Rise of Terrorism by Sam Wu

RISE OF TERRORISM

RISE OF TERRORISM 3 ARTICLES & 1 INTERVIEW WITH BRIGGITTE GABRIEL

Contents The Evolution of Islamic Terrorism 11 The Rise of Settler Terrorism 33 The Rise and Threat of Radical Islam 57

9.11

The Evolution of Islamic Terrorism BY JOHN MOORE

n the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., the threat of militant Islamic terrorism — rooted in the Middle East and South Asia — has taken center stage. While these extremely violent religious extremists represent a minority view, their threat is real. As pointed out by RAND’s Bruce Hoffman, in 1980 two out of 64 groups were categorized as largely religious in motivation; in 1995 almost half of the identified groups, 26 out of 56, were classified as religiously motivated; the majority of these espoused Islam as their guiding force. To better understand the roots and threat of militant Islam, here’s a closer look at how modern terrorism has evolved in the Middle East and South Asia.

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The 1970s - Groups focus on material damage and limited attacks aimed at killing individuals while an increasing number of urban incidents, using lessons from guerrilla conflicts elsewhere, occur.

19 6 8â&#x20AC;&#x201D;1 979 the dawn of modern international terrorism The colonial era, failed post-colonial attempts at state formation, and the creation of Israel engendered a series of Marxist and anti-Western transformations and movements throughout the Arab and Islamic world. The growth of these nationalist and revolutionary movements, along with their view that terrorism could be effective in reaching political goals, generated the first phase of modern international terrorism. â&#x20AC;&#x192; In the late 1960s Palestinian secular movements such as Al Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) began to target civilians outside the immediate arena of conflict. Following Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1967 defeat of Arab forces, Palestinian leaders realized that the Arab world was unable to militarily confront Israel. At the same time, lessons drawn from revolutionary movements in Latin America, North Africa, Southeast Asia as well as during the Jewish struggle against Britain in Palestine, saw the Palestinians move away from classic guer-

1968—1979

Terrorist and criminal attacks targeting children:

18 March 1968 A school bus in the Negev desert, Israel, struck a landmine set by Fatah terrorists. Two children were killed and 28 children injured.

15 May 1974 27 killed, 134 injured in attack on Ma’alot; terrorists killed 2 people in initial attack and took 90 children hostage.

22 May 1970 12 killed, 19 injured in attack on school bus with three bazooka rockets in Avivim, Israel.

3 February 1976 36 killed in hostage taking of school bus in Djibouti.

11 April 1974 18 killed (including 8 children), 16 injured in attack by three terrorists on residential building in Qiryat Shemona, Israel

20 August 1978 A group of Islamic extremists set fire to a crowded theater in Abadan, Iran. Total fatalities were about 477, including many youth.

rilla, typically rural-based, warfare toward urban terrorism. Radical Palestinians took advantage of modern communication and transportation systems to internationalize their struggle. They launched a series of hijackings, kidnappings, bombings, and shootings, culminating in the kidnapping and subsequent deaths of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympic games. These Palestinian groups became a model for numerous secular militants, and offered lessons for subsequent ethnic and religious movements. Palestinians created an extensive transnational extremist network — tied into which were various state sponsors such as the Soviet Union, certain Arab states, as well as traditional criminal organizations. By the end of the 1970s, the Palestinian secular network was a major channel for the spread of terrorist techniques worldwide. While these secular Palestinians dominated the scene during the

Global worst terrorist attacks:

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18 May 1973 Mid-air boming of Aeroflot Airliner, Siberia 4 Dec. 1977 Crash of Hijacked Malaysian Airliner near Malaysia

20 Aug. 19 1978 Arson of Theater in Abadan, Iran 20 Nov. - 5 Dec 1979 Hostage taking at Grand Mosque in Mecca (Includes 87 terrorists killed

1970s, religious movements also grew. The failure of Arab nationalism in the 1967 war resulted in the strengthening of both progressive and extremist Islamic movements. In the Middle East, Islamic movements increasingly came into opposition with secular nationalism, providing an alternative source of social welfare and education in the vacuum left by the lack of government-led development — a key example is The Muslim Brotherhood. Islamic groups were supported by anti-nationalist conservative regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, to counter the expansion of nationalist ideology. Yet political Islam, [2] more open to progressive change, was seen as a threat to conservative Arab regimes and thus support for more fundamentalist — and extremist — groups occurred to combat both nationalist and political Islamist movements. Meanwhile, in Iran, a turn to revolutionary Shia Islam under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini further eroded the power and legitimacy of the U.S.-backed authoritarian Pahlevi regime, setting the stage for the Shah’s downfall.

1 9 6 8 â&#x20AC;&#x201D;1 979

Islamic terror attacks in America:

14 April 1972 Ten members of a local mosque phone in a false alarm and then ambush responding officers, killing one in New York, NY. 19 Jan. 1973 Muslim extremists rob a sporting goods store for weapons, gunning down a police officer who responds to the alarm in Brooklyn, NY. 20 Dec. 1973 Nation of Islam terrorists gun down an 81-year-old janitor in Oakland, CA.

24 Jan. 1974 Five vicious shooting attacks by Nation of Islam terrorists leave three people dead and one paralyzed for life. Three of the victims were women in Oakland, CA 1 April 1974 A Nation of Islam terrorist shoots at two Salvation Army members, killing a man and injuring a woman in Oakland, CA 9 March 1997 Hanifi Muslims storm three buildings including a B'nai B'rith to hold 134 people hostage. At least two innocents were shot and one died in Washinton, DC.

Key radical Palestinian groups Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) The PFLP, one of the original members of the PLO, [1] is a Marxist-Leninist group founded in 1967 by George Habash. The group was against the 1993 Declaration of Principles; participation in the PLO was also suspended. Participated in meetings with Arafatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fatah party and PLO representatives in 1999 to discuss national unity but continues to oppose negotiations with Israel. Committed numerous international terrorist attacks during the 1970s, has allegedly been involved in attacks against Israel since the beginning of the second intifadah in September 2000. Syria has been a key source of safe haven and limited logistical support.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) This group, led by Ahmed Jibril, split from the PFLP in 1968, wanting to focus more on terrorist than political action; violently opposed to the PLO and is closely tied to Syria and Iran. The PFLP-GC conducted multiple attacks in Europe and the Middle East during the 1970s and 1980s. Unique in that it conducted cross-border operations against Israel using unusual means, including hot-air balloons and motorized hang gliders. Currently focused on smallscale attacks in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip.

