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This article was downloaded by: [University of Liverpool] On: 07 October 2014, At: 14:50 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Intelligence and National Security Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fint20 The ‘Talking Cure’: Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism Doctrine and Social Movements Allen Newton Published online: 28 Mar 2011. To cite this article: Allen Newton (2011) The ‘Talking Cure’: Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism Doctrine and Social Movements, Intelligence and National Security, 26:1, 120-131, DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2011.556365 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2011.556365 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

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Page 1: The ‘Talking Cure’: Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism Doctrine and Social Movements

This article was downloaded by: [University of Liverpool]On: 07 October 2014, At: 14:50Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Intelligence and National SecurityPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fint20

The ‘Talking Cure’: Intelligence,Counter-Terrorism Doctrine and SocialMovementsAllen NewtonPublished online: 28 Mar 2011.

To cite this article: Allen Newton (2011) The ‘Talking Cure’: Intelligence, Counter-TerrorismDoctrine and Social Movements, Intelligence and National Security, 26:1, 120-131, DOI:10.1080/02684527.2011.556365

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2011.556365

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: The ‘Talking Cure’: Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism Doctrine and Social Movements

The ‘Talking Cure’: Intelligence,Counter-Terrorism Doctrine and

Social Movements

ALLEN NEWTON

Ami Pedahzur, The Israeli Secret Services and The Struggle AgainstTerrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). Pp. ixþ232.$29.50/£20.50, Hb. ISBN 978-0-231-14042-3.

Jeroen Gunning, Hamas in Politics: Democracy, Religion, Violence(London: Hurst & Company, 2009). Pp. xivþ310. £15.99, Pb. ISBN 978-1-84904-029-7.

John Bew, Martyn Frampton and Inigo Gurrachaga, Talking to Terrorists:Making Peace in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country (New York:Columbia University Press, 2009). Pp. xiiiþ326. $27.50, Hb. ISBN 978-0-231-15418-5.

Over the last decade, secret services have frequently been criticized for beingover-confident, for over-estimating, for being too aggressive or simply failingto produce valued results. A brief glance at the headlines suggests that theclandestine struggle against terrorism still appears to be marked byimpotence. A report by the Center for a New American Security – oftenreferred to as the Flynn report – asserts that the problems of US intelligencein Afghanistan are partially rooted in the inability to understand ‘theenvironment in which U.S. and allied forces operate and the people they seekto persuade’.1 This was published in the shadow of the 2009 Christmas dayterrorist plot to destroy an airliner en route from Amsterdam whichprompted President Barack Obama to criticize the intelligence agenciespublicly for failing to implement lessons learned almost a decade ago. It wasswiftly followed by the deaths of eight intelligence officers at Camp

1M. Flynn, M. Pottinger and P. Batchelor, Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making IntelligenceRelevant in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Center for New American Security 2010) p.7.

Intelligence and National SecurityVol. 26, No. 1, 120–131, February 2011

ISSN 0268-4527 Print/ISSN 1743-9019 Online/11/010120-12 ª 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/02684527.2011.556365

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Chapman in the Khost Province of Afghanistan, during an operation inwhich the CIA were courting an Al Qaeda double-agent. The attack killedthe base commander.2

Yet closer inspection suggests there have been significant successes andbreakthroughs by secret services and covert operators during the lastdecade. Certainly, the most overt of the covert political solutions to theinsurgency in Iraq, the 2005 ‘Anbar Awakening’ has been hailed as asuccess. It involved US intelligence officers talking to, and then persuadinglocal and exile Iraqi Sunni leaders to abandon their Al Qaeda inspiredopposition in order to establish a provincial balance of power against AlQaeda militias. The future for Iraq and the Anbar Province remainsunpredictable; however, it is widely asserted that US General DavidPetraeus is advocating this process for local tribes in Afghanistan, hopingthey will assist in the fight against Taleban and Al Qaeda insurgencies.3

