By Richard Landes In the years before 2000, as the director of the ephemeral Center for Millennial Studies, I scanned the global horizon for signs of apocalyptic activity, that is, for movements of people who believed that now was the time of a total global transformation. As I did so, I became aware of such currents of belief among Muslims, some specifically linked to the year 2000, all predominantly expressing the most dangerous of all apocalyptic

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By Daniel Byman

In a rousing speech before Congress on May 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected peace talks with the newly unified Palestinian government because it now includes — on paper at least — officials from the terrorist (or, in its own eyes, “resistance”) group Hamas. In a striking moment, Netanyahu defiantly declared, “Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by the Palestinian version of al Qaeda,” a statement greeted with resounding applause from the assembled members of Congress.

But hold on a minute. Yes, Hamas, like al Qaeda, is an Islamist group that uses terrorism as a strategic tool to achieve political aims. Yes, Hamas, like al Qaeda, rejects Israel and has opposed the peace talks that moderate Palestinians have tried to move forward. And sure, the Hamas charter uses language that parallels the worst anti-Semitism of al Qaeda, enjoining believers to fight Jews wherever they may be found and accusing Jews of numerous conspiracies against Muslims, ranging from the drug trade to creating “sabotage” groups like, apparently, violent versions of Rotary and Lions clubs.

But the differences between Hamas and al Qaeda often outweigh the similarities. And ignoring these differences underestimates Hamas’s power and influence — and risks missing opportunities to push Hamas into accepting a peace deal.

While Congress was quick to applaud Bibi’s fiery analogy, U.S. counterterrorism officials know that one of the biggest differences is that Hamas has a regional focus, while al Qaeda’s is global. Hamas bears no love for the United States, but it has not deliberately targeted Americans. Al Qaeda, of course, sees the United States as its primary enemy, and it doesn’t stop there. European countries, supposed enemies of Islam such as Russia and India, and Arab regimes of all stripes are on their hit list. Other components of the “Salafi-jihadist” movement (of which al Qaeda is a part) focus operations on killing Shiite Muslims, whom they view as apostates. Hamas, in contrast, does not call for the overthrow of Arab regimes and works with Shiite Iran and the Alawite-dominated secular regime in Damascus, pragmatically preferring weapons, money, and assistance in training to ideological consistency.

Hamas, like its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, also devotes much of its attention to education, health care, and social services. Like it or not, by caring for the poor and teaching the next generation of Muslims about its view of the world, Hamas is fundamentally reshaping Palestinian society. Thus, many Palestinians who do not share Hamas’s worldview nonetheless respect it; in part because the Palestinian moderates so beloved of the West have often failed to deliver on basic government functions. The old Arab nationalist visions of the 1950s and 1960s that animated the moderate Palestinian leader Mahmood Abbas and his mentor Yasir Arafat have less appeal to Palestinians today.

One of the greatest differences today, as the Arab spring raises the hope that democracy will take seed across the Middle East, is that Hamas accepts elections (and, in fact, took power in Gaza in part because of them) while al Qaeda vehemently rejects them. For Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Ladin’s deputy and presumed heir-apparent, elections put man’s (and, even worse, woman’s) wishes above God’s. A democratic government could allow the sale of alcohol, cooperate militarily with the United States, permit women to dress immodestly, or a condone a host of other practices that extremists see as for

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(first published in the UK, 2009)
Advance Reader Copy supplied by the publisher.  Due on shelves in August.

"We must remember that once we divide the world into good and bad, then we have to join one camp or the other, and, as you've found out, life's a bit more complex than that."

Funny (or not so funny) - in searching for related links, further information and other reviews on Guantanamo Boy, I actually found myself wondering (worrying?) if my every passing stop along the Internet seeking information related to Guantanamo Bay will be tracked by some government official in a cubicle somewhere.  Just the fact that such a thought crossed my mind, is an indication of the intense fear, distrust and paranoia that is gripping our world because of terrorism.  With that worldwide fear and paranoia as a backdrop for Guantanamo Boy, Anna Perera has crafted an entirely plausible story about a 15-year-old British boy, Khalid, from Rochdale, a large town in Greater Manchester, England.

