Arutz Sheva attended the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism’s (ICT) 15th International Conference: World Summit on Counter-Terrorism, which addresses the terrorism challenges currently faced by the international community.
This year’s theme for the conference is the shifting sands of terrorism. In particular, speakers will explore the progression of the terrorist threat in the face of an evolving environment and a growing diversity of terrorist actors. The conference will also discuss how counter-terrorism policy and strategy can best address this elusive threat.
To understand fully what this theme covers, we spoke to Professor Boaz Ganor, Founder and the Executive Director of ICT.
"We do believe that we see now tectonic changes in the Middle East, in Europe, in East Africa, in other places, [of] which the implications is going to influence and are already influencing the world of terrorism," Ganor said. "We see different organizations active, we see different tactics which are being used, and bigger challenges for the international community to deal with."
Ganor noted that the conference includes a compendium of experts, policy-makers, and security officials - all of whom converge in one place to discuss the terror threat from a variety of angles.
The current problem, he stated, is that in most cases, the principle of "the enemy of the enemy is our friend" does not apply anymore.
"The enemy of our enemy is a bigger enemy of ours later on," he lamented. For example, the West approaching Iran and Hezbollah to joint the fight against Islamic State (ISIS) is a "huge mistake."
Meanwhile, he added, the international community continues to turn to Israel for answers - and Israel is beginning to learn from other countries, as well.
"This is a global challenge, this is a global threat, and the slogan that we've used in ICT for many years [is] 'it takes a network to beat a network."