Israel’s measures with regard to secular and Sunni Palestinian terrorism are essentially based on quarantining the terrorist elements in order to confine and minimise attacks, while placing paramount importance on immediate security to its citizenry. Israel can afford to do this, because it does not expect to take the lead on a long-term solution to the political problem behind that terrorist activity. In addition, it should be noted that Israel’s policy towards Shia terrorist groups, most notably Hezbollah, has not been nearly as successful, based as it has been on a more aggressive engagement in Lebanon. Similarly, countries like Spain took a severe view towards terrorist threats, establishing the Anti-terrorist Liberation Groups (GAL) in 1983 to murder Basque separatists.

The US, by comparison, has been less absolutist in its terrorism policy than Israel today or Spain in the 1980s, but has seen its international standing reduced and its military overstretched after taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

Countries like France and Britain have been much less reluctant to explicitly tackle terrorism with force, particularly outside their own borders. But they have also witnessed significant backlash to any counterterrorist actions they have attempted, while not always adequately achieving their short-term objectives. In 1995, for example, France mobilised 32,000 soldiers, police and customs officials to detain 70,000 people for questioning and check the identities of nearly three million people, following a series of bomb attacks. But in the same year, the French authorities were unable to stop several subsequent bombings, and faced mass rioting, which broke out following the killing of a terrorist by the police. The stern and expensive counter-terrorist measures taken by all these countries have hardly proved to be effective in the long term.

... contd.