Total terrorist attacks in the United States:

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1970

1978

About 470 terrorist attacks in the US.

About 90 terrorist attacks in the US.

1972 About 60 terrorist attacks in the US.

1974 About 70 terrorist attacks in the US.

1976 About 130 terrorist attacks in the US.

Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) Anti-Western and anti-Israel international terrorist organization led by Sabri al-Banna; left the PLO in 1974. Organizational structure composed of various functional committees, including political, military, and financial. The ANO has carried out terrorist attacks in 20 countries, killing or injuring almost 900 persons. Targets have included the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, moderate Palestinians, the PLO, and various Arab countries. Major attacks included the Rome and Vienna airports in December 1985, the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul

and the Pan Am flight 73 hijacking in Karachi in September 1986, and the City of Poros day-excursion ship attack in Greece in July 1988. Suspected of assassinating PLO deputy chief Abu Iyad and PLO security chief Abu Hul in Tunis in January 1991. ANO assassinated a Jordanian diplomat in Lebanon in January 1994. Has not attacked Western targets since the late 1980s. Al-Banna relocated to Iraq in December 1998, where the group maintains a presence. Financial problems and internal disorganization have reduced the groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capabilities; activities shut down in Libya and Egypt in 1999.

The 1980s - A distinct move toward urban-based attacks with a subsequent increase in collateral casualties as well as a change in targeting methodology; civilians become the target. Superpower conflict in Afghanistan becomes a formative period in the proliferation of weapons and emergence of militant, fundamentalist Islam.

1979—1 9 9 1 the afghan jihad and state sponsors of terrorism The year 1979 was a turning point in international terrorism. Throughout the Arab world and the West, the Iranian Islamic revolution sparked fears of a wave of revolutionary Shia Islam. Meanwhile, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent anti-Soviet mujahedeen war, lasting from 1979 to 1989, stimulated the rise and expansion of terrorist groups. Indeed, the growth of a post-jihad pool of well-trained, battle-hardened militants is a key trend in contemporary international terrorism and insurgency-related violence. Volunteers from various parts of the Islamic world fought in Afghanistan, supported by conservative countries such as Saudi Arabia. In Yemen, for instance, the Riyadhbacked Islamic Front was established to provide financial, logistical, and training support for Yemeni volunteers. So called “Arab-Afghans” have — and are — using their experience to support local insurgencies

Terrorist and criminal attacks targeting children:

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7 April 1980 Five terrorists attack Misgav Am Kibbutz, Israel and take 9 infants hostage in a children’s dormitory. Soldiers killed the terrorists in a rescue operation during which one child was killed and four children injured. Another two people (including one soldier) were killed and 12 injured.

17 Jan. 1989 An individual using a AK-47 fired into children playing in the playground of Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California. Five children, ages 6 to 9, were killed and 29 others injured, as well as one teacher. The assailant then shot and killed himself.

16 May 1986 A couple took 150 hostages in a school in Cokeville, Wyoming. Children were forced to surround a homemade bomb while the couple demanded a ransom. The bomb accidentally exploded, killing the female terrorist and injuring many children; the male terrorist, in another room at the time, killed himself.

in North Africa, Kashmir, Chechnya, China, Bosnia, and the Philippines. In the West, attention was focused on state sponsorship, specifically the Iranian-backed and Syrian-supported Hezbollah; state sponsors’ use of secular Palestinian groups was also of concern. [3] Hezbollah pioneered the use of suicide bombers in the Middle East, and was linked to the 1983 bombing and subsequent deaths of 241 U.S. marines in Beirut, Lebanon, as well as multiple kidnappings of U.S. and Western civilians and government officials. Hezbollah remains a key trainer of secular, Shia, and Sunni movements. As revealed during the investigation into the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Libyan intelligence officers were allegedly involved with the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command (PFLP-GC). Iraq and Syria were heavily involved in supporting various terrorist groups, with Baghdad using the Abu Nidal Organization on several occasions. State sponsors

1 979 —1 9 9 1

Global worst terrorist attacks:

23 Sep. 1983 Crash of Gulf Air Flight Following mid-air bombing over the UAE

21 April 1987 Bombing of bus depot in Columbo, Sri Lanka

23 Oct. 1983 Truck bombing of U.S Marine and French barracks, Beirut, Lebanon

23 Jun. 1985 Mid-air bombing of Air India flight off Ireland, and attempted bombing of flight in Canada

14 May 1985 Armed attack on crowds in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

18 April 1987 Roadway Ambush near Alut Oya, Sri Lanka

23 Jun. 1985 Mid-air bombing of Air India flight off Ireland, and attempted bombing of flight in Canada

21 April 1987 Bombing of bus depot in Columbo, Sri Lanka

18 April 1987 Roadway Ambush near Alut Oya, Sri Lanka

29 Nov. 1987 Mid-air bombing of Korean Air flight near Burma

used terrorist groups to attack Israeli as well as Western interests, in addition to domestic and regional opponents. It should be noted that the American policy of listing state sponsors was heavily politicized, and did not include several countries — both allies and opponents of Washington — that, under U.S. government definitions, were guilty of supporting or using terrorism.

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21 Dec. 1988 Mid-Air bombing of Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland

13 Aug. 1990 Armed attack at Mosque in Eravur, Sri Lanka

19 Sep. 1989 Mid-air bombing of French UTA flight near Bilma, Niger

2 Oct. 1990 Crash of Hijacked PRC Airliner in Guangzhou, PRC

27 Nov. 1989 Mid-air bombing of Avianca flight in Bogota, Columbia 3 Aug. 1990 Armed attack at two Mosques in Kathankudy, Sri Lanka

Key radical Palestinian groups Hezbollah Radical Shia group formed in 1982 in Lebanon. Strongly anti-Western and antiIsraeli. Closely allied with, and often directed by, Iran but may have conducted operations that were not approved by Tehran. Known or suspected to have been involved in numerous anti-U.S. terrorist attacks, including the suicide truck bombing of the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983 and the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut in September 1984. Elements of the group were responsible for the kidnapping and deten-

tion of U.S. and other Western hostages in Lebanon. The group also attacked the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992 and is a suspect in the 1994 bombing of the Israeli cultural center in Buenos Aires. Operates in the Bekaa Valley, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and southern Lebanon. Has established cells in Europe, Africa, South America, North America, and Asia. Receives substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid from Iran and Syria.

