After Benazir Bhutto became Pakistani prime minister in 1988, Pakistan “committed to furthering Islamism in the heart of Asia, seeing it as the sole ideology capable of containing and reversing the breakup of Pakistan along ethno-national lines.” So wrote in 1999 House Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare Director Yossef Bodansky about how Pakistan’s […]
Islam’s Religion of Power
“Religiously motivated to the extreme, Islamists usually rally around charismatic religious leaders for guidance and motivation,” wrote Yossef Bodansky in his 1999 book, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America. Contrary to common claims that Islam means peace, this House Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare director emphasized the role that political […]
Jihad’s Afghan Base
In Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, the “United States was convinced that it was supporting a genuine national liberation struggle, albeit with a strong Islamic foundation,” wrote Yossef Bodansky in 1999. In reality, as this House Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare Director analyzed in his book, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on […]
Scholars’ Ink, Martyrs’ Blood in Afghanistan
Rice University sociology professor Craig Considine, a self-proclaimed “Islamic apologist,” likes to quote the dubious hadith that the “ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.” In his argumentation, this canonical narrative about Islam’s prophet Muhammad evinces Islam’s pacific nature, yet Muslim scholars often inspire the shedding of martyrs’ […]
From Egypt with Jihad
“In the mid-1970s unfolding events in Egypt—the undisputed leader of the Arab world and politics—were also having a major impact on the Saudi educated elite,” wrote Yossef Bodansky in his 1999 book, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America. As the then-House Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare director discussed, previously examined […]
Saudi Arabia between Machiavelli and Muhammad
House Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare Director Yossef Bodansky described Saudi Arabia’s monarchy as “cynically pragmatic” in his 1999 book, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America. As he documented, the life of the terrorist-mastermind Osama bin Laden exemplified how rulers in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh have often instrumentalized religious zeal […]
Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden Between God and Mammon
“Had he followed the path chosen for him by his father, [Osama] bin Laden could have been a respected building contractor in Saudi Arabia and a billionaire in his own right,” wrote in 1999 Yossef Bodansky. In his pre-9/11 book, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, the then director of the House […]
Islam’s Crisis and Osama bin Laden
In 1999, House Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare director Yossef Bodansky noted that “starting in the late 1970s, Islamist thinkers could see no way out of the crisis of Islam except for an all-out confrontation with the West.” His pre-9/11 book, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, remains revealing and […]
UNRWA’s Jew-Hatred
The group End Jew Hatred hosted a protest outside the Washington, DC, offices of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugges in the Near East (UNRWA) on November 19. End Jew Hatred demonstrated against UNRWA’s promotion of antisemitic hatred of Israel and Jews in UNRWA schools for “refugee” Palestinian children. These are […]
Duke Professor’s Distorted Lens into Israel/Palestinian Conflict
Israel exhibits a “colonial systematology about nativeness” in the treatment of online smartphone pictures of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stated Duke University associate professor of anthropology Rebecca Stein during a Nov. 4 webinar. This presentation, at George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies (IMES). of her new book, Screen Shots: State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine, exposed her […]