Khalid is much like any other boy from his town, interested in good grades, his mates, soccer ("footy"), girls, and online gaming.  Though his family is Muslim, Khalid is a casual practitioner.  When his family visits Pakistan to assist an aunt, Khalid's father inexplicably disappears.  Khalid goes to check the address where his father was last seen, threading his way through a street protest enroute.  Unable to find his father, he returns to his aunt's home where he is later kidnapped in the late night hours,

Surely only his dad could be coming through the door without knocking this time of night?

But he's badly mistaken. Blocking the hallway is a gang of fierce-looking men dressed in dark shalwar kameez.  Black cloths wrapped around their heads.  Black gloves on their hands.  Two angry blue eyes, the rest brown, burn into Khalid as the figures move towards him like cartoon gangsters with square bodies.  Confused by the image, he staggers, bumping backwards into the wall.  Arms up to stop them getting nearer.  Too shocked and terrified to react as they shoulder him to the kitchen and close the door before pushing him to his knees and waving a gun at him as if he's a violent criminal.  Then vice-like hands clamp his mouth tight until they plaster it with duct tape.  No chance to wonder what the hell is going on, let alone scream out loud.

And so begins Khalid's descent into a frightening labyrinth of secret prisons, interrogation rooms, and finally Guantanamo Bay detention center.
A few lengthy passages are didactic in nature, but they are few in number. Khalid's unique perspective as a boy, a British citizen and non-practicing Muslim of Pakistani descent, offers a superb vantage point into the previously termed War on Terror. His sensibilities are Western, his concerns are adolescent, his perspective is that of  outsider - he has known discrimination in England, he is too Western for his Pakistani relatives, he has little in common with his fellow inmates.  Khalid is the perfect protagonist for this third-person narrative.

Heart-wrenching and frighteningly enlightening, Guantanmo Boy is not without bright spots - the power of small acts of kindness, the love of family,

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By Toril Moi Like other Norwegians I am in shock at the terrible events in Oslo and at Utøya on 22 July. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. I was not in Norway when the horror happened. On 22 July, I was giving a talk about Ibsen’s 1873 play Emperor and Galilean at the National Theatre in London. I only learned about the bombing in Oslo and the massacre at Utøya later that night. When I discovered that the terrorist in Norway saw himself as

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By Charles Kurzman Last month, a few hours after a bomb exploded in downtown Oslo, I got a call from a journalist seeking comment. Why did Al Qaeda attack Norway? Why not a European country with a larger Muslim community, or a significant military presence in Muslim societies? I said I didn't know. A second media inquiry soon followed: Given NATO's involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the number of disaffected Muslims in Europe, why don't we see more attacks like the one in Norway? This question was more up my alley. I recently

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Carl R. Weinberg Editor, Magazine of History On Tuesday March 11, 2003, I was working in my office at North Georgia College and State University (NGCSU), when I received an email that I will never forget. It was sent to all faculty and staff on the campus listserv from one of my colleagues on the subject of “America's Defense.” His email noted that some of our

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By Andrew Staniforth For Americans, no act of terrorism compares to the attacks and from that moment the history of the United States has been divided into ‘Before 9/11’ and ‘After 9/11’. In lower Manhattan, on a field in Pennsylvania, and along the banks of the Potomac, the United States suffered its largest loss of life from an enemy attack on its own soil. Within just 102 minutes, four commercial jets would be simultaneously hijacked and used as weapons of mass destruction to kill ordinary citizens as part of a coordinated attack that would shape the first decade of a new century.