1 979 – 1 9 9 1

Islamic terror attacks in America:

22 July 1980 A political dissident is shot and killed in front of his home by an Iranian agent who was an American convert to Islam in Bethesda, MD

31 Jan. 1990 A Sunni cleric is assassinated in front of a Tuscon mosque after declaring that two verses of the Qur’an were invalid in Tuscon, AZ.

31 Aug. 1980 An Iranian student guns down his next-door neighbors, a husband and wife in Savou, IL.

5 Nov. 1990 An Israeli rabbi is shot to death by a Muslim attacker at a hotel in New York City, NY.

11 June 1989 A 17-year-old girl is stabbed to death by her parents for bringing ‘dishonor’ to their family by dating an ‘infidel’ African-American in St. Louis, MO.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) The PIJ, emerging from radical Gazan Palestinians in the 1970s, is apparently a series of loosely affiliated factions rather than a cohesive group. The PIJ focus is the destruction of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian Islamic state. Due to Washington’s support of Israel, the PIJ has threatened to strike American targets; the PIJ has not “specifically” conducted attacks against U.S. interests; Arab regimes deemed as un-Islamic are also threatened. The group has stated its willingness to hit American targets in Jordan. PIJ cadres reportedly receive funding from Tehran and logistical support from Syria.

Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) Emerging from the Muslim Brotherhood during the first Palestinian intifadah (1987), HAMAS has become the primary anti-Israeli religious opposition in the occupied territories. The group is mainly known for its use of suicide bombers and is loosely organized, with centers of strength in Gaza and certain areas in the West Bank. HAMAS, while condemning American policies favoring Israel, has not targeted the U.S. directly.

Total terrorist attacks in the United States:

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1980

1988

About 70 terrorist attacks in the US.

About 30 terrorist attacks in the US.

1982

1990

About 80 terrorist attacks in the US.

About 35 terrorist attacks in the US.

1984 About 50 terrorist attacks in the US.

1986 About 45 terrorist attacks in the US.

Al-Gamaat Al-Islamiyya (IG - the Islamic Group, al-Gama’at, Islamic Gama’at, Egyptian al-Gama’at al-Islamiyya, GI) The IG, begun in the 1970s, is the largest of the Egyptian militant groups. Its core goal is the overthrow of the Cairo regime and creation of an Islamic state. The IG appears to be a more loosely organized entity than the EIJ, and maintains a globally present external wing. IG leadership signed Usama Bin Ladin’s February 1998 anti-U.S. fatwa but has denied supporting UBL. Shaykh Umar Abd al-Rahman is al-Gama’at’s spiritual leader, and thus

the U.S. has been threatened with attack. From 1993 until the cease-fire, alGama’a launched attacks on tourists in Egypt, most notably the attack in November 1997 at Luxor that killed 58 foreign tourists. Also claimed responsibility for the attempt in June 1995 to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Has a worldwide presence, including Sudan, the United Kingdom, Afghanistan, Austria, and Yemen. The Egyptian Government believes that Iran, Bin Ladin, and Afghan militant groups support the organization.

The 1990s - The trend toward directly targeting civilians continues, and gains even greater currency as ethno-nationalist, religious, and religio-nationalist actors fill the void left by the demise or decrease in leftist organizations. The end of the Cold War and the creation of new states, the leaving of certain states in unstable or anarchic conditions, give impetus to the rise of a new set of extremists whose ideology or motivations allow, or even call for, indiscriminate targeting.

19 91—2 0 0 1 the globalization of terror The disintegration of post-Cold War states, and the Cold War legacy of a world awash in advanced conventional weapons and know-how, has assisted the proliferation of terrorism worldwide. Vacuums of stability created by conflict and absence of governance in areas such as the Balkans, Afghanistan, Colombia, and certain African countries offer ready made areas for terrorist training and recruitment activity, while smuggling and drug trafficking routes are often exploited by terrorists to support operations worldwide. With the increasing ease of transnational transportation and communication, the continued willingness of states such as Iran and Iraq to provide support, and dehumanizing ideologies that enable mass casualty attacks, the lethal potential of terrorist violence has reached new heights. The region of Afghanistan — it is not a country in the conventional sense — has, particularly since the 1989 Soviet withdrawal, emerged as

Terrorist and criminal attacks targeting children:

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17 March 1992 A suicide car bomb exploded at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The explosion destroyed or severely damaged the embassy building, a nearby Catholic primary school, and a nearby Catholic church. Many of the 29 killed were Argentine students at the school; 252 were injured. 19 April 1995 At 9:02 AM a explosion from a truck bomb caused the partial collapse of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The explosion resulted from a 2,000-kg ammonium nitrate/fuel oil bomb in a truck parked in front of the building. 168 wer killed (15 children); 675 were injured.

13 March 1996 Thomas Hamilton entered the Dunblane Primary School in Dunblane, Scotland, shooting students and teachers in the school gym before shooting and killing himself. Sixteen children ages 4 to 5 were killed along with 1 teacher; another 10 children and 2 teachers were injured. 24 March 1998 Two students engaged in a shooting attack on Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas. After one of the pair pulled a fire alarm, prompting evacuation of the school, the two students fired on students and teachers leaving the building. 4 students and 1 teacher were killed; 9 students and two adults were injured.

a terrorist training ground. Pakistan, struggling to balance its needs for political-economic reform with a domestic religious agenda, provides assistance to terrorist groups both in Afghanistan and Kashmir while acting as a further transit area between the Middle East and South Asia. â&#x20AC;&#x192; Since their emergence in 1994, the Pakistani-supported Taliban militia in Afghanistan has assumed several characteristics traditionally associated with state-sponsors of terrorism, providing logistical support, travel documentation, and training facilities. Although radical groups such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Osama bin Ladenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Al Qaeda, and Kashmiri militants were in Afghanistan prior to the Taliban, the spread of Taliban control has seen Afghan-based terrorism evolve into a relatively coordinated, widespread activity focused on sustaining and developing terrorist capabilities. Since the mid-1990s, Pakistani-backed terrorist groups fighting in Kashmir have increasingly used training camps

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29 Oct. 1998 A terrorist attempted bombing of school bus in Gaza. The terrorist detonated the bomb, killing himself and 1 soldier in the jeep. Injured included two others in the jeep, 3 children, and 3 other adults. 20 April 1999 Two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, engagd in a shooting attack on their school, Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. They committed suicide in the library. 15 were killed. 27 were injured. 20 Nov. 2000 2 killed, 9 injured (including 5 children) by roadside bomb exploding next to a school bus near Gush Katif at 7:30 AM.

