Lone-wolf or terror organization members acting alone: new look at the last Israeli–Palestine incidents

The ‘sacrificial attacks’ in Jerusalem and throughout all of Israel, from July 2014 until August 2015, were the promo of the full-scale knife-attack that started from October 2015 until now. The uniqueness of this wave of terror is its length – over a year – and its use of the old-new ‘white weapons’ which, since October 2015, has included women and children. This research answers how and why these lone-wolf attacks started. The ‘lone-wolf’ attacks, as nicknamed in the Israeli and worldwide press, are, in reality, a continuation of the organized terror activities of the Palestinian liberation organizations especially the Islamic Jihad and Hamas. This is not a popular intifada drawing the masses, nor an armed intifada, but a wave of terror that includes a large number of initiated attacks by known anti-Israel Palestinians connected to terrorist organizations by their past activities or through relatives (prisoners or martyrs) or inspired by the Internet sites and social media. The Palestinian liberation organizations are all protecting al-Aqsa and supporting, without any restrictions, a continuation of the attacks against Israeli targets in Jerusalem and competing with each other.     

‘This is a Prison…A Death in Life’: Reza Shah’s troubled exile on the Island of Mauritius

Reza Shah, the feared and powerful master of Iran for nearly two decades, spent the last years of his life in lonely exile, on the island of Mauritius, then in South Africa. His life in exile was hardly a happy one. The place and conditions of his exile were dictated not by himself but by the British, and the relationship between the two remained uneasy. Britain’s handling of Reza Shah – the degree and freedom and choice they were prepared to allow him and his family – were determined by the exigencies of war. Reza Shah sought to loosen the bonds of British control. In Tehran, his son and successor, Mohammad Reza Shah, also played a role. He used what leverage he had with the British to help ease the conditions of his father’s exile, while he endeavored to protect Iran’s interests under a difficult foreign occupation. The push-and-pull of cross-purposes entailed by this triangular relationship defined Reza Shah’s life in exile in both Mauritius and Johannesburg. This article examines the Mauritian period of his exile.     

Reza Shah’s journey into exile

On September 16, 1941, three weeks after British and Soviet troops invaded Iran in the Second World War and occupied the country, Reza Shah abdicated the throne in favor of his son, quit Iranian soil and boarded a British ship to go into exile. The British refused to allow Reza Shah to choose his own place of exile (South America) and sent him to the island of Mauritius. This article examines British thinking that resulted in the choice of Mauritius as the place of exile. It traces Reza Shah’s journey across Iran as he prepared to leave the country; details the composition of the large party of family and staff that accompanied him; provides an account of Reza’s Shah’s reminiscences and reflections at this difficult and emotion-laden moment when he was forced to surrender power, and describes the ‘stooped and aged man’ he had become. It ends with the arrival of the ship carrying Reza Shah and the royal party in Mauritius.     

Sheikh Qaradawi and the Internal Palestinian Struggle Issues Preventing Reconciliation Between Fatah and Hamas and the Influence of the Qaradāwi Era over the Struggle Between the Organizations

Sheikh Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi is one of the most influential Muslim thinkers in the world. Western observers consider him a moderate, a bridge between Muslim conservatives and Islamic activists. This article, through direct translation of Sheikh al-Qaradawi's verbal and written expressions, shows the view of him as a moderate to be wishful thinking when it deals with the Palestinian problem. This article deals with issues preventing reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas and the influence of the Qaradawi era over the struggle between the organizations.     

Brief motivation enhancing intervention to prevent criminal recidivism in substance-abusing offenders under supervision: a randomized trial

The goal of this study was to assess the effect of a brief motivation enhancing intervention (MEI) on criminal recidivism. This was a multi-site, cluster-randomized clinical trial in six addiction probation offices. We randomized 73 probation officers (37 to intervention, 36 to control) and followed 220 substance-abusing repeat offenders that were allocated to them (111 intervention, 109 control). We report three measures of recidivism rate (self-report, police records, and combination of either of the two) and time to re-offending (police records) during a 12-month follow-up period. The proportion of re-offending and time to re-offending was not significantly different between offenders that received supervision plus intervention and those that received supervision-as-usual (SAU, no intervention). Our findings provide no evidence that supervision plus a brief MEI is more effective than SAU.     

Al Qaeda as a Dune Organization: Toward a Typology of Islamic Terrorist Organizations

Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups offer the analyst a highly complex challenge. The current literature classifies Islamic terrorist organizations as either networked or hierarchical. Yet, this classification fails to account for the appearance on the international stage of a new type of global terrorism. Most notably, it does not capture the structure and mode of operation of Al Qaeda as it emerged after the 2001 U.S.-led assault on Afghanistan. This article therefore introduces a new conceptthe Dune organizationthat is distinct from other organizational modes of thinking. This conceptualization leads to a new typology of Islamic terrorist organizations. This typology concentrates on organizational behavior patterns and provides a framework for a comparative analysis of terrorist movements, which is applied to a study of Al Qaeda, Hizballah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.     

Media-political skills,Candidate selection methods and electoral success

The analyses concentrate on the influences of the media and political skills of political actors on their electoral success. Many believe that demonstrating media skills is crucial for electoral success because it helps political actors to persuade media consumers to vote for them; but in some candidate selection methods, such as when a single leader selects the candidates, the media might not be an important factor. Therefore, the analyses take into account the interaction of media-political skills of political actors with candidate selection methods. This raises the question whether the democratisation of selection methods, now occurring in many countries, is making media-political skills more important. Multiple regression analyses show that media-political skills have a strong impact on the electoral success of 81 Israeli Members of the Knesset. They reveal a clear interaction with selection methods, and show that media-political skills have a greater impact in the more democratic methods of selection. The level of incumbents' parliamentary activity was found to have no impact at all on their electoral success in all candidate selection methods.     

Britain and the abdication of Reza Shah

On the eve of the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in the Second World War, Sir Reader Bullard, the British minister in Tehran, urged on his government the desirability of removing the Iranian ruler, Reza Shah, from office. Association with the ‘universally detested’ shah, whom he described as a ‘greedy ignorant savage’, was detrimental to Britain's interests and its war effort. In the weeks that followed the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Iran, Bullard continued to press for and to shape the ultimate British decision to force Reza Shah to abdicate and go into exile. Yet, this was not always Bullard's view of Britain's relationship with the Iranian ruler. When he presented his credentials 20 months earlier, Bullard described it as his ‘urgent duty’ to win Reza Shah's favour. Nor did Bullard's insistence that Britain depose the Shah initially find favour with the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, his Middle East staff at the Foreign Office, or with Churchill. This article traces the evolution of Bullard's own view of Reza Shah and the developments that led the Foreign Office, initially eager to win Reza Shah's favour and even ready to offer Reza Shah a ‘substantial bribe’ for his cooperation, to take steps to topple Reza Shah from the throne.