ABSTRACT
In the early 1980s, international terrorism stemming from the Palestinian problem began to take aim at selected European countries because of their policies toward the Middle East. The future of international terrorism in Europe will be determined mainly by the handling of the Palestinian problem and by the development of Islamist movements and states. For a long time, an apparently immense chasm separated the issues of security and terrorism. There are three major categories of domestic terrorism: far right, far left, and nationalist or separatist. In a few places, domestic terrorism has been inspired by far-right political ideologies; in the countries in which it was strongest, it had overtones of neo-Fascism or Nazism. Far-left terrorism—sometimes of a libertarian sort, but usually associated with Marxist-Leninist ideologies—has been more significant. Europe has been affected by transnational terrorism, organized on a scale reaching beyond any single state's borders.