8 June 2001 Mamoru Takuma enters Ikeda Elementary School in Ikeda, Japan, and attacks students with a kitchen knife. 8 students were killed, and 13 were injured along with 2 teachers. 8 June 2001 Mamoru Takuma enters Ikeda Elementary School in Ikeda, Japan, and attacks students with a kitchen knife. 8 students were killed, and 13 were injured along with 2 teachers. 4 Sept. 2001 20 injured in suicide bombing near school in Jerusalem, Israel. The terrorist detonated his bomb outside the school.

inside Taliban-controlled areas. At the same time, members of these groups, as well as thousands of youths from Pakistanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), have fought with the Taliban against opposition forces. This activity has seen the rise of extremism in parts of Pakistan neighboring Afghanistan, further complicating the ability of Islamabad to exert control over militants. Moreover, the intermixing of Pakistani movements with the Taliban and their Arab-Afghan allies has seen ties between these groups strengthen. â&#x20AC;&#x192; Since 1989 the increasing willingness of religious extremists to strike targets outside immediate country or regional areas underscores the global nature of contemporary terrorism. The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, are representative of this trend.

Global worst terrorist attacks:

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12 March 1993 15 Bombings in Bombay, India 22 Sept. 1993 Crash of Airliner struck by missile in Sukhumi, Georgia 19 April 1995 Truck bombing of federal building, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA 14—19 June 1996 Hostage taking in Budennovsk, Russia, and two failed rescue attempts 23 Nov. 1996 Crash of Hijacked Ethiopian Air fligjt off Comoros

29 Aug. 1997 Attacks at Sidi Moussa and Hais Rais, Algeria 22 Sept. 1997 Attack at Ben Talha, Algeria 30 Dec. 1997 Attack at Ami Moussa, Algeria 4 Jan. 1998 Attacks at Had Chekala, Remka, and Ain Tarik, Algeria 11 Jan. 1998 Attack on movie theater and Mosque at Sidi Hamed, Algeria

Key radical Palestinian groups Al-Qaeda (The Base) Established by Usama Bin Ladin (UBL) circa 1990, Al Qaeda aims to coordinate a transnational mujahideen network; stated goal is to “reestablish the Muslim State” throughout the world via the overthrow of corrupt regimes in the Islamic world and the removal of foreign presence - primarily American and Israeli - from the Middle East. UBL has issued three anti-U.S. fatwas encouraging Muslims to take up arms against Washington’s “imperialism.” Al Qaeda provides financial, manpower, transportation, and training support to extremists worldwide. In February 1998 bin Ladin issued a statement under the banner of “The World Islamic Front for Jihad Against The Jews and Crusaders,”

saying it was the duty of all Muslims to kill U.S. citizens, civilian or military, and their allies. Allegedly orchestrated the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, on August 7, 1998. Claims to have been involved in the 1993 killing of U.S. servicemen in Somalia and the December 1992 bombings against U.S. troops in Aden, Yemen. Al Qaeda serves as the core of a loose umbrella organization that includes members of many Sunni Islamic extremist groups, including factions of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), the Gama’at al-Islamiyya (IG), and the Harakat ulMujahidin (HUM). The group is a prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks as well as the U.S.S Cole bombing.

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8 Aug. 1998 Truck bombiing of U.S embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar Es Saalam, Tanzania 4 Jan. 1998 Attacks at Had Chekala, Remka, and Ain Tarik, Algeria 11 Jan. 1998 Attack on movie theater and Mosque at Sidi Hamed, Algeria

13 Sept. 1999 Bombing of apartment building in Moscow, Russia 10 Aug. 2001 Attack on train south of Luanda, Angola 11 Sept. 2001 Crashing of planes into WTC, New York, Pentagon in Virginia, and Pennsylvania, USA

8 Aug. 1998 Truck bombiing of U.S embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar Es Saalam, Tanzania

Armed Islamic Group (GIA) Having initiated terrorist activities in 1992 following Algiers refusal to accept a democratically elected Islamist government, the GIA has conducted multiple mass killings of civilians and assassinations of Algerian leaders. While present in areas such as Yemen, the GIA reportedly does not target the U.S. directly. However, it is possible that GIA splinter movements or personnel may become involved in anti-U.S. action.

Aden-Abyan Islamic Army (AAIA) The Aden-Abyan Islamic Army is allegedly affiliated to the Yemeni Islamic Jihad and has been implicated in acts of violence with the stated goal to “hoist the banner of al-Jihad, and fight secularism in Yemen and the Arab countries.” Aden-Abyan Islamic Army leader Zein al-Abideen al-Mehdar was executed for participating in the December 1998 kidnapping of 16 Western tourists. Four of the hostages were killed and another 13 hostages were freed when Yemeni security forces attacked the place where the hostages were being held. In March 1999 the group warned the U.S. and British ambassadors in Yemen to leave immediately.

Islamic terror attacks in America:

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25 Jan. 1993 A Pakistani with Mujahideen ties guns down two CIA agents outside of the headquarters in Langley, VA. 26 Feb. 1993 Islamic terrorists detonate a massive truck bomb under the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring over 1,000 in an effort to collapse the towers in New York, NY. 1 March 1994 A Muslim gunman targets a van packed with Jewish boys, killing a 16-year-old in Brooklyn, NY.

Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM) Formerly part of the Harakat al-Ansar (HUA), the Pakistani-based HUM operates primarily in Kashmir. Long-time leader of the group, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, in mid-February stepped down; the popular Kashmiri commander and second-in-command, Farooq Kashmiri, assumed the reigns. Khalil, who has been linked to Bin Ladin and signed his fatwa in February 1998 calling for attacks on U.S. and Western interests, assumed the

23 March 1997 A Palestinian leaves an anti-Jewish suicide note behind and travels to the top of the Empire State building where he shoot seven people in a Fedayeen attack in New York, NY. 3 April 1997 A prison guard is stabbed to death by a radical Muslim in Lompoc, CA. 17 March 2000 A local imam and Muslim spiritual leader guns down a deputy sheriff and injures his partner in Atlanta, GA.

position of HUM Secretary General. The HUM is linked to the militant group alFaran that kidnapped five Western tourists in Kashmir in July 1995; one was killed in August 1995 and the other four reportedly were killed in December of the same year. Supporters are mostly Pakistanis and Kashmiris and also include Afghans and Arab veterans of the Afghan war. The HUM trains its militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

1991–2001

11 Sept. 2001 Islamic hijackers steer two planes packed with fuel and passengers into the World Trade Center, killing hundreds on impact and eventually killing thousands when the towers collapsed. At least 200 are seriously injured in New York.

