The authors, considered experts on terrorism, begin with a short review of terrorism in ancient Israel (Jews in Judea carried out stealth assassinations against their Roman occupiers), and then summarize numerous terrorist acts by Israeli Jews from 1948 to 2007. Included are the acts of terrorism against British soldiers and the Arab population in Israel's early quest for independence, the assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte (U.N. appointed mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1947-48), Baruch Goldstein's massacre (entered a Hebron mosque in 1994 while wearing his army uniform and opened fire - killing 29 and wounding 150), the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for his support of the Oslo Accords, the 2002 attempted bombing of a Palestinian girls' school, and additional terrorism acts. Studying these acts and interviewing 'retired' perpetrators, they conclude that religious terrorism is not a 'one-faith phenomenon,' but rather flourishes in any totalistic ideology.
The authors concluded that more than 90% of Jewish terrorists are men, 51.3% unemployed, 56.9% single, and 82% under the age of 27. Members have experienced a sense of crisis, typically a personal loss or assault to their core beliefs. They also contend that resolution of territorial conflict between Israelis and Palestinians would usher in a new era of terrorism, as Jewish terrorists would likely turn to even more extreme objectives, such as removal of mosques on the Temple Mount.
"Jewish Terrorism in Israel" is a well-balanced examination of the topic. There were 309 Jewish terrorist attacks in Palestine and Israel from 1932-2008 - too many to list in their entirety. However, there are some strange omissions, such as the 50,000-some ideological Jewish occupiers of the West Bank. Another is the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre when 120 Zionist paramilitary groups killed at least 107 in the Palestinian-Arab village. Further, the authors failed to mention that Bernadotte had released thousands of Jews from concentration camps only a few years prior to his assassination.
Clearly, the time has come to end the violence on both sides.
