The Israeli Palestinian Conflict

The Wave of Lone Wolf Attacks in Israel (Oct. 2015 – Sep. 2016) and Palestinian Social Media

The “lone wolf” attacks were an expression of various social media influences on Palestinian politics and society that go beyond incitement. It should be emphasized, however, that those who regard social networks as a mere means of communication reflecting reality are also mistaken. As opposed to traditional means of communication, social media offers interaction and multilateral dialogue that enables mutual influence and cooperation at an unprecedented speed and scale without leadership or an organizational support structure. As a result, it has played a simultaneous role in the “lone wolf” attacks – on the one hand reflecting the reality on the ground, but also feeding and amplifying it. Social media offered alternative sources of legitimacy to the traditional sources of authority of the assailant, and has generated a contagious dynamic of attacks carried out without a guiding hand and characterized by expansion, decay, and conservation.
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Qassem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Qods Force, issued a video in which children from the Gaza Strip thank Iran for its support of the Gaza Strip, part of the Hamas-Iran rapprochement

The Iranian TV channel al-Ayam recently posted a video of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC's Qods Force, to its Instagram account. Soleimani plays a key role in Iranian subversion in the Middle East and in Iranian support for the Palestinian terrorist organizations. The video was in Arabic with Persian subtitles. It showed Palestinian children from the Gaza Strip standing near the Israeli border waving Palestinian flags and pictures of Qassem Soleimani.
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The Culture of Palestinian Shaheeds: On the anniversary of Fatah’s founding, the movement’s official Facebook page commemorated five female Fatah terrorists involved in deadly suicide bombing and “self-sacrifice” attacks.

January 1, 2018, marks the 53rd anniversary of the founding of the Fatah movement Especially prominent on Fatah's homepage are posts glorifying the role of Palestinian women, dedicated to five suicide bombers and "self-sacrifice" terrorists who carried out attacks killing and wounding many Israelis.
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News of Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (December 27, 2017 – January 2, 2018)

After a short respite, rocket and mortar shell fire from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory was renewed. This past week demonstrations and riots continued in Judea, Samaria, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip to protest the declaration made by Donald Trump that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This past week it was reported that in November a terrorist squad, handled by a Hamas operative in the Gaza Strip, was exposed.
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The Palestinian shaheed culture and its Influence on terrorism: a stabbing attack in the central bus station in Jerusalem as a case study.

Interrogation of the terrorist revealed he had been influenced to carry out the attack by incitement on the social networks after Trump's declaration of American recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The interrogation also revealed that before the attack he wrote a "will" in which he quoted texts from Palestinian Authority (PA) textbooks (Israel Security Agency information, December 28, 2017).
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