CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler writes: "For far too long, European governments have comforted themselves with the assumption that Hamas terror attacks would remain confined towards targets in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The prevailing belief was that in Europe the group would concentrate on generating finances and building up political influence through catering towards its sympathisers.

European authorities were always clear about the general terrorist nature of Hamas. After all, the group’s Izz al-Din al-Qassem (IDQ) brigades was added to the EU Terrorist List in 2001, the year the list was created. The entire organisation was listed by the EU in 2003. The UK proscribed IDQ in 2001, but it took until 2021 for the British government to proscribe the entirety of Hamas. Nevertheless, the hope was that Europe may be spared from direct terror attacks by Hamas."

To examine the causes of this threatening dynamic, the European Institute for Counter-Terrorism and Conflict Prevention (EICTP) hosted a meeting at the Novotel Berlin Mitte on the morning of June 3. The "European Trend Report on Terrorism" was presented in the Potsdamer Platz conference room. Numerous security experts, analysts, and risk managers listened intently to the presentations of Hans-Jakob Schindler, Senior Director of the Counter Extremism Project, and Austrian terrorism researcher Dr. Nicolas Stockhammer. The security policy panel was moderated by retired Colonel Ralph Thiele, who also regularly contributes  to Cicero .

“…“The terrorist threat to Europe right now is actually quite high because you have an intersection of a range of disconnected but unfortunately mutually reinforcing events,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the Berlin- and New York-based Counter Extremism Project. “October 7 changed the threat level from groups that didn’t really pose any threat on the European continent for many years. It’s definitely always been Islamist terrorism, but it’s not Islamist terrorism in all of its varieties from Hamas to al-Qaida. Usually it’s Islamic State, it’s al-Qaida, and it’s lone actors. Now you have Hamas, Hezbollah, lone actors, Islamic State, al-Qaida, the left wing, the right wing – all of them who could potentially see this large conglomeration of really soft targets. “We have the threat that has been there all along, but because of October 7 has been fairly diligently pushed out of the headlines, and that’s the Islamic State threat,” he added."

"On this episode of 'The Hunt with WTOP national security correspondent J.J. Green,' senior director at the Counter Extremism Project Hans-Jakob Schindler says the discovery of two terror cells revealed what authorities believe was a chilling plot."

"Pro-IS groups have also been active in this time, praising the savage Hamas attacks and calling for action on European soil. On October 22, the pro-IS Tala’a al-Ansar Foundation released a video celebrating the Brussels shooting and urged its supporters to launch copycat attacks, according to the Counter Extremism Project."

"In recent times, Europe has been grappling with a heightened terrorist threat, with events like the firebomb attack on a Berlin synagogue and killings in Belgium and France sending shockwaves across the continent.  In a region where security concerns are on the rise, we aim to understand what measures have failed in Belgium and France and whether European security services can effectively counter the modern threat of terrorism.
To discuss the implications, responses, and potential solutions, we were joined by two political analysts and observers: 
Ryszard Machnikowski, Dean of the Faculty of International and Political Studies at the University of Lodz, and Hans-Jakob Schindler, Senior Director of the Counter Extremism Project."