Arguably, this is set against a wider landscape in which secret services aremainstream actors and so are increasingly called upon to offer anexplanation of how, why and when their security activities ‘contributed tothe conflict’.4

Meanwhile, the academic literature in counter-terrorism is askingsearching questions about the role of secret services within thecomplex new security order, one in which contradictory war modelsand conflict resolution patterns are simultaneously pursued.5 This isunderlined by the three recent studies reviewed here which all address, toa greater or lesser degree, the intersection of the intelligence and counter-terrorism. Their subjects are respectively: Israel’s counter-terrorismdoctrine; the creation of a democratic and social movement by Hamaswhilst still labelled an extremist organization; and the social conditionsthat prompted governments and extremist organizations to talk inNorthern Ireland and in the Basque country. At first glance these studiesrepresent mutually exclusive subjects, yet on closer inspection, each pointto the uncomfortable truth that military approaches to counter-terrorismare not sustainable because they exclude negotiated solutions.6 As otherauthors have made clear, for more than a decade, secret services havebeen quietly exploring alternative routes to conflict termination, often

2J. Warrick and P. Finn, ‘Suicide Bomber who Attacked CIA Post in Afghanistan was TrustedInformant from Jordan’, Washington Post, 5 January 2010.3J. McCary, ‘The Anbar Awakening: An Alliance of Incentives’, Washington Quarterly 32/1(2009) p.44; Azaz Syed, ‘US in Back-channel Talks with Afghan Taliban’, DAWN, 24November 2009, 5http://pakistankakhudahafiz.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/us-in-back-channel-talks-with-afghan-taliban/4 (accessed 15 December 2009).4Gunning, Hamas in Politics, p.15.5R. Jackson, M. Breen-Smyth and J. Gunning (eds.), Critical Terrorism Studies: A NewResearch Agenda (London: Routledge 2009); M. Heiberg, B. O’Leary and J. Tirman (eds.),Terror, Insurgency, and the State: Ending Protracted Conflicts (Philadelphia: University ofPennsylvania Press 2007).6Pedahzur, The Israeli Secret Services, p.13.

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acting as covert diplomats and implicitly critiquing mainstream counter-terrorism doctrines.7

Ami Pedahzur’s new study, The Israeli Secret Services and the StruggleAgainst Terrorism, provides an accessible analysis of Israel’s international,regional and national patterns of counter-terrorism as well newperspectives on the institutional bureaucracy of Israeli secret services.Offering a compelling analysis of the Israeli security state and itsactivities, Pedahzur nevertheless rejects their doctrines in favour of hisown conceptual framework. He argues that orthodox counter-terrorismstrategies are the product of state-centric traditions that are obsessed withlegitimacy. He explains that ‘when democracies sense impending threat,they tend to minimize the use of the reconciliatory model and extend theuse of defensive measures’.8 Defensive models were justified – indeeddriven – by the fact that the Palestinian leadership in exile advocated theextreme use of violence against Israel and goaded intra-Palestinianrivalries.9

Pedahzur argues that Israeli’s approach to counter-terrorism in partreflects the historic legacy of her secret services. Taking his account back tothe beginning of the twentieth century, he argues that current Israeliintelligence may well be traced back to British interrogation operationsfocused on European immigrants entering Palestine during the First WorldWar.10 Yet Pedahzur feels that colonial inheritance only partly explains thelineage of Israel’s war-model counter-terrorism doctrine. As well asproviding a developmental narrative, Pedahzur also sets out to considerthe intelligence aspects of the counter-terrorism models that Israel haschosen to employ and to demonstrate that they amount to a ‘self-fulfillingprophecy’.11 Pedahzur argues that the military institutions and personalitiesdominating the patterns of counter-terrorism constitute a recycling system ofsimilar mind-sets within competing bureaucratic structures that stiflepolitical innovation. Indeed, Pedahzur uses a brief account of the risingmilitary career of Ariel Sharon to illustrate the embedded nature of thewar mentality in Israeli counter-terrorism approaches.12 He implies thatIsrael’s approach is not only a reaction to Palestinian violence, but also arecycling of stagnant ideas residing within military structures thatpredominate in Israeli policymaking. Because of the importance of themilitary, this impoverished construction of terrorism and counter-terrorism, Pedahzur reasons, permeates most Israeli institutions, includingthe criminal justice system, the military, the core executive and political