11 Sept. 2001 Nearly 200 people are killed when Islamic hijackers steer a plane full of people into the Pentagon in Washington, DC

Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) The Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) has greatly expanded since Maulana Masood Azhar, a former ultra-fundamentalist Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA) leader, formed the group in February 2000. The group’s aim is to unite Kashmir with Pakistan. It is politically aligned with the radical, pro-Taliban, political party, Jamiat-i Ulema-i Islam (JUI-F). The

JEM maintains training camps in Afghanistan. Most of the JEM’s cadre and material resources have been drawn from the militant groups Harakat ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI) and the Harakat ul-Mujahedin (HUM). The JEM has close ties to Afghan Arabs and the Taliban. Usama Bin Ladin is suspected of giving funding to the JEM. Group by this name claimed responsibility for the USS Cole attack.

Total terrorist attacks in the UnitedStates:

TH E E VO LU TI O N O F I S L A M I C T E R R O R I S M

1992

1999

About 35 terrorist attacks in the US.

About 48 terrorist attacks in the US.

1995

2001

About 60 terrorist attacks in the US.

About 40 terrorist attacks in the US.

1997

2003

About 40 terrorist attacks in the US.

About 30 terrorist attacks in the US.

Lashkar-i-Taiba (LT) (Army of the Righteous) The LT is the armed wing of the Pakistanbased religious organization, Markaz-udDawa-wal-Irshad (MDI)â&#x20AC;&#x201C;a Sunni antiU.S. missionary organization formed in 1989. One of the three largest and besttrained groups fighting in Kashmir against

India, it is not connected to a political party. The LT leader is MDI chief, Professor Hafiz Mohammed Saeed. Almost all LT cadres are foreignersâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;mostly Pakistanis from seminaries across the country and Afghan veterans of the Afghan wars. The LT trains its militants in mobile training camps across Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Afghanistan.

33 Footnotes [1] Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Al Fatah EThe PLO was founded in 1964 as a Palestinian nationalist umbrella organization committed to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, militia groups composing the PLO vied for control, with Al Fatah – led by Yasser Arafat – becoming dominant. Al Fatah joined the PLO in 1968 and won the leadership role in 1969. In 1969 Arafat assumed the position of PLO Executive Committee chairman, a position he still holds. Al Fatah essentially became the PLO, with other groups’ influence on PLO actions increasingly marginalized. Al Fatah and other PLO components were pushed out of Jordan following clashes with Jordanian forces in 1970-71. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 led to the group’s dispersal to several Middle Eastern countries, including Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Iraq, and others. The PLO maintains several military and intelligence wings that have carried out terrorist attacks, including Force 17 and the Western Sector. Two of its leaders, Abu Jihad and Abu Iyad, were assassinated in recent years. In the 1960s and the 1970s, Al Fatah offered training to a wide range of European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African terrorist and insurgent groups and carried out numerous acts of international terrorism in Western Europe and the Middle East in the early-to-middle 1970s. Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles (DOP) with Israel in 1993 – the Oslo Accords – and renounced terrorism and violence. The organization fragmented in the early 1980s, but remained the leading Palestinian political organization. Following the 1993 Oslo Accords, the PLO – read Al Fatah – leadership assumed control of the nascent Palestinian National Authority (PNA).

[2] Political versus Fundamentalist Islam Political Islam, as opposed to fundamentalist or neo-fundamentalist Islam, posits a worldview that can deal with and selectively integrate modernity. In contrast, fundamentalist Islam calls for a return to an ontological form of Islam that rejects modernity; groups such as Al Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad are representative of fundamentalist Islam. [3] A Note on State Sponsors of Religious Terror Groups Unlike the “secular” national, radical, anarchist terrorism sponsored by states such as Libya, Syria, Iraq, Cuba, North Korea, and behind the scenes by the former Soviet camp, most of the Islamic terrorist groups have never been sponsored by states. Many Egyptian organizations emerged from the Egyptian domestic landscape. Algerian groups likewise were not sponsored by foreign states. Hezbollah certainly can be viewed as an Iranian surrogate, but other movements, while open to state assistance, remain operationally and ideologically independent.

2,996

PEOPLE KILLED BY RADICAL MUSILMS ON 9/11

The Rise of Settler Terrorism The West Bank’s Other Violent Extremist BY DANIEL BYMAN & NATAN SACHS

ate this past June, a group of Israeli settlers in the West Bank defaced and burned a mosque in the small West Bank village of Jabaa. Graffiti sprayed by the vandals warned of a “war” over the planned evacuation, ordered by the Israeli Supreme Court, of a handful of houses illegally built on private Palestinian land near the Israeli settlement of Beit El. The torching of the mosque was the fourth such attack in 18 months and part of a wider trend of routine violence committed by radical settlers against innocent Palestinians, Israeli security personnel, and mainstream settler leaders — all aimed at intimidating perceived enemies of the settlement project. This violence has not always plagued the settler community. Although many paint all Israeli settlers as extremists, conflating them with the often-justified criticism of Israeli government policy in the West Bank, the vast majority of them oppose attacks against Pales-

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tinian civilians or the Israeli state. In the past, Israeli authorities and the settler leadership often worked together to prevent such assaults and keep radicalism at bay. Yet in recent years, the settler movement has experienced a profound breakdown in discipline, with extremists now beyond the reach of either Israeli law enforcement or the discipline of settler leaders. Nothing justifies violence by extremists of any variety. But to be stopped, it must be understood. The rise in settler radicalism stems from several key factors: the growth of the settler population over the past generation, the diversification of religious and ideological strands among it, and the sense of betrayal felt by settlers following Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Israel, through the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and other security agencies, must now assert control over groups that no longer respect the state or the traditional settler leadership. Yet just as radical settlers pose an increasing threat, mainstream Israeli society has become more apathetic than ever about the fate of the Palestinians. Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians remain deadlocked, and even their meaningful resumption, let alone success, seems unlikely in the near future. The Israeli government thus feels little political or diplomatic pressure to confront the extremists. But with the peace process frozen, what happens under Israeli control matters more, not less. With Israel likely to govern parts of the West Bank for some time, it can no longer shirk its obligations — to protect not only its own citizens but Palestinian civilians as well – by claiming that a two-state solution is on the horizon and that the Palestinians will soon assume full responsibility over themselves. And if Israel wants to preserve the possibility of a negotiated peace, it must address this problem before it is too late. Whenever extremist settlers destroy Palestinian property or deface a mosque, they strengthen Palestinian radicals at the expense of moderates, undermining support for an agreement and delaying a possible accord. Meanwhile, each time Israeli leaders cave in to the demands of radi-

