However, the notion of the right to kill Rabin, who as prime minister was the person most responsible for implementing the Oslo Accords, was a salient one in ultra-Orthodox communities both in Israel and in the United States. It was based on an obsolete Halakhic [Jewish law and tradition] precept of din rodef, which stated that it is the duty of Jews to kill a Jew who imperils the life or property of another Jew. Through a broad interpretation of din rodef, a number of Orthodox rabbis “reached the conclusion that relinquishing territory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to non-Jewish rule endangered Jewish lives, making din rodef applicable to anyone who did so.”93 It was the Jewish equivalent of a fatwa, an Islamic religious ruling on any matter, only in this case it dealt with the justification for the death of a leader. Yigal Amir believed that he had received one, as can be seen in his explanation to investigators for why he assassinated Rabin:
Without believing in God—a belief in the afterlife—I would never have had the strength to do it. In the last three years I came to realize that Rabin is not the leader who can lead the people…. He didn't care about Jews, he lied, he had a lust for power. He brainwashed the people and the media. He came up with ideas like a Palestinian state. Together with [Palestine Liberation Organization chairman] Yasser Arafat, the murderer, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but he failed to address his people's problems. He divided the people. He marginalized the settlers and didn't care about them. I had to save the people because they failed to understand the true situation, and that is why I acted…. If not for a Halakhic ruling of din rodef made against Rabin by a few rabbis I knew about, it would have been very difficult for me to murder.94
Amir stalked Rabin on several occasions before the assassination. He attended a ceremony in Jerusalem for victims of the Holocaust in January 1995, expecting Rabin to be there, but the prime minister canceled his visit. Then, he went in April to a folk festival that Rabin was to attend, also in Jerusalem, but Amir got nervous and left the site with his loaded gun. In September, he went to another ceremony near the city of Herzliya that Rabin was scheduled to attend, but Amir again lost his nerve and left before Rabin arrived.95 He finally carried through with his plan when he shot Rabin in the back as the prime minister was walking to his car after a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
Amir was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for assassinating Rabin. He was also convicted, along with his brother Hagai and a friend, Dror Adani, on separate charges of conspiring to kill Rabin and to attack Palestinian Arabs. Amir, his brother, and their friend had often talked about killing Rabin, with only Yigal being totally serious about the assassination.96 Hagai, who was an amateur gun enthusiast, had amassed a vast arsenal of guns and explosives in the Amir home in Tel Aviv. He also prepared the hollow-point bullets that Yigal used to kill Rabin. However, it was not determined whether Hagai had given Yigal these bullets with knowledge that his brother was actually going to follow through with the assassination. Investigators concluded that Yigal acted alone in killing Rabin on the night of November 4.97 From all his statements and actions prior to the assassination, Yigal did not seem like the type of person who needed the help of others in killing Rabin. He was determined to do so no matter what, and it was just a matter of time before he found the best opportunity. His family, however, believed that it was a breakup with a girlfriend in January 1995 and her subsequent marrying of one of Amir's friends that set him on the path of throwing his own life away by assassinating Rabin. He became depressed after the breakup and, according to his brother, began talking about sacrificing himself.98
The assassination naturally shocked and saddened the country. One left-wing member of the Knesset described the assassination as “the most shocking political disaster in Israeli history.”99 Despite the anti-Rabin rhetoric that had been heard from those opposed to the Oslo Accords, “the vast majority of organizations and individuals who spoke the language of delegitimation and engaged in character assassination had not really wished to see Rabin dead.”100