7L.V. Scott, ‘Secret Intelligence, Covert Action and Clandestine Diplomacy’, Intelligence andNational Security 19/2 (2004) pp.162–79; S. Shapiro. ‘The CIA as Middle East Peace Broker’,Survival 45/2 (2004) pp.91–112.8Pedahzur, The Israeli Secret Services, p.1.9Ibid., pp.10, 122–24.10Ibid., p.14.11Ibid., pp.9–12.12Ibid., pp.25–35, 29.

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institutions.13 Underlying Pedahzur’s analysis is a fixation on the exercise oftactical violence. He argues that the initiative to train elite forces to infiltrateand blend into Arab populations – a procedure known as histaarvut – wasintended to buttress the war model and tactical thesis. Pedahzur sets outto demonstrate that this approach only provoked further extremism, suggestingIsrael might well be considered guilty of antagonism.14

Pedahzur defines terrorism as a ‘psychological tactic used by para-military groups’ and uses this to throw Israeli policy into relief. He arguesthat the post-1967 war form of Arab nationalism, the consequent rise ofFatah in Israel, plane hijackings and the subsequent waves of globalterrorism framed Tel Aviv’s military response.15 Pedahzur argues that theextremists successfully controlled the agenda because of their intuitiveunderstanding ‘the tools of a ‘‘theater of terror’’’.16 As a result, Israel tooka wrong turn by responding with tactical methods to deal with extremism.This included retaliatory operations such as Operation Wrath of God – theauthorization of Mossad officers to pursue and assassinate specificmembers of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) involved in theBlack September episode at the Munich Olympic Games. The presumptionwas that a ‘no prisoner’ policy would deter and control extremism aimedat Israel. He concludes that if the heads of the Israeli security establishmenthad hoped that assassinations would lead to a renunciation of terrorism byPalestinian organizations, this did not occur. ‘Palestinian terrorism onlyintensified and became more lethal’.17 Pedahzur argues that Israel securitypathologies are organizational as well as semantic – and indeed that theseproblems multiply each other out. For instance, as soon as the 1993 OsloAccords allowed exiled Palestinians to return to the West Bank and Gaza,intelligence agencies struggled because their remits and regional responsi-bilities overlapped. The conflicting mandates of Israel’s Mossad, Aman (theDirectorate of Military Intelligence) and Shin Bet, the internal securityagency (officially also known as Shabak or the General Security Service(GSS)) increased the levels of inter-agency competition and each agencyfeared losing key targets, informants and government resources to theopposition. In some measure, the failure of the Israeli state to construct amore strategic definition of terrorism and its failure to offer a strategicdelineation of intelligence responsibilities are symptomatic of the sameconceptual limitations.18

Nevertheless, precisely because Pedahzur’s focus is upon a critique oftactical operations, he leaves the reader hankering after a more strategicprescription.19 When Pedahzur narrates the Oslo peace accords, the context

13Ibid., pp.3–8, 135.14Ibid., pp.81–82.15Ibid., pp.8, 135.16Ibid., p.35.17Ibid., p.46.18Ibid., pp.9, 96, 147.19Ibid., pp.103, 149.

