Hamas plans to attack Jewish targets in Europe should put Australia on alert

Security agencies from several European countries have recently revealed that Hamas is planning terror attacks against Jewish community institutions in Germany, Austria, England, Denmark, Sweden and Turkey. Israel's security service Mossad issued a highly unusual communiqué revealing its role in foiling these attacks.

This escalation in Hamas’s modus operandi reflects the abandonment of its traditional modus operandi, which was restricted to terror attacks within Israel. Hamas has joined other Islamist terrorist groups willing to indiscriminately hit Jewish civilian targets as part of their radical ideology.

Australians are highly conscious of the dangers of Middle East terrorism spreading to Diaspora Jewish targets after the Iranian-sponsored attacks on the Adass Israel synagogue and Continental Kitchen. The worst such attack was Hezbollah's bombing of Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994, which killed 85 people. More recent cases include the Al-Qaeda attack in 2003 against synagogues in Turkey and the ISIS attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in 2014.

Hamas’ updated terror policy reflects its nature as a radical Islamist movement with deep antisemitic tendencies, while erasing its own politically based distinction between “Zionists” and “Jews”.

Hamas formally denied any involvement in the terror infrastructure exposed in Europe, as this contradicts its official narrative of a local “resistance” movement fighting for its “national independence”.