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Yemen is Oxford’s 2010 Place of the Year. As we’re sure you very well know, Yemen is on the front page of many newspapers now because of the increased influence of Al Qaeda and the recent bombing attempts that emerged from the small middle eastern country. However, the decision to choose Yemen as the POTY was made long before any of these developments reached our ears. Below, geographer Harm de Blij explains just why we found this country to be of particular interest not just in the year past, but as we look ahead. You can follow Yemen in the news here.

By Harm de Blij

International tensions have a way of thrusting small, faltering states into the global spotlight. When suicide bombers attacked, and very nearly sank, the American warship U.S.S. Cole in 2000 in Yemen’s south-coast port of Adan (Aden), this remote country on the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula drew the world’s attention for the least desirable of reasons. Once seen as a promising if fragile experiment in Muslim-Arab democracy and as a destination for adventure tourism, Yemen suddenly found itself at the center of concern about the threat of Islamic militancy and terrorism.

Yemen occupies a small, peripheral sector of the Arabian Peninsula, but its population very nearly matches (and by some estimates exceeds) that of its vast neighbor, Saudi Arabia. The country as it is seen on the map today, its boundaries with Saudi Arabia still contentious, is the product of a 1989 merger between two neighbors, the populous, tribal Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) in the northwest, bordering the Red Sea, and the communist-inspired People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen), facing the Gulf of Adan, in the south and east. This agreement, which took effect in 1990 to create the Republic of Yemen with its capital at Sana’a in the northern interior, soon collapsed in a political crisis that precipitated a civil war in 1994. South Yemen announced its secession, North Yemen’s forces advanced into the South and captured Adan, culpable politicians were killed or exiled, and the state was restored.

The physical geography of Yemen displays rugged, deeply incised mountains in the North, where ephemeral streams flow westward to the Red Sea coast and disappear eastward into interior deserts, and lower relief in the South, where coastal topography is also rugged but interior desert plains are more extensive. Much of the craggy, arid countryside lies remote from Yemen’s meager road system and effectively beyond the reach of its government, creating refuges for rebels and bandits who ambush officials, kidnap tourists for ransom, and, more recently, set up terrorist bases. As in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, relief, remoteness, and cultural traditions combine to protect jihadists.

Yemen’s relative location creates additional challenges. Its territory (about the size of France) includes the sizable island of Socotra in the Gulf

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By Alia Brahimi

The air freight bomb plot should be understood as part of al-Qaeda’s pervasive weakness rather than its strength. The intended targets, either a synagogue in Chicago and/or a UPS plane which would explode over a western city, were chosen as part of the attempt to re-focus al-Qaeda’s violence back towards western targets and pull the jihad away from the brink.

Indeed, things haven’t worked out the way Osama bin Laden hoped they would.

Quoting such diverse sources as Carl von Clausewitz, Mao Zedong, Vo Nguyen Giap and Peter Paret, al-Qaeda strategists had repeatedly emphasised the pivotal importance of attracting the support of the Muslim masses to the global jihad. For Abu Ubeid al-Qurashi, the absence of popular support meant that the mujahidin would be no more than a criminal gang. ‘It is absolutely necessary that the resistance transforms into a strategic phenomenon’, argued Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, time and time again.

However, despite the open goal handed to bin Laden by the US-led invasion of Iraq and the increased relevance and resonance of his anti-imperial rhetoric from 2003-2006, he failed to find the back of the net. His crow to Bush about Iraq being an ‘own goal’ was decidedly premature. The credibility of bin Laden’s claim to be acting in defence of Muslims exploded alongside the scores of suicide bombers dispatched to civilian centres with the direct intention of massacring swathes of (Muslim) innocents.

Moreover, where al-Qaeda in Iraq gained control over territory, as in the Diyala and Anbar provinces, the quality of life offered to the Iraqi people was a source of further alienation: music, smoking and shaving were banned, women were forced to take the veil, punishments for disobedience included rape, the chopping of hands and the beheading of children. Brutality was blended with farce as female goats were killed because their parts were not covered and their tails turned upward.

