Twitter has just fallen for the oldest trick in the terrorist organization playbook. It’s resisting a bipartisan congressional call to exclude Hamas and Hezbollah from operating freely on its platform on the grounds that it allows only the “political” but not the “military” factions to tweet. The geniuses at the Silicon Valley tech giant have been duped by what I call the terrorist wing scam.
For over a century, the most successful terrorist organizations have learned to disguise their true nature by creating political and charitable “wings,” “arms,” or “branches” (the metaphor varies). These enterprises act like dummy corporations, allowing groups to participate in the very same civil societies which they attack. Ever since the IRA pretended that Sinn Fein was the “political wing” of the Irish resistance, only loosely connected to the “militant IRA,” other terrorist groups have followed suit, either with political or charitable “wings.” Successful counterterrorism begins with rejecting this illusion of separation.
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