The assassination did, however, achieve one of the goals of the anti-Rabin sector; it slowed down the peace process.101 Shimon Perez, who became the new prime minister upon Rabin's death, was only able to stay in office for a few months. He was defeated by Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the conservative, right-wing Likud Party, in the May 1996 elections. Netanyahu would himself only stay in power for a few years, losing to Labor's Ehud Barak in the 1999 elections. (Netanyahu returned to office as prime minister after winning the elections in 2009.) The topsy-turvy of Israeli politics, therefore, continued as usual despite the assassination of Rabin. However, one can speculate as to whether Rabin would have been able to defeat Netanyahu in the 1996 elections and eventually successfully implement the Oslo Accords. Former US president Bill Clinton believes so, writing on the fifteenth anniversary of the assassination, in 2010, that had Rabin lived, “within three years we would have had a comprehensive agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.”102
Regardless of how things might have turned out, Yigal Amir nevertheless demonstrated the impact of a lone wolf assassin. His act of violence, at the very least, created uncertainty at the time in Israel and beyond about the Mideast peace process and caused concern in Israel about the ramifications of one Jew killing another. Some even worried that the assassination might eventually be seen as “the first shot in the Israeli civil war.”103
A court-ordered psychiatric evaluation of Amir found him to be neither mentally ill nor emotionally disturbed. He did, however, have “narcissistic and schizoid tendencies and sees the world in terms of black and white.”104 He was also found to have the complex personality of a highly intelligent individual “who sought love and admiration at any price. He had a desire to prove to himself, his mother, his friends, and others that he could go further than anybody else.”105 He was afraid that somebody else might kill Rabin before he did and thereby stand in the way of his chance for fame. Perhaps most indicative of his self-aggrandizement was the following statement Amir made as he reflected upon the assassination: “My deed will be understood in the future. I saved the people of Israel from destruction.”106
OBSERVATIONS FROM THE CASES EXAMINED
This brief look at four different cases of lone wolf assassins is certainly not enough to generalize about the characteristics and impact of all lone wolf assassins. It does, however, provide us with some interesting observations that may also apply to other lone wolf assassins.
First, in terms of their psychological makeup, only one of the assassins, Charles Guiteau, would qualify as being mentally ill. Guiteau was so delusional that he believed he deserved the top US envoy position to France, even though he had no government or diplomatic experience. A speech he had once made on behalf of President Garfield when the latter was a candidate was enough, in Guiteau's mind, to earn him the prestigious post. He was also convinced that God told him to kill Garfield in order to save the country from another civil war, a thought not based on reality. He believed that a grateful nation would eventually see the justification for the assassination and set him free. Yigal Amir also believed that God approved of his actions (“I have no regrets,” he told the court. “Everything I did was for the sake of God.”107) and that his country, too, would ultimately understand and honor him. He was not mentally ill. His belief—that if Yitzhak Rabin was removed from power, then the Oslo Accords might not be implemented—was not an irrational thought and was shared by many others. Leon Czolgosz and Lee Harvey Oswald were also not mentally ill, but both were similar to Guiteau and, to some extent Amir, in that they, too, were basically unhappy, depressed individuals with few friends.
Other studies of lone wolf assassins have found differences in the psychological makeup of the assassins. For example, terrorism scholar R. Hrair Dekmejian divided lone wolf assassins into two basic categories—pathological and political. Pathological assassins “target leaders or other symbols of authority as an expression of their individual pathologies such as paranoia, identity crisis,
cognitive disorders, and feelings of inferiority, helplessness, rejection, or marginality.” Dekmejian placed Guiteau (along with Arthur Bremer, who shot Governor George Wallace, and John Hinckley Jr., who shot President Ronald Reagan) into this category. Political assassins, on the other hand, who may have psychological problems, are nevertheless motivated primarily by political causes “based on ideology, ethnicity, or religion.” Czolgosz, Oswald, and Amir are placed into this category by Dekmejian.108
