[IsraelTimes] After 20 years interviewing Paleostinian Lions of Islam in jails, Likud MK Anat Berko tries to explain the motivations of the current attackers
Ever since the current wave of stabbing, shooting and car ramming attacks began two and a half months ago, commentators have expressed perplexity at the seeming pointlessness of it all. Young people, many of them teenagers, set out to stab random Israelis, frequently losing their lives in the process. Are these stabbers lone wolves? Acting out of desperation? Incited by Facebook? What are they hoping to achieve?
Likud MK Anat Berko thinks she knows. Berko, who joined the Knesset this past March after two decades as a criminologist specializing in suicide terrorists, is sui generis. Her politics are aligned with those of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but during her years of counterterrorism research she became the closest Israeli confidante of many Paleostinian Lions of Islam in Israeli jails. |