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is in fact the spoiler behaviour of Hamas. Pedahzur is right to suggestthat the suicide bombings engineered by Hamas led Israeli politicians toincrease ‘pressures on the intelligence organizations and the military to offernovel solutions’ to fickle public opinion. However, he downplays thestrategic success of the secret peace processes at Oslo, in favour of theimmediacy of tactical operations as terrorism caused public opinion topressure the Israeli political leadership. One of the fascinating aspects ofPedahzur’s account is the way in which he shows the interplay betweenpublic opinion and covert action as a driver of Israel’s war model committedto tactical methods and operations.20

Pedahzur hopes that, perhaps one day, Israel will finally reflect on its owncounter-terrorism shortcomings, and will consequentially ‘transfer the bulkof counterterrorism activity to alternative models’.21 He adds that such ashift in policy will not be a product of frustration that reflects on limitedmilitary power against non-state actors, but instead an intellectualbouleversement.22 Pedahzur also offers some alternative prescriptions.Situating his analysis within a framework of preventive intelligence, hesuggests that Israel should consider incorporating successful elements from avariety of models. In a manner not all that different from the British‘CONTEST’ approach, he advises policymakers to adopt a new defensiveprocess model that consists of stages: prevention, crisis management, andreconstruction.23 He adds that the key to this would be a central institutionas ‘hub of a network that will send out its arms to each and every one of thevarious intelligence and thwarting forces’.24 This, he insists will not require‘any far-reaching organizational reforms or a massive investment ofresources’.25 To a certain extent, the major impediment to change is thedifficulty of persuading Israeli public opinion to accept the reality of Israel’s‘empty promises of being able to entirely eradicate terrorism’ and acceptingtolerable levels of violence as an everyday course of events.26 He is right toidentify this as a major challenge, since the fickle nature of Israel’s publicopinion has continued to disregard the psychological and social dimensionof the conflict.27

20Ibid., p.110.21Ibid., pp.143–49.22Ibid., pp.136–37.23Ibid., pp.144–49.24Ibid., p.146.25Ibid.26Ibid., p.144.27On the contrary, in the wake of 9/11 Hamas’ exiled leaders have tried to avoid anyassociation with Al Qaeda and similar global ‘takfiri groups preaching global jihad againstthe US’, although ‘that religious rhetoric about the conflict being an epic battle betweenJudeo-Christian forces and Islam has little to do with Hamas’ strategic decisions’; Gunning,Hamas in Politics, p.227. To a certain extent, this contrast between Israeli perceptions andHamas’ perceptions further proves that point previously made concerning diverging referentsfor ongoing discussions concerning the problematique of terrorism.

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Jeroen Gunning’s analysis in Hamas in Politics stands in dramatic contrastto Pedahzur. Whereas Pedahzur argued that Israeli’s war model failed tocurb terrorist violence and stunt the growth of violent Arab nationalism,Hamas in Politics posits the ‘dynamic processes’ that sustain this nationalistmovement and its associated armed struggle.28 In this study, Gunningsubstitutes a single argument with a layering of narratives designed to teaseout the nuances in real social relationships.29 He argues that Hamas isconstructed from tensions between internal ideology and practice, designedto draw attention to the political opportunities given to it by an occupyingpower that employs an army to maintain order. Emphasizing politicaltension and the opportunity structures by means of social movement theory,he situates Hamas within the Israeli status quo structure.30 Nevertheless,there are shared referents points and, like Pedahzur, Gunning makes a pointof expanding and broadening the scope of the terrorism phenomena beyondthe orthodox definition. In this respect Hamas in Politics makes a significantcontribution to terrorism studies, challenging the field’s traditionalcategories of analysis.31 He side-steps precisely the intellectual frameworkthat the Israeli intelligence agencies have placed centre-stage, which focuses‘overly’ on the violent activities of Hamas and which fails to reflect on‘whether the evidence provided can be read differently’, providing thefoundation for an alternative policy agenda.32

