The perils of adopting an Israeli counter-terrorism solution
As terrorists continue to strike cities, state officials are increasingly looking for new policy options to mitigate attacks yet to come. Within this new policy environment Israel has emerged as the leading global model of urban security, sought out by governments and police forces around the world.
Particularly following recent string of large-scale attacks across Europe, a range of state representatives and policy commentators have proposed that European cities should adopt Israeli urban counter-terror expertise and technologies in order to protect vulnerable populations and infrastructure.
In this brief, guest researcher Rhys Machold suggests that despite its pretence to straightforwardness, proposals for Europe to learn from Israel obscure a number of important questions about the potential merits and pitfalls about the transnational policy learning.
Recent suggestions for European cities to adopt some ill-defined Israeli ‘solution’ to the threat of terrorism also raise a number of serious concerns about the protection of civil liberties, human rights and access to public space.
