A Hypothesis-Generating Case Study

4.1.1 Another Building Block in the Wall

The aim of the thesis is to review the relationship between ideology and military tactics in Palestinian nationalist-separatist terrorism. This will be achieved through descriptive analysis of the tactics applied in fatal attacks conducted by the six major Palestinian terrorist organizations, from the outbreak of the First Intifadah on December 9th 1987 until December 31st 2011: The tactics of the three Leftist organizations, al-Fateh, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP); will be compared to those of the three Islamist organizations, HAMAS, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC).

In Chapter 2, a suggested model of the role of ideology in terrorist tactics was presented, along with ten hypotheses to test it. It is not preceded by any existing explanatory model on the subject; and was built on literature and theories on 'new terrorism', military theory, terrorist target selection, and statistical observations of terrorist violence. The thesis can therefore be considered what Lijphardt describes as a hypothesis-generating case study, or generalizing case study; in which «an author's familiarity with a given case [is exploited] to help generate new hypotheses or theories, which can be subsequently tested in a more rigorous design» (Moses & Knutsen 2007:136).

As the thesis focus on the nationalist-separatist corner in Hegghammer's triangle of territorial ambitions of terrorism, the outcome of the analysis may present theories and hypotheses relevant to other cases of nationalist-separatist terrorism. The analogy of case studies as 'building blocks' has been explained by Moses & Knutsen (2007:136) as follows:

The analyst studies a given case to generate a preliminary theoretical construct. Because this construct is based on a single case, it can do little more than hint a more valid general model. This model, then, is confronted with another case – which, in turn, might suggest ways of amending and improving the construct. These cases can then be assembled, like building blocks, into a stronger theoretical edifice.

The ideological heterogeneity among Palestinian terrorist organizations has been thought to make the Palestinian case specifically attractive for comparative studies, as it contains currently active organizations from both the New Left and the Religious Rapoportian waves of terrorist ideology.

Still, this rather blunt division into «Leftist» and «Islamist» does little justice to the differences and internal rivalry within the blocs.64 Furthermore, by including only the six major organizations, a number of minor organizations have been excluded.

However, presenting a building block will necessitate a certain degree of generalization, under which the well-established Rapoportian waves should be considered acceptable. And while comparing blocwise, the analysis will still highlight important differences and similarities among the individual organizations. It is also assumed that the influence of the major organizations severely outweighs that of the excluded groups, which have been responsible for far less attacks and fatalities than the six included.65 Ultimately, this division and selection is believed by the author to best utilize a comparative case study on the role of ideology in Palestinian terrorist tactics.

4.1.2 Supplemental Narratives and Descriptive Statistics

According to Moses & Knutsen (2007:70), descriptive statistics are commonly used to supplement narratives, and this thesis is no exception: With Chapter 3, the analysis has been preceded by a presentation of each of the ideologically diverse terrorist organizations included in the analysis. Palestinian terrorism have developed over several decades. The armed struggle against Israel has been but one of many objectives for these organizations, as they have been plagued with internal disputes – often fueled by support from Middle Eastern states using the Palestinian cause as a foreign policy tool. The analysis period also marks the relocation of the Israeli-Palestinian battleground, along with a generational shift from the old school militants of the exile to the new school militants of the territories.

Despite the mutual dependency, the narrative is nonetheless supplementing the descriptive analysis – and not the other way around. The tangible contribution of the thesis is found not in its presentation of Palestinian terrorist roots and history in its third chapter, but rather in its unique figures on Palestinian terrorism since 1987 in its fifth. Introducing and applying a dataset on Israeli- Palestinian fatal conflict violence unprecedented in scope, the relationship between terrorist ideology and offensive military tactics is explored in the descriptive statistics it has produced.

The following subchapters will focus on the construction of this dataset, discuss its reliability, before operationalizing the variables applied in the analysis. Its complete codebook has

64 _{As seen in Chapter 3, Fateh and the PFLP had decade-long struggles over the control of PLO policy; while HAMAS}

and the PIJ have had fatal confrontations over the frequency of attacks against Israeli targets from the Gaza Strip.

65 _{Of the 683 «successful» Palestinian terrorist attacks recorded by the IPCD, the six major organizations have}

conducted 73.9% (505); while of the 1,728 fatalities, they have caused 83.7% (1,446). Furthermore, a majority (100) of the 178 excluded attacks have no identified perpetrator – a common challenge to the uncertainty aspect of the responsible actors in terrorist databases, properly addressed in Chapter 4.2.4.2.

also been featured as an Appendix (1) to the thesis.