In another study, political scientist James Clarke divided sixteen American assassins and would-be assassins (including both lone wolves and those who worked with coconspirators) into four basic categories that he simply named Type I, II, III and IV. The Type I assassins “view their acts as a probable sacrifice of self for a political ideal…. Their extremism is rational, selfless, principled, and without perversity.” Czolgosz (along with John Wilkes Booth, among others) was put into that category. Type II assassins, on the other hand, are “persons with overwhelming and aggressive egocentric needs for acceptance, recognition, and status.” Clarke put Oswald (along with female would-be assassins Lynette Fromme and Sara Jane Moore, both of whom attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford) into this category. Type III assassins are “psychopaths (or sociopaths) who believe that the condition of their lives is so intolerably meaningless and without purpose that destruction of society and themselves is desirable for its own sake.” Clarke placed Giuseppe Zangara (who attempted to assassinate President Franklin Roosevelt) and Arthur Bremer (who attempted to assassinate Governor George Wallace) into this category. Finally, Type IV assassins “are characterized by severe emotional and cognitive distortion that is expressed in hallucinations and delusions of persecution and/or grandeur.” Clarke placed Guiteau, among others, into this category.109
While there were differences in the psychological makeup of the four lone wolf assassins we looked at, they were similar in one respect. They all had a major impact upon government and society with their violence and, in some cases, may have altered the course of history. The assassinations of Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy, and Rabin each shocked their respective publics and, of course, led to new leadership. While the Garfield assassination resulted in the passing of a sweeping civil-service reform act a couple years later, beyond that, it did not appear to greatly alter the course of US domestic or foreign policy. The same could not be said for the assassinations of McKinley and Kennedy. The rise to power of Theodore Roosevelt was accompanied by major domestic reforms, including government regulation of business and the protection of workers, an assertive foreign policy, and a “war on anarchism” that might not have occurred if McKinley was still in power. In the case of Kennedy, many observers believe that, had he lived, the United States would not have escalated its involvement in the Vietnam War. And the speculation as to whether the Oslo Accords would have been implemented had Rabin lived continues today, as the goal of Mideast peace remains elusive.
The four lone assassins were also similar in that none of them “came out of nowhere,” as is often said about lone wolf terrorists in general. All four lone assassins had exhibited erratic and other similar types of behavior that in some cases the authorities were aware of and, in other cases, other people knew about. Guiteau, for example, was known to President Garfield and his advisors, including Secretary of State Blaine, who became so exacerbated with the strange man wanting the appointment to Paris that he screamed at him one day to leave him alone. Czolgosz had alienated other anarchists with his odd behavior and his call for violent action. In the case of Oswald, the FBI was well aware of him, based on his defecting to the Soviet Union and his anti-US activity, including protests in favor of Communist Cuba when he returned to the United States. Amir, meanwhile, was known to Israeli authorities through his organizing of protests on behalf of the settlements in the occupied territories. None of this by itself would be a predictor that an individual would assassinate a head of state, but it at least indicates that these individuals did not become radicalized overnight and then decide to kill their leader.
The question of how to identify the early warning signs of lone wolf terrorism, whether in the form of assassinations or other types of terrorist activity, is one of the most difficult challenges facing law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and others whose job it is to combat terrorism. There is no group or cell to infiltrate, no members to arrest and interrogate for information, and no communications to intercept when it comes to lone wolves. By working alone, lone wolves hold a major advantage over the government and society they intend to attack. What, then, can be done to prevent and respond to this growing form of terrorism? We now turn to that important challenge.
Combating terrorism is one of the oldest professions in the world. Beginning with the Zealots and the Sicarii of the first century, who walked up to their targets with short swords hidden in their long coats, and continuing today with extremists utilizing a wide variety of tactics and weapons, governments have waged an endless struggle to prevent, deter, and respond to terrorism.
It has been a mixed record. For every plot uncovered or bomb discovered, there have been a far greater number of terrorists who have succeeded in carrying out their attacks. The task for those dedicated to fighting terrorism is quite daunting. Terrorists can strike anywhere, anytime, while it is impossible to protect every target, everywhere. That is why there can never realistically be an end to terrorism. There will always be vulnerable targets somewhere for a group, cell, or individual with varying motivations to exploit in a terrorist operation.
