b Bergman, Ronen (23 January 2018). "How Arafat Eluded Israel's Assassination Machine". New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on 7 May 2018. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  40. ^ a b c d e National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). (2018). Global Terrorism Database [Data file]. Retrieved from https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd Archived 2016-07-06 at the Wayback Machine
  41. ISBN 9781848139732. Archived
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  42. ^ Lee O'Brien, Campaign of Terror: Car Bombing in Lebanon, MERIP Reports 118 (October 1983), p. 26.
  43. ^ Middle East Record (MER), 2 October 1982, pp. 6-8.
  44. ISBN 0-333-72975-7
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  46. ^ Cherian, John (2010-03-13). "Iran: Arrest of a terrorist". Frontline. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
  47. ^ International Journal of Middle East Studies, 19, 1987, p. 261
  48. ^ Hasan, Mehdi (12 January 2012). "Iran's nuclear scientists are not being assassinated. They are being murdered". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 17 January 2016. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  49. ^ Meikle, James (12 January 2012). "Iran: timeline of attacks". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 12 March 2016. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  50. Time. Archived
    from the original on 24 February 2016. Retrieved 14 February 2016.
  51. ^ "Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News". NBC News. 9 February 2012. Archived from the original on 29 November 2014. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  52. ^ Wright, Robert (February 13, 2012). "Israel and Proxy Terrorism". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on May 8, 2019. Retrieved June 2, 2018.
  53. ^ New York Times, 18 Sep. 2021 "The Scientist and the A.I.-Assisted, Remote-Control Killing Machine: Israeli Agents Had Wanted to Kill Iran’s Top Nuclear Scientist for Years. Then They Came up with a Way to Do It with No Operatives Present." Archived 2022-02-12 at the Wayback Machine
  54. ^ Perry, Mark (2012-01-13). "False Flag". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 2014-10-23. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  55. ^ Ravid, Barak (2017-06-25). "'Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA spies to recruit terrorists to fight against Iran' - Haaretz.com". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 2017-06-25. Retrieved 2017-07-10.
  56. ^ "Israel provides steady flow of cash, aid to Syri". www.timesofisrael.com. 2017-06-19.
  57. ^ a b Gross, Judah Ari. "IDF chief finally acknowledges that Israel supplied weapons to Syrian rebels". www.timesofisrael.com. Archived from the original on 2019-05-22. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
  58. ^ "UN Reveals Israeli Links With Syrian Rebels". HAARETZ. 7 December 2014. Archived from the original on 3 January 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  59. ^ a b c Trofimov, Yaroslav (2015-03-12). "Al Qaeda a Lesser Evil? Syria War Pulls U.S., Israel Apart". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2018-06-29. Retrieved 2016-11-19.
  60. ^ Al-Tamimi, Aymenn Jawad (2017-07-03). "Israel's Relations with the Syrian Rebels: An Assessment". Middle East Review of International Affairs. Archived from the original on 2017-07-09. Retrieved 2017-07-05.
  61. ^ a b MAYA SHWAYDER (12 July 2014). "New UN report reveals collaboration between Israel and Syrian rebels". THE JERUSALEM POST. Archived from the original on 5 April 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  62. ^ Johnlee Varghese (December 7, 2014). "UN Report: Israel in Regular Contact with Syrian Rebels including ISIS". International Business Times. Archived from the original on 16 May 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
  63. ^ Berman, Lazar (2016-08-16). "Bibi the Strategist". Commentary. Archived from the original on 2016-10-30. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  64. ^ a b c Falk, Richard (2011). "Israel's Violence Against Separation Wall Protests: Along the Road of State Terrorism". Archived from the original on 2023-11-15. Retrieved 2023-11-13.
  65. ^
  66. ^
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  68. ^ Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention [@LemkinInstitute] (19 September 2024). "The @LemkinInstitute condemns Israel's terrorist attacks against Lebanese people in the past two days" (Tweet). Retrieved 19 September 2024 – via Twitter.
  69. ^ Najjar, Farah. "Nine killed, 2,750 wounded in Hezbollah pager blasts across Lebanon". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 17 September 2024.
  70. ^ Magid, Jacob. "Former CIA chief Panetta calls mass detonation of Hezbollah pagers 'a form of terrorism'". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 6 October 2024.
  71. ^
  72. ^ Fabian, Emanuel; Yohanan, Nurit; Freiberg, Nava (5 June 2025). "Israel providing guns to Gaza gang to bolster opposition to Hamas". Times of Israel. Retrieved 5 June 2025.
  73. ^ "Who are the 'ISIS-linked, aid-stealing' Gaza militia supported by Israel?". The New Arab. 6 June 2025. Retrieved 6 June 2025.

Sources

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