The heads of the Center for the Study of National Security have decided, for the first time in the history of the study of terrorism in Israel, to create a large data set which includes documentation of each and every terrorist event against Israeli targets that took place since 1948. In order to do so the center has gathered a group a graduate students who systematically analyze the Israel daily newspaper Ha'aretz. Every terrorist attack that was reported in this newspaper is being documented. The students have a special questionnaire which enables them to acquire as much information as possible about every attack, including the identity of the perpetrators, the victims, methods of operation, the location of the event, the counter terrorist response etc. Once the information is gathered it is coded into two different data sets. The first is a qualitative one that should enable historians and analysts to study the history of terrorism in Israel. The second is quantitative, allowing social scientists to look for patterns and to reach broader theoretical conclusions about the phenomenon of terrorism.
This data set, which is being completed at the present time, has raised a lot of interest among policy makers, military officers and academics in Israel and elsewhere. Three Ph.D. Students (2 from Israel and 1 from the UK) have already become engaged in research based on the project. A leading figure in the field of terrorism, Prof. Leonard Weinberg from the University of Nevada, Reno has already joined the members of the Center in a joint effort of writing a book based on this data.