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cal settlers, it vindicates their tactics and encourages ever more brazen behavior, deepening the government’s paralysis. In other words, Israeli violence in the West Bank both undermines the ability of Israel to implement a potential deal with the Palestinians and raises questions about whether it can enforce its own laws at home. Recently, Israeli leaders have begun to recognize the problem. Following extremist vandalism against the IDF and mainstream settler leaders over the past year, some Israeli generals and government ministers began to label radical settlers as terrorists. Now, the Israeli government should translate that bold rhetoric into decisive action. To begin with, it should officially designate the perpetrators of violence as terrorists and disrupt their activities more aggressively. Security agencies should then enforce Israeli law, prosecuting violent settlers as they would terrorists, Palestinian or Israeli. And to slow the tide of radicalism, Israeli leaders must denounce extremists and shun their representatives, placing particular pressure on religious leaders who incite violence. Meanwhile, the United States and other countries seeking to revive the peace talks must encourage Israel to take these steps before things worsen. Washington should itself consider designating violent radical settlers as terrorists and should push Israel to crack down on them. Settler extremism tarnishes Israel’s name and imperils its future. Friends of Israel, the Israeli government, and even those who support the settlements in the West Bank should fight back against this dangerous phenomenon.

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The Wild West Bank Radical Jewish activists have staged politically motivated attacks against Palestinians and pro-peace Israelis before. In the early 1980s, for example, one group, known as the Jewish Underground, carried out a series of bombings against Arab mayors and shot three Arab students in the West Bank. And in 1995, an Israeli law student, Yigal Amir, assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, dealing a devastating blow to the peace process. Israeli authorities have investigated and prosecuted those involved in these operations, and they have disrupted other attacks before they could occur. Yet they have failed to stem less dramatic violence, such as arson and assault. According to UN investigations, in 2011, extremist settlers launched almost 300 attacks on Palestinian property, causing over 100 Palestinian casualties and destroying or damaging about 10,000 trees of Palestinian farmers. The UN has also reported that violent incidents against Palestinians have

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proliferated, rising from 200 attacks in 2009 to over 400 in 2011. The spike in assaults on Palestinians by settlers has come despite the fact that over the same period, Palestinian terrorism fell dramatically. To be clear, arson and the destruction of trees do not belong in the same category as suicide bombings, and using the word “terrorism” to describe such vandalism risks moral equivalency. Yet “terrorism” is defined not only by the act itself but also by its purpose: to produce a psychological effect, terror, as a means of advancing a political agenda. This definition fits the aim of extremist settlers, who often scrawl the Hebrew words for “price tag” at the scene of the crime — a message to their targets that they will exact a price for any act that they oppose. Such attacks target innocent Palestinians in response to and as a deterrent against Palestinian terrorism and target Palestinians, propeace Israelis, and Israeli soldiers alike for supposedly anti-settlement measures taken by the Israeli government. By seeking to frighten a rival population and intimidate a government, the extremists mimic the typical methods of terrorist groups across the globe. The Israeli government does not support or condone settler violence, but it has failed to adequately combat it. Soldiers have been known to look on as violence occurs, and they sometimes do not aggressively seek the perpetrators after the fact. According to Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization, of 781 incidents of settler abuse monitored since 2005, Israeli authorities closed the cases on over 90 percent of them without indictment. And the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported that the IDF is currently probing 15 cases, all of which took place between September 2000 and December 2011, of Israeli soldiers witnessing clashes between settlers and Palestinians and failing to intervene. Israel’s halfhearted response to settler violence is partly a result of the fundamental anomalies of military rule. Unlike East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights, other territories that Israel conquered in the 1967 war, the West Bank was never annexed by Israel, and Israel applies civil law there only to Israeli citizens. Although the Israeli police have authority

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Fatalities from terrorism in Isreal by year:

1953

53 20 1958

25 10 1963

1968

1973

over criminal matters among settlers, the military governs most aspects of public life, from security to construction permits. The Palestinian Authority assumed sovereignty over parts of the West Bank following the Oslo accords, but Israel still controls â&#x20AC;&#x153;Area C,â&#x20AC;? which includes all the settlements, four percent of the Palestinian population, and 60 percent of the total land. Within that territory, the IDF faces the extremely difficult task of safeguarding both Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli security forces may have helped drastically reduce Palestinian terrorism, but the military unsurprisingly remains wary of Hamas and other militant organizations and views the defense of Israeli citizens as its main task. â&#x20AC;&#x192; The IDF also faces little pressure from the Israeli public to protect the Palestinians under its rule. Although Israelis cared deeply about the peace process during the Oslo years, suicide bombings, the collapse of the negotiations in 2000, and the carnage of the second intifada that

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452

205 60 20 1978

1983

48 15 1988

1993

2001

2002

followed left them reeling, indignant, and wary of Palestinian intentions. In the eyes of most Israelis, Palestinian leaders not only failed to negotiate in good faith but also responded to Israeli good faith with a wave of terrorism. Although most Israelis support an agreement in principle and question the wisdom of the settlements, they blame the Palestinians for the continuation of the conflict and remain skeptical about the odds for a deal in the near future. With violence down and peace distant, Israelis have become indifferent to the situation in the West Bank and weary of the Palestinian issue in general, preferring to contain and, if possible, ignore the problem. With the peace camp all but dead and a conservative government in power, right-wing politicians exert a great deal of influence on Israeli policy, particularly regarding the settlements. In recent years, the extreme right wing has made inroads even into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own party, the Likud, making any opposition to

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settlement activity a risk for more mainstream Likud politicians. â&#x20AC;&#x192; When it comes to confronting extremist settlers, then, the Israeli government is politically handicapped. Radical settlers understand why Israel has responded so tepidly to their actions and have sought to exploit this reluctance. And their violence has often successfully altered or deterred government actions that they opposed.

