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EU Looks to Israeli Technology to Help Fight ‘Lone Wolf’ Terrorism

The European Union is looking into the use of Israeli anti-terror technologies to deal with a wave of Islamic State-inspired “lone wolf” terror attacks on the continent, a senior EU official told Reuters on Tuesday.

Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union’s counter-terror coordinator, attended the IDF’s second annual Intelligence and Special Forces International Conference in Tel Aviv, which showcased Israeli-developed anti-terror techniques. De Kerchove was specifically interested in Israeli technologies that crawl through social media to detect signs of radicalization.

“How do you capture some signs of someone who has no contact with any organization, is just inspired and started expressing some kind of allegiance?” de Kerchove asked. “I don’t know. It’s a challenge… That is why I am here: We know Israel has developed a lot of capability in cyber.”

Palestinian terrorism has forced Israel to constantly improve its measures for preventing attacks; since last September, Israel has seen more than 300 terror attacks in what has become known as the “Wave of Terror,” including shootings, stabbings, and car rammings. But thanks to Israeli preventative technologies, many serious assaults were foiled before they could be launched. Despite 300 attacks, only 40 Israelis were killed, and no mass-casualty incidents were successfully perpetrated, according to figures compiled by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Over the same period, the EU saw more than 250 killed, even as only a handful of attacks were carried out.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor encouraged the world to learn counter-terror techniques from Israel in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Tuesday. “In this digital age, terror cannot be met with an analog response,” he wrote. “We need to keep up, and Israel has experience and expertise to share.” Prosor cited Israeli advances in airport security, the use of drones, and built-environment anti-terror structures such as roadside barriers, all of which were later adopted by the rest of the world.

[Photo: Inside Edition / YouTube ]