In the end, bin Laden’s ideology, which relied first and foremost on a (poetic) narrative of victimhood, became impossible to sustain. Bin Laden’s project is profoundly moral. He casts himself as the defender of basic freedoms. He eloquently portrays his jihad as entirely defensive and al-Qaeda as the vanguard group acting in defence of the umma. He maintains that all the conditions for a just war have been met.

In reality, however, all of his just war arguments – about just cause, right authority, last resort, necessity, the legitimacy of targeting civilians – are based on one fundamental assumption: that al-Qaeda is defending Muslims from non-Muslim aggressors. As such, it is essential that (1) al-Qaeda stops killing Muslims and (2) al-Qaeda starts hitting legitimate western targets and the regimes which enable the alleged western encroachment.

The emergence of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in January 2009 can be viewed as part of this end (much as the al-Qaeda-affiliated GSPC in Algeria formed in opposition to the moral bankruptcy of the GIA). Their publications favour targeted violence such as political assassinations and attacks within US military barracks such as that perpetrated by Major Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood. Their most high-profile operations have been an assault on the US embassy in Sana’a, an attempt to assassinate the Saudi security chief Mohammed bin Nayef, and the bid by the ‘underpants bomber’ to blow up a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

In Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQIP) have internalised lessons from Iraq and are seeking to keep the population and the tribes on side. Their statements articulate the political and social discontent of the populace. The leadership seems to subscribe to bin Laden’s argument that violence must be used strategically and not w

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In this two-part series, Michelle and Lauren explore some of the most hot-button issues in religion this past year.

Subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes!

Featured in Part 1:

Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ramadan Debate: Is Islam a Religion a Peace?

Highlights and exclusive interviews with Hitchens, Ramadan, & New York Times National Religion Correspondent  Laurie Goodstein

Read more and watch a video courtesy of the 92nd St Y HERE.

*     *     *     *     *

Nick Mafi, Oxford University Press employee extraordinaire

*     *     *     *     *

David Sehat, author of The Myth of American Religious Freedom

*     *     *     *     *

The Ben Daniels Band

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By Amos N. Guiora

Religious extremism poses the greatest danger to contemporary civil society.  The threat comes from religious extremists, not people of moderate faith. The recent suicide bombing by Islamic extremists killing 21 Copts in Egypt is a prime example.

Decision makers, the general public and people of moderate faith – whose faith does not lead them to kill others in the name of their god – must address how to minimize this palpable threat. Step one is recognizing the threat, although it may make us uncomfortable. Step two is involves proactive, concrete measures to protect society.  Society can say a collective “woe is me” or take aggressive proactive measures. The former is defeatist; the latter protects the innocent.

Religious extremist incitement is the primary source of this danger and the danger is clear: religious extremist inciters have done extraordinary harm to society.  Underage girls – in an internal community shockingly unprotected by government – are forced to marry and have sexual relations with adult males in the name of religious extremism pronounced by the Prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints.  A religious Jewish extremist assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Rabin after extremist rabbis placed a curse on Rabin, directly inciting the violent murder.  An extremist imam placed a fatwa on an Islamic Dutch politician who said Islam must come to grips with homosexuality.

Needless to say, multiple other examples abound, from right-wing extremist Christians killing abortion-performing physicians to extremist Jews burning mosques in the West Bank to Islamic terrorists committing suicide bombings targeting innocent civilians. All result from religious extremist incitement.

Limiting the ability of extremist faith leaders to incite their parishioners is the critical step.  Simply put, unabated incitement endangers society.  Monitoring and surveillance are effective, essential and lawful measures to negate the power of religious extremist speech to which society and law enforcement have largely granted immunity.

Nevertheless, these measures are problematic because of the potential to chill participation in religion.  Potential members may hesitate to join a congregation under surveillance and existing members may shy away from attending services.   Preachers, rabbis, imams and other religious leaders may not feel free to fully express their messages.