Settlement Over State The rise in violence among extremist settlers stems from deep changes in the settler population, particularly its dramatic growth and shifting ideological composition. Israeli civilians began moving into the West Bank and Gaza shortly after the 1967 war, when Israel conquered both territories. Some Jews sought to return to Jewish villages destroyed by Arab armies in the war of 1948, and a few hoped to reestablish a Jewish presence near holy sites such as Hebron, which both Jewish and Muslim tradition hold is the burial place of the patriarch Abraham. The Israeli government also sought to create several small settlements for security reasons: to establish â&#x20AC;&#x153;facts on the groundâ&#x20AC;? that might allow Israel to keep several strategic points in the West Bank as part of a peace accord and might even, some argued, help Israel defend itself against an Arab invasion. In the early 1980s, the settler community was still a relatively small, coherent, and disciplined society of about 24,000.

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“Trying to stop settler violence is a clear moral and political imperative.”

Some settlers were secular, but others subscribed to the ideology of Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful), a religious-political movement that sought to fulfill what it viewed as a divine obligation to settle the complete Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel), the territory Jews regard as having been promised to them by God, which includes the West Bank. Although Gush Emunim strongly opposed any government policy that curtailed the settlement project, it respected the primacy of the state. For example, in the early 1980s, when the Israeli government evacuated all settlements in the Sinai as part of the peace treaty with Egypt, Gush Emunim protested but did not call on its members to take up arms (although several of its members went on to form the Jewish Underground anyway). For religious-nationalist settlers, the state remained an instrument of providence, carrying out God’s mission by upholding Jewish sovereignty and protecting Jewish religious life in the

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Land of Israel. Adherents of Gush Emunim believed that salvation itself would emerge from the state and thus did not challenge its political authority. The IDF and settler leaders maintained close contact and coordination, with the military relying on the settler leadership to police its own while it focused on preventing Palestinian terrorism. Since then, the settler movement has changed dramatically. In the past three decades, the number of settlers in the West Bank has grown more than tenfold, to some 300,000. Today, most live in large communities that function as suburbs of Jerusalem or greater Tel Aviv. The inhabitants of these settlements represent all walks of Israeli society, including secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews who do not share the nationalist zeal of Gush Emunim. Many of these Israelis moved to the West Bank primarily for economic, rather than political, reasons: the settlements are subsidized by the government, so living in them is much more affordable than living in cities inside the Green Line. Most policymakers in Israel and the United States do not consider these particular settlements to be insurmountable obstacles to a peace agreement with the Palestinians. In the past, Palestinian leaders have suggested that they might accept land swaps that would allow Israel to keep some of these settlement blocs in exchange for other territory, and many of these settlers would likely consider accepting compensation if they were told to leave their homes in the context of a peace agreement. Yet over the last several years, the evolution of the settler community has also led to the growth of a small but significant fringe of young extremists, known as the “hilltop youth,” who show little, if any, deference to the Israeli government or even to the settler leadership. No matter how strongly Gush Emunim opposed government policy, it always officially avoided vigilante violence. But these young radicals, who largely live in settlements deep in the West Bank and do not affiliate with traditional religious authorities, have embraced it. These settlers — likely no more than a couple thousand, a small but dangerous minority within the broader community — are the ones leading the “price tag” attacks against Palestinian civilians and Israeli soldiers. They have lost faith in

Palestinians & Israelis killed in the Occupied Territories:

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1988

310 12 1991

104 19 1994

152 72 1997

21 29 Palestinians Isrealis

the notion that the state, under its current leadership, is key to settling the Land of Israel. Instead, they see it as an obstacle to God’s will. Although the Israeli military has traditionally worked closely with the heads of the settlements to maintain security, this new generation of radicals scoffs at such cooperation, viewing the settler leadership as complicit in the government’s crimes. As a result, the settler establishment has little control over the most problematic members of its community. Indeed, extremists have targeted some of the most central figures of the settler movement, including Ze’ev Hever, who heads the construction arm of the settlement enterprise. Hever, once a member of the Jewish Underground, is the person perhaps most responsible for the settlement expansion that has occurred in collaboration with the Israeli government. Yet this past June, extremists expressed their outrage at continued cooperation between the settler leadership and state

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2000

282 41 2003

588 185 2006

665

23 2009

1034

authorities by slashing the tires of his car. This new generation of extremists came out of the trauma of Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, known by the settlers as “the expulsion.” In late 2003, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, once a champion of the settler movement, announced that he planned to dismantle the Israeli settlements in Gaza. Sharon’s transformation rocked the settlers. Feeling abandoned, many began to question the authority of the state. Whereas settler leaders could once portray previous actions against various outposts or individuals as tactical maneuvers, they understood that Sharon’s “disengagement,” as it became known in Israel, represented a fundamental break with their religious mission. Even so, settler elders and their allies upheld the sanctity of the state and opted for largely nonviolent opposition. They embarked on a public relations campaign, portraying themselves as an oppressed minority

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“Hilltop youth,” who show the Israeli government or ev

and borrowing the color orange from the 2004 Ukrainian revolution to reinforce their image as a peaceful civil movement. Even as it became clear that the settlers’ challenge to the disengagement would not succeed, most settler leaders called on Jews in Gaza to avoid violence against Israeli soldiers and refrained from urging soldiers, including settlers in military service, to disobey the evacuation orders. Opposition to the withdrawal, in other words, remained within the bounds of Israeli political discourse and preserved the settler movement’s deference to the state. As the disengagement approached, however, a segment of more radical settlers began speaking out against their leaders’ acquiescence. Some rabbis even suggested that divine intervention would prevent the withdrawal at the last minute. But in the summer of 2005, Israel did pull all the settlers, some 8,600 people, out of Gaza and ended its

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little, if any, deference to en to the settler leadership.

military presence there. The Israeli military forcefully removed families from their homes, demolished villages, and transferred entire communities — homes, synagogues, cemeteries, and schools — to Israel proper. Neither the nonviolent resistance of the settler establishment nor divine intervention stayed the government’s hand. Radical settlers saw the expulsion as a manifest failure of the old guard’s approach. Not only was the state of Israel no longer a vehicle of redemption; it had actively rolled back the most important project of contemporary Jewish religious nationalism: settling the Land of Israel. The settlers felt doubly betrayed by the sense that the government failed to reintegrate them properly into Israel, devoting inadequate resources to their relocation and, in their eyes, essentially neglecting them after the withdrawal ended. Faced with what the radical settlers saw as a choice between the state and the settlements, they picked the latter. To stave off another dis-

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engagement of any kind, they resolved to retaliate against any attempt by the Israeli government to crack down on the movement â&#x20AC;&#x201D; hence the birth of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;price tagâ&#x20AC;? attacks. In this climate, the traditional leadership of the settler movement and the authority of the Israeli government are less relevant than ever.