Hamas in Politics offers the story of Hamas as a process rather than aproduct. Gunning reminds us of the evolution of Hamas from a MuslimBrotherhood affiliate to the semi-legitimate electoral organization withlimited demands that it is today, dependent upon a complex mix of on publicopinion, religious appeal and democratic practices for authority. Despiteabsolutist demands to regain ancestral lands inside Israel, Hamas has ratherpublicly demonstrated limited goals that would actually compromise itsabsolutism around the issues of (1) the basis of Israel withdrawing to its1967 borders, and (2) a power-sharing agreement with a Palestinian body.By conceptualizing Hamas through the prism of a political organization‘embedded within a wider social movement, rather than as a purelyparamilitary organisation’, Gunning has broadened the political depth ofour understanding of Hamas.33

Although the conceptual focus of Hamas in Politics is not specificallyintelligence studies, Gunning’s work is suggestive of the wider socialenvironment for intelligence and national security. Gunning attempts ‘tounderstand ‘‘the other’’’ while not, as he asserts, ‘condoning all that Hamasdoes’.34 His aim is clearly to comprehend the complex underpinnings of how

28Gunning, Hamas in Politics, pp.4–22.29Ibid., pp.4.30Ibid., pp.25–26.31Ibid., p.23.32Ibid.33Ibid., p.197.34Ibid., p.15.

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its structural and ideational factors affect its behaviour, including its violentpractices. Gunning also draws out the inherent layered between thosetraditions of Islamic authority and practices of democracy. Indeed, these areeffectively cognitive issues of dissonance within Western analyses where onepractice is seen as preventing socio-religious dissent and the other espousessocio-political plurality.35 Gunning focuses upon the legitimacy of Hamas asan alternative authority figure ‘outside the state’s reach in which the law hasno power and alternative visions of the good life are tolerated, on the groundthat this is between God and the individual’.36 The result is a picture of aHamas that holds authority ‘from having a popular mandate, and which alsodemands that legislators work within God’s law’.37 Accordingly, this studypoints the way to a potential space for political dialogue between Israel andHamas.

An important part of the book is the commentary on the complextensions that exists between that of the native and the exile leadership.This complicated relationship is characterized by the polarity betweendemocratic, conditional arguments of the former and the latter, which isabsolutist and theocratic, insisting on armed struggle as the primary roadtowards Palestinian nationalism. This exacerbates intra-Hamas tensions,since this decentralized leadership often has to rationalize the strategicemployment of political violence alongside protestations of openness andtransparency for the purpose of social cohesion. An additional factor isassassination policy of Israel, especially those policies since June 2003against leaders that are directly involved with planning suicide attacks.38

Ultimately, Gunning argues, it is the native leadership that becomesaccountable in peace processes, democratic practices and politicalbehaviours, because it is they that are held responsible by public opinionand become easy targets for Israeli security services much more than theexiled leadership. The implication here is that Israel’s pugilistic secretservices, like Mossad, are perhaps correct to target specific exiled leadersas they advocate radical means to justify ends, but they are simulta-neously misguided if they expect the native leadership to follow the sameagenda.39 For the native leadership of Hamas, therefore, controlling thesemi-autonomous al-Qassam brigades has constituted a litmus test ofits ability to impose authority in Palestine whilst finding legitimatearguments for public opinion to accept the Brigades extremist behaviours.

35Ibid., p.173.36Ibid., p.87.37Ibid., p.81.38Ibid., pp.224–27.39It will be interesting to see how Hamas’ internal leadership responds to the assassination ofMahmoud al-Mabhouh on 19 January 2010, a Hamas military chief in Dubai, as theyposition blame on Israel. See, ‘Does Mossad really make Israel Safer?’ The Economist, 25February 2010.

