Israeli experts: If Europe won't wiretap, they won't know

Three senior officials who dedicated their lives to issues revolving around security, intelligence and terror talked to Al-Monitor about the wave of Islamic terror that is washing over Europe and the ways of coping with it. The first was Maj.-Gen. (Res.) Yaakov Amidror, formerly a senior at the intelligence branch of the Israel Defense Forces and military CEO of defense ministers. His last post so far was head of Israel’s National Security Council and national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (until November 2013). The second official: Rami Igra, former senior Mossad official with expertise in terror issues and former head of the missing-In-action division of Israel’s intelligence organization. The third, who preferred to remain anonymous, is also a high-placed former official in the Israeli intelligence services, who has served as head of Military Intelligence.

“The Europeans have four problems,” Amidror said. “Three of them are fundamental, one is technical. The first problem is one of definition. You have to call a spade a spade. The terror that they currently face is not ideological terror. It is not the [Italian] Red Brigades nor the [German] Baader-Meinhof, and not even criminal. This terror is fueled by strong religious ideology. True, it’s hard for the Europeans to say this, but the fact is that while not all Muslims are terrorists, all the terrorists in this era are Muslims. You cannot win without a precise determination of the enemy.”