Radical Success Settler violence is undoubtedly working. It has made it more difficult for the IDF to govern the West Bank and fractured the settler movement, weakening the influence of the more moderate elements that would accept the legitimacy of the Israeli state even if it committed to another withdrawal. The â&#x20AC;&#x153;price tagâ&#x20AC;? doctrine has thus raised the cost of even token settlement removals. The violence has conditioned Israeli politicians to worry that any pullout, whether as part of a peace agreement or as a unilateral measure, will lead to conflict. That puts the government in a bind. If it ignores the radicals, they will undermine its authority and any Palestinian goodwill that might result from a withdrawal. Confronting them, however, risks public spectacles of armed police dragging conservatively dressed young girls out of their homes, a political disaster for any Israeli government. â&#x20AC;&#x192; The first post-Gaza pullout, the dismantlement of the outpost of

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Amona in 2006, justified such fears among Israeli politicians. During the demolition of nine uninhabited homes built on land determined to belong to Palestinians, thousands of settlers confronted Israeli security personnel, occupying the homes and nearby areas and attacking the officers with rocks, bottles, and cinder blocks. The riot left 200 people injured, including 80 security officers and two Israeli members of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) who had come to support the settlers. Although the mission technically succeeded, the violence surrounding it strengthened the perception that any withdrawal, no matter how small, risks opening up deep fissures within Israeli society. The incident left Israeli leaders wary of future evacuations and eager to retroactively legalize the remaining outposts in the West Bank. In fact, this past June, after the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government to dismantle several outposts built on private Palestinian land, the Knesset debated a bill that would have circumvented the court and legalized several houses there, a move with profound legal ramifications. Only the direct intervention of Netanyahu killed the bill. In response, demonstrators in Jerusalem burned public property and extremists vandalized the mixed Arab-Jewish village of Neve Shalom, in Israel, with graffiti saying “Death to Arabs.” Besides undermining the rule of law and intimidating Israeli politicians, radical settlers have increasingly come to define the way that Palestinians see Israelis as a whole. After Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the two communities interacted regularly. Israelis shopped in the West Bank, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians worked in Israel. But the second intifada stopped Israelis from casually entering Palestinian areas, and in response to Palestinian terrorism, Israel enacted policies that made it harder for Palestinians to work inside the country, culminating in the construction of the security barrier. Today, essentially the only Israelis that Palestinians interact with are soldiers and settlers, whom they see as representative of all Israelis. This means that relations among settlers, Israeli soldiers, and Palestinian civilians are now more important than ever.

Radical Success

“By making life miserable for their Palestinian neighbors, the radical settlers strengthen those they most fear: Palestinian terrorists.”

By making life miserable for their Palestinian neighbors, the radical settlers strengthen those they most fear: Palestinian terrorists. Hamas portrays itself as a resistance organization that defends the Palestinian people, and it uses the most extreme attacks on Palestinians, such as the 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers in Hebron by Baruch Goldstein, to justify its own terrorism as self-defense. Of course, these claims are a sham: groups such as Hamas would try to kill Israelis in any event. But settler attacks do make Hamas’ propaganda more credible among the Palestinian public. Settler radicalism also discredits those Palestinians who oppose terrorism, such as President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Their inability to get Israel to stop its own citizens from attacking Palestinians makes them appear feeble and undermines the notion that they can negotiate a fair treaty with Israel. The situation recalls the

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bitterness Israelis felt when dealing with former Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat as Palestinian suicide bombings continued: either he could stop the violence and chose not to or he was unable to end it, in which case there was little reason to talk. As settler violence increases, the Palestinians will begin to say the same about Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership.

Counter Terror With the peace process in a stalemate, Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s control of the West Bank is not likely to end soon, and the government cannot ignore the persistent settler violence by claiming that the settlement issue will soon be resolved as part of a peace deal. Just as Palestinian officials must fight Palestinian terrorism, Israel must fight settler terrorism. Cracking down on radical settler violence would not give the Palestinians the political recognition they crave, nor would it lead to peace. But it would help legitimize moderate Palestinian leaders and make life better for ordinary Palestinians, both of which would keep alive the possibility of a negotiated peace. Stopping extremist violence in the West Bank may become even more important should the peace talks resume in earnest. If the Israeli government plans to withdraw from additional territory, settler terrorism may increase, exacting a considerable political price from the government and potentially derailing peace. Over the last several

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months, Israeli officials have begun to take the problem of settler terrorism more seriously, at least rhetorically. Last year, the Israeli general in charge of the West Bank, Nitsan Alon, described the violence by radical settlers as “terrorism” and urged the IDF to “do much more to stop it.” Even the chair of the Yesha Council, the forum that traditionally speaks for the settler community, recently denounced the “terrible and shameful phenomenon of masked Jews with slings and a stone in their hands” and forcefully reprimanded mainstream settlers for their silence on the matter. And following settler vandalism of an IDF base in the West Bank last year, the Israeli ministers of defense, legal affairs, and internal security discussed officially designating the “hilltop youth” as a terrorist organization. The government should do this, thereby facilitating a coordinated intelligence and law enforcement campaign against the violence. Israeli courts should no longer treat radicals as patriots who have strayed in their defense of Israel and should instead give them stiff sentences to keep them behind bars and to deter others from following their example. Meanwhile, mainstream rabbis should denounce their radical brethren and demonstrate how their views contradict centuries of religious tradition. When extremist rabbis incite violence, they must face prosecution. In executing this crackdown, the government should also attempt to work with the traditional settler leadership. The timing may be right: having seen the violence committed against leaders such as Hever, settler officials realize that the radicals have seized the momentum and fear that “price tag” violence will tar the entire settlement project, setting back decades of efforts to win over more Israelis to their cause. Traditional leaders