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Whatever the outcome, the native leadership provides a more practicalspace within which Israel might explore a negotiated cease-fire.40

Precisely because Hamas is a social movement embedded within a politicalopportunity structure, then there remains the possibility that its insurgencyand terrorism can be transformed for the legitimate exercise of democracyand normalization. Gunning reasons that once Hamas rationalizes thesuspension of what have hitherto been described as inalienable divine rights,with reference to a shift in the popular will, ‘a return to the uncompromisinglanguage of divine right becomes more difficult to sustain’.41 His argumentfocuses upon Islam as the main determinant that, in the context of Palestine,helps to differentiate Hamas from other Palestinian movements such asFatah and the PLO. Even when the Oslo Accords and the establishment ofthe Palestinian Authority shifted Hamas to the margins, a marginalizedHamas has proved itself capable of damaging spoiler behaviours as a meansof protest for political inclusion.42

Gunning directly confronts the controversial issue of religion versuspolitics as driver. He argues, ‘Religion, furthermore, does not seem todetermine Hamas’ violent tactics, though it may be used to justify or inspirethem’. Additionally, he asserts that it is therefore ‘not religion per se thatdictates Hamas’ tactics, but political and strategic considerations such asconsiderations of military feasibility, or how to increase Palestinian leverageover Israel with limited resources which influence how religion isinterpreted, and which aspects are (de-)emphasised’.43 Using religiousarguments to silence dissent, Hamas has often ignored public opinion andcontinued violence against rival Palestinian groups and Israel.44 Never-theless, Gunning acknowledges Islam’s role in the social, political andeveryday practices of Hamas. Clearly, Hamas deploys violence instrumen-tally within structure of political opportunities; and accordingly a cease-firewould not necessarily constitute an admittance of ideological and militarydefeat.45

Hamas is represented as a much more complex phenomenon than theorthodox accounts suggest.46 The logical corollary is that Israel is perhapswrong to give the main responsibilities of counter-terrorism to a stagnatingsecurity system. The obstacle that Gunning highlights echoes the analysisoffered by Pedahzur, namely that electoral politics and indeed democratiza-tion does not necessarily lead to moderation. ‘As long as the electorate isradicalised, Hamas will be encouraged to act radically’.47 Much now rests

40Gunning, Hamas in Politics, pp.40, 115–16.41Ibid., p.236.42Ibid., p.44.43Ibid., p.201.44Ibid., p.241.45B. Milton-Edwards and A. Crooke, ‘Waving Not Drowning: Strategic Dimensions ofCeasefires and Islamic Movements’, Security Dialogue 35/3 (2004) pp.295–310.46Gunning, Hamas in Politics, p.13.47Ibid., p.240.

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upon the ability of Hamas to gain authority and power through legitimatedemocratic processes; meanwhile its internecine struggles with the PLO haveresulted in the ‘Ulsterization’ of the West Bank and Gaza. Meanwhile, aslong as Hamas has the capability to draw power from Palestinian society,Israel’s stagnant militarized concept of counter-terrorism will continue to beineffective against Hamas-inspired violence.

So often, the primary difficulty that confronts those seeking to promote asettlement is persuading enemies to risk public commitment to principles ofnon-violence. It involves a process of creating enough space and time forrelationships to develop against the immediacy of fickle public opinion.48

Recent lessons from Northern Ireland suggest that perhaps Israel may justhave to wait for a further cycle of development of political conditions beforeviolence subsides in the region. Thus, Bew et al.’s Talking to Terrorists:Making Peace in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country triangulates athesis about a counter-terrorism strategy directed towards conflict resolutionand ceasefire. It takes issue with the desire of security agencies to placeterrorism/counter-terrorism within the parameters of a war model whilstacknowledging the resilience and opportunity structures of social move-ments. Addressing the cognitive dissonance between political facts dominat-ing terrorism and conflict resolution, Bew et al. explicitly describes thesearch for peace in Northern Ireland and the Basque country as a ‘creativebreakthrough’,49 one that undeniably acknowledges the reality thatgovernments talk to terrorists.50

Bew et al.’s pragmatic analysis of the attempted peace processes in Spainand Northern Ireland tries to conceptualize the spirit of inclusiveness as away of understanding of the transition from war to peace.51 For theseauthors it is a remarkably complex process, involving a combination of hardpower, sociological conditions and covert political dialogues. In both casesthese initiatives could be described as a carrot tied to the end of a heavystick. Their policy prescriptions are primarily distilled from their analysis ofthe Good Friday Agreement:

1. The state should be prepared to talk to terrorists. Lines of communica-tion should be maintained at all times.

2. Talks should not be predicated on rigid pre-conditions, because theydiscourage terrorists from taking up the process of dialogue.