Depending on the type of terrorist involved, there are different actions that can be taken to deal with the threat. For example, when a terrorist group has the sponsorship of a government, or a government is using its own agents in terrorist attacks, the counterterrorist options are virtually unlimited. The targeted country can use all the tools at its disposal to attempt to end the state sponsor's activities. During the 1980s and 1990s, for example, the United States utilized diplomatic, economic, and financial sanctions against Libya for its role in sponsoring anti-US terrorist attacks. The United States also launched a retaliatory military raid against Moammar Gadhafi's regime in 1986, in response to the bombing by the Palestinian terrorist group, Abu Nidal, of a nightclub in West Berlin that was frequented by American troops. That incident illustrated the value of good intelligence in combating terrorism. US intelligence had intercepted conversations between Libyan diplomats in East Berlin and Gadhafi's headquarters in Tripoli that indicated Libya was behind the bombing that killed two US soldiers and one Turkish woman, and injured hundreds of others, including scores of American servicemen.
When dealing with a terrorist group that is independent of a state sponsor, as is the case for most terrorist groups around the world today, the options become more limited. Diplomatic and economic sanctions (i.e., trade embargoes and so forth) do not obviously apply for such groups. However, there are still many counterterrorist policies available, including cutting off terrorists’ financing, as President George W. Bush did in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Executive Order 13224 froze the US-based assets of those individuals and organizations that were known to be involved with terrorism, including those who had provided support or who were associated with terrorists and terrorist groups.
Military measures can also be used against terrorist organizations. This includes the targeted killing or capture of high-value terrorists overseas, such as group or cell leaders and bomb makers. Good intelligence and law-enforcement activities are also valuable assets that are used against terrorist groups, including the interception of their communications, using informants to learn about plots, and so forth. Cooperation among different nations’ intelligence and law-enforcement agencies is an important part of this strategy. And, of course, good physical security measures, such as metal detectors, x-ray machines, and full-body scanners at airports, embassies, and other buildings and facilities that terrorists might strike, as well as closed-circuit television surveillanc
e monitors and other devices, are all critical in helping to reduce the risk of terrorist attacks.
It is when the terrorist threat involves lone wolves and cells not affiliated with a central terrorist organization that problems arise in trying to design effective strategies. With regard to the unaffiliated cells, a lot of attention has been given in recent years to the threat posed by decentralized Islamic cells throughout the world. As noted in chapter 1, Marc Sageman has described these cells as “leaderless jihad.” They act independent of “al Qaeda Central” (i.e., the core leadership), with no directions or communications coming from al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan or from al Qaeda–affiliated groups in Europe, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. Oftentimes, the leaderless jihad cells are comprised of just a few individuals who decide to conspire together to promote jihad; they are basically “‘homegrown’ wannabes [who] form a scattered global network.”1
Leaderless cells, however, can inflict as many casualties and cause as much destruction as the larger, more organized terrorist groups. Authorities often do not know who these individuals are or where their cells are located, in addition to various other factors that inhibit taking effective action against them. The threat, as Sageman points out, “has evolved from infiltration by outside trained terrorists against whom international liaison cooperation and border protection are effective to inside homegrown, self-financed, self-trained terrorists against whom the most effective countermeasures would be to stop the process of radicalization before it reaches its violent end.”2 The way to do this, Sageman proposes, is to take the glory and thrill out of being a terrorist, diminish the sense of moral outrage over US policies and actions, counter the enemy's appeal, end discrimination against Muslims, and eliminate terrorist networks.3
How, though, do we deal with lone wolf terrorists? Not all are attracted to notions of jihad or Islamic extremism. Among the lone wolves I have discussed in this book are politically motivated, nonreligious extremists; white supremacists; single-issue militants; lone assassins; idiosyncratic individuals; and others. An end to Islamic extremism would not affect their activities. And there can always be new causes and issues that will arise and attract new types of lone wolves. It is, therefore, necessary to design a creative mix of policies and actions to deal with the unpredictable nature of lone wolf terrorism. This involves identifying both the preventive and responsive measures that hold the most promise.
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