Is the West facing a winter of jihad?

Foiled terror plots in Europe bring long shadow of Gaza war into sharp focus

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

The war in Gaza, a half a world away, is casting a long shadow over Europe and the US, unveiling a new era of challenges in the fight against terror.

This week’s foiled Hamas-related terror plots in Germany and Denmark are not isolated incidents; they are stark reminders of an increased pattern in radicalism and violence that seemed to be in decline, but is once again spreading across the West since October 7.

To say the events since Hamas’ bloody incursion into Israel have gripped the world would be a severe understatement. Angry protests against Israel’s punishing bombing campaign and ground invasion of the Gaza strip are sweeping every corner of the globe. As I wrote earlier this week, many of them have been rife with antisemitic sentiment.

Each country has a web of different histories and realities causing their people to resonate with the war. But the current anger could be merely a foreshadowing of the global tinderbox that the war isn’t causing, but helping to unleash.

Even before this week’s plots were uncovered, the threat posed by Hamas and its ideology was becoming increasingly global: igniting a spike in antisemitic incidents across the US and at least three attacks by Islamic extremists in Europe.

The situation in Germany has been particularly tense since October 7, with intelligence officials warning of “a complex and fraught threat situation” facing Germany from a melange of extremist factions, from pro-Palestinian activists and sympathizers of Hamas and Hezbollah to Turkish extremists to far-left militants.

In a grim illustration of Hamas's allure within Europe, individuals handed out pastries in Berlin to celebrate the October 7 attacks. German authorities implemented a formal ban on activity by or in support of Hamas and moved to dissolve the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which was behind the event. The group also published a “Calendar of Resistance for Palestine” on its website, with links to celebratory events around the world and a call for “all Palestinian, Arab and international supporters of Palestine to escalate their organizing and struggle.”

France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim populations, has also been on high alert after a series of terrorist attacks, including one earlier this month near the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The French prosecutor said the suspect had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a video on social media and had been imprisoned in 2016 for trying to travel to Syria to join ISIS. Nicolas Lerner, a top French domestic security official said the current conflict between Israel and Hamas has had “undeniably” direct consequences for France.

Hundreds of such jihadists have been released from European jails after serving time for similar crimes during ISIS's rise. But unlike 2016 when Islamic State operatives trained in Syria to launch a series of attacks in Europe, killing more than 150 people, security services are now worried about lone-wolf attackers who aren’t supported by known groups but are inspired by them. They may be less lethal, but they are harder to detect.

Politico recently wrote about another worrying trend in France: A new generation of vulnerable and impressionable French teenagers being targeted online by ISIS.

The increased attacks in Europe since October 7, coupled with this week’s foiled plots, make recent comments by FBI Director Christopher Wray even more haunting.

Last week, Wray testified during a pair of Senate hearings about ongoing threats to the US that the US is facing the greatest terror threat since ISIS.

The ongoing war in the Middle East, Wray warned, has raised the threat of an attack against Americans “to a whole other level.” Never, he said, had he seen a time “where all the threats, or so many of the threats, are all elevated all at exactly the same time." He even warned terrorists could exploit the southern border.

His comments reflect warnings in a new joint bulletin from the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to local, state, and federal law enforcement. CBS News, which reviewed the bulletin, reported that groups from foreign terrorist organizations like al Qaeda and ISIS will likely use the Israel-Hamas war "to increase calls for violence in the U.S. during the holiday season compared to prior years."

Wray told lawmakers there was nothing to indicate Hamas has the intent or capability to conduct operations inside the U.S but conceded the FBI has "multiple, ongoing investigations" into people affiliated with Hamas.

"We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate years ago," Wray said in testimony at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing focused on threats to America.

Wray’s dire warnings that he sees “blinking lights everywhere” sounded eerily like the threat America faced after the 9/11 attacks. Then, Americans easily united against what was framed as a foreign—and Muslim—enemy that was trying to kill U.S. citizens. But today’s enemy defies such tidy classifications. In addition to groups like Hamas and ISIS, Wray said, like his European counterparts, he felt the greatest threat to the United States comes from “lone actors.”

"Here in the United States, our most immediate concern is that violent extremists — individuals or small groups — will draw inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks against Americans going about their daily lives,” he told senators. “That includes not just homegrown violent extremists inspired by a foreign terrorist organization, but also domestic violent extremists targeting Jewish or Muslim communities."

These aren’t amorphous threats. Since October 7:

• Authorities arrested a 16-year-old in Las Vegas who wrote on social media about launching an ISIS-inspired attack, recovering an ISIS flag and bomb parts.

• The FBI in Houston last week arrested someone who was studying how to build bombs and posted online about his support for killing Jews.

• A 6-year-old Muslim boy was killed in Illinois this month, which the FBI is investigating as a hate crime.

Wray warned that antisemitism in the United States had also reached “historic levels” in the wake of Israel’s war with Hamas and cautioned that the threat of attacks was high.

“This is not a time for panic, but it is a time for vigilance,” Wray told senators. “We shouldn’t stop conducting our daily lives — going to schools, houses of worship, and so forth — but we should be vigilant.”

But the US and Europe don’t just need to be vigilant. They need to be proactive as a new fight against terrorism may be unfolding. A reinvigorated and long-term approach to reducing extremism must go beyond law enforcement to unpack the appeal of groups like Hamas and ISIS and find ways to de-radicalize those who are drawn to their ideologies – particularly young people. There must also be a reckoning about the roots of a new virulent strain of antisemitism spreading across the West. Without such a reckoning, the terror threat in the West may well outlive the war in Gaza itself.