3. In a conflict, a settlement can only be achieved by the accommodation ofthe ‘extremes’, even if this risks undermining ‘moderates’.52

Remarkably, since beginning of ‘the Troubles’, UK governments maderepeated, and indeed strident, claims that Whitehall and Westminster did not

48Bew et al., Talking to Terrorists, p.6.49Ibid., p.7.50Ibid., p.1.51Ibid., pp.5, 12.52Ibid., p.13.

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talk to terrorists. In reality, the British approach was to include ‘extremists’in the search for peace. This typically involved covert action andback channels to overcome the barrier of public opinion and to side stepthe self-fulfilling prophecy of militarized counter-terrorism.53 Setting anearly precedent for back-channel talks, William Whitelaw, then Secretary ofState for Northern Ireland, authorized an MI6 (SIS) officer and a civilservant to meet with rising politicos in the PIRA (Provisional IrishRepublican Army) in the early 1980s.54 Given safe passage to London, thetalks between Whitelaw and the PIRA proved to be an unproductive affair;nevertheless they revealed how far both the leaderships and theirorganizations were willing to compromise their short-term agendas to buildan understanding of the others’ internal dynamics.55 Ultimately, theclandestine contacts allowed a better understanding of political positioningat the grassroots level and narrowed the antagonisms to those of theprinciple actors.56

The aim of this study was to achieve an understanding of how, why andwhen such talking occurs and – and by focusing on those instances where ithas taken place – to understand the consequences.57 This study also offerssome valuable lessons for practitioners. The first lesson, analysed in chaptertwo, underlines the UK’s commitment to the ‘Long Haul’ in Northern Irelandwhilst the PIRA in turn responded with a ‘Long War’ strategy. The authorsargue that this was a critical reflection in part of the UK governmentsacknowledging ‘that there was no single narrative dictating the course ofevents’,58 while clearly accepting the fact that violence could not be containedjust by counter-violence.59 However, what the UK governments wished toachieve was a peace agenda created by the ‘constitutional parties that formedthe moderate majority’.60 For, Bew et al. this explains why the PIRA remainedarmed after the Good Friday Agreement and why the UK balanced its politicaloptions towards more legitimate parties whilst focusing military optionstowards the PIRA. Essentially, ‘the power to shape future politicaldevelopments would appear to lie, as it has in the past, with the democraticparties, rather than with the terrorists’.61

53Ibid., p.8.54The Provisional IRA emerged from a split in the IRA in December 1969 (Patrick Bishop andEamonn Mallie, The Provisional IRA (London: Corgi, 1988), p.117; Peter Taylor, Provos:The IRA and Sinn Fein (London: Bloomsbury, 1998), pp.66–7). The Official IRA wasincreasingly overshadowed by the PIRA, especially after the OIRA declared a ceasefire in1972. In 1974 an OIRA splinter group, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), resumedterrorist activity. It declared a ceasefire on 22 August 1998. On the INLA, see HenryMcDonald and Jack Holland, INLA: Deadly Divisions (Dublin: Poolbeg Press, 2010).55Bew et al., Talking to Terrorists, pp.39–41.56Ibid., pp.50–51.57Ibid., p.1.58Ibid., p.72.59Ibid., p.12.60Ibid., p.143.61Ibid., p.252.