However, the clear and present danger religious extremist faith leaders pose demands an effective response.  Resolving the tension between justified surveillance and the cost associated with such surveillance is difficult, but it is essential to adequately protect the community. To that end, I recommend the following:

*Articulate clear guidelines for monitoring
*Enhance cooperation between law enforcement and clergy
*Adopt a heightened probable cause standard for monitoring Houses of Worship
*Articulate and enforce limits of free speech with respect to religious extremism

The monitoring and surveillance must not be arbitrary or capricious, but rather initiated narrowly and specifically in response to compelling evidence, including intelligence information, suggesting that a particular faith leader is inciting in the House of Worship.  This cautiousness will ensure that due process and equal protection standards and obligations are met.

Without this sober analysis, the inevitable chilling effect will be unwarranted and therefore unconstitutional.  

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By Simon McKay

 

In 1928 the iconic United States Supreme Court Justices Holmes and Brandeis dissented in a judgment that ruled the product of telephone conversations derived from “wiretapping” admissible. With characteristic eloquence, Mr Justice Brandeis held that “the confined criminal is as much entitled to redress as his most virtuous fellow citizen; no record of crime, however long, makes one an outlaw”. The judges could be forgiven for thinking that, at least in terms of the English law, eighty years on, things haven’t changed much.

There is a connection between the phone hacking row, which appears to be the preserve of celebrities who fear their calls may have been listened into and the changes to control orders, inelegantly re-named Terrorism Prevention and Investigatory Measures. On the one hand, there is a gaggle of media lawyers and their clients complaining that the Metropolitan Police has failed to take action against individuals eavesdropping on the most private of conversations and on the other the same material is secretly relied upon by the State to confine individuals, who have not been convicted of any offence, to effective house arrest and to impose other Orwellian sanctions. The apparent juxtaposition becomes manifest; the police and agencies rely on the material to counter terrorism, yet appear impotent in terms of investigating allegations of what is given the seemingly neutral term of phone hacking.

There needs to be some attempt to de-mystify what is meant by phone hacking, sometimes referred to as phone tapping. It is clear that practically what is meant is eavesdropping on voicemail messages.

Previously the police have asserted they could not rely on the evidence provided on the ground that it is not admissible. This is a reference to a legal provision in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 that prohibits the use of intercept product in court proceedings. However, it has been misunderstood. The prohibition largely relates to product of intercept warrants that the State obtains to protect national security and investigate other threats as well as serious crime – this is why terror suspects aren’t prosecuted in the criminal courts – the intelligence implicating them cannot be used for this purpose. It expressly does not apply where an illegal interception has occurred.

But is a third party listening to a voicemail an interception? The simple answer is that it might be, particularly if it has not been listened to (if it is, it is a criminal offence) but if it is not, it is almost certainly an offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. Where such offences may have been committed there is no question that the incident and evidence of interception or hacking is admissible and capable of being used by the police. Even if there was an argument to the contrary, the consent of the “victim” alleviates any remaining difficulty concerning the issue (if an individual consents to their calls being intercepted the prohibition on admissibility no longer applies).

To fair to the police, the highest courts in the land have found the question of what may amount to an interception “particularly puzzling” and the legislation “difficult to understand”. It is almost impenetrable but that is not really any excuse.

Add to this the fact that the law in this area is under review (again). A cynic could muse what all the fuss is about; surely the simplest thing would be to make the product of intercept admissible, even i

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Michael Scheuer was the chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999 and remained a counterterrorism analyst until 2004. He is the author of many books, including the bestselling Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terrorism. His latest book is the biography Osama bin Laden, a much-needed corrective, hard-headed, closely reasoned portrait that tracks the man’s evolution from peaceful Saudi dissident to America’s Most Wanted.

Among the extensive media attention both the book and Scheuer have received so far, he was interviewed on The Colbert Report just this week.

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Michael Scheuer
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

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