A new campaign has been launched to drive closer links between the UK and Israel in the global battle against terrorism. The initiative is a contrary response to the claim by London Mayor Sadiq Khan that the threat of terror attacks are “part and parcel of living in a great city.”
United Against Terror is the work of the Israel Britain Alliance (IBA). It contrasts the tactics of terrorists in recent attacks in Manchester and London, to those perpetrated by Palestinian attackers on a regular basis in the Jewish State.
Michael McCann, IBA Director, believes the similarities in global attacks by terrorists means intelligence can be shared: He said:
“In recent months our country has been hit by a suicide bomb, car rammings and knife attacks. Barbaric attacks on innocent people. The sadly reality is that Israel has faced these types of attacks for years and as a result it has a great deal of experience in both preventing attacks and dealing with the consequences.
“Our country can learn from Israel’s experience and work together to thwart attacks and minimise the risks to the public.”
“But history sometimes reveals that what many of us would see as obvious actions are not taken and that’s why our campaign is focussed on these issues and directed at MPs and the Home Office,” he continued.
This is not the first time UK police and counter-terrorism agencies have been urged to look to Israel and learn from its existential battle against Palestinian terrorism.
As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, two UK-based terror experts issued the same call last month. Rafael Bardaji, former National Security Adviser to the Government of Spain and the Director of the Friends of Israel Initiative joined Colonel Richard Kemp, the former Commander of British troops in Afghanistan, in seeking to build bridges between the two countries. They said:
Terror is humanly motivated, politically and religiously oriented, has goals and means. Terrorism should and can never be, in the infamous deplorable words of London Mayor Sadiq Khan “part and parcel of living in a great city”. Preparations to respond to attacks in a quick and effective manner are essential, but actions to prevent terrorism are even more significant.
Yet how can we prevent and disrupt attacks that only require commonly available tools such as knives, cars, trucks and little preparation? First, by being more vigilant and intrusive in cyberspace and social networks. It is there that many terrorists find their inspiration, and in a some cases the know-how to develop their ability to kill.
As the Israelis have learnt, it is possible to garner intelligence of significant value even against these kinds of attackers, by intensely following events on social networks. It follows then that major companies in this domain like Facebook or Twitter must reinforce their internal controls on what is disseminated through them.
Ultimately sharing intelligence and counter-terrorism tactics between allies is better than the alternative ofsurrendering to the fact that our personal destiny is in the hands of a group of jihadists, motivated and convinced that we should convert or die, the two concluded.
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