Unspoken reciprocity: The effect of major shifts in Israeli policy on international terrorism

The prevention of international terrorism-with a focus on policies of counterterrorism-has emerged as perhaps the primary stated security goal of the majority of status quo¹ states globally. In order for governments to be successful in limiting the actions of terrorist organizations, it becomes crucial for them to gain a greater understanding of the motivations underlying these actions, of the types of organizations posing a threat, and of the range of goals that they are seeking to satisfy using this tool. Underlying each of these aims is the need to establish whether terrorists can be considered rational, or at least, if they are actors who have a definable set of goals that they wish to accomplish via their tactic of terror. The responses that we give to these points have crucial implications for both our understanding of the phenomenon and toward our development of methods for mitigating its occurrence.