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The last two lessons drawn from Ulster play with the delicate issue ofcombining soft power with hard power. Where peace on the political frontbecame dependent on the popular mandate, war on the military frontinvolved a series of secret operations to slowly weaken and disheartenextremists. Of course, the heavy hand of the British secret services continuedto pursue an unofficial war against the Republican movement, specificallytargeting and infiltrating the PIRA. During the early 1970s the two sideswere wedged in a stalemate, however, during the 1980s and the 1990s,arguably the security forces were winning the intelligence war, and essentialcomponent in the wider strategy of discouraging the PIRA from extremistbehaviour and bring them into the peace process.

At its core, peace was about the decommissioning of arms. The MitchellPrinciples resolved this matter by situating talks and disarmament betweenthe Unionists and Republicans in tandem with talks with UK and Irishgovernments. This sophisticated approach to negotiation also signalled acommitment to the fundamentals of democratic legitimacy, whilst commu-nities continued their respective social and armed movements. Bew et al. alsoargue that the ‘New’ Labour party signalled a shift in the politicalatmosphere rather more than a revolution in British policy towards NorthIrish extremists.62 Indeed with the incoming Blair government, the UKaccommodated and placed PIRA extremists at the centre the political stage,since many feared that the PIRA might repackage its movement and re-initiate violence.63 Indeed, most of the burden of ensuring equality and peaceamong the extremists and moderates fell on the UK government.64 On theone hand, as Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams have proven thatyesterday’s terrorist is today’s statesmen – an idea that Israel’s own politicalleadership exemplifies, and yet cannot accept in its struggle against Hamas.One the other hand, perhaps they have weighed up the consequences ofpeace and found them wanting. Certainly, since the Good Friday Agreement,precisely because much is at stake in these historic negotiations, themoderates have been marginalized in Northern Ireland and the extremistnow rule.

The Northern Irish case may simply be unique. In dealing with the Basqueseparatist movement that exists in the porous borderlands of Northern Spainand Southern France, the Spanish government attempted to transplant theBritish approach and the processes that led towards Good Friday Agreementonto its own troubles with the Basque terrororist group, ETA (Euskadi TaAskatasuna (trans: ‘Basque Homeland and Freedom’).65 This reflected anassumption that the Basque nationalist and Irish Republican movements, aswell as the Spanish and UK governments, shared similar experiences. Indeed,it seems that ETA had learned – from the PIRA experience – that there

62Ibid., p.140.63Ibid., p.159.64Ibid., p.13.65See pp.14–15 for Bew et al.’s argument that the PIRA and ETA ‘armed struggle’ haveparallel histories and contextual frameworks concerning their respective movements.

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existed an implicit guarantee that lines of communication would remainopen even if terrorist attacks continued to be committed. Ultimately, internaldissent over the Basque issue within the Zapatero government underminedthe government’s reconciliatory policies, something which was also mirroredat the grassroots level. Even in the shadow of Gerry Adams’ mentorship andhis visit to the Basque Country, the ETA 2006 ceasefire, envisaged as ameans for antagonists to talk, essentially stalled months into the process ofnegotiations. This reflected considerable social support for continuedviolence. As Bew et al. suggests, peace processes and the sustainability ofthe social movements have to holistically consider the wider structure that itis embedded in.66

Collectively, these three new studies provide a fascinating map of newsocial research on terrorism, counter-terrorism and conflict resolution.Seemingly rather different, they nevertheless point to shared reference pointspreviously neglected by the parallel sub-disciplines of terrorism studies andintelligence studies. All the authors re-visit, in their different ways, theproblem of how to actually understand the sociology of an inclusiverelationship between antagonists. This may reflect the fact that they arelargely empirical studies, concerned with the analysis of historical processesand grassroots activities. While war-centred theories are clearly dismissed asstagnant and stagnating, the choreography of conflict resolution is clearlyabout a complex mixture of coercion and compromise. Indeed, theapplication of ‘carrot and stick’ constitutes an underlying theme in all thesestudies and will continue to represent a beguiling subject for all thoseengaged in intelligence, counter-terrorism and conflict resolution.

66Bew et al., Talking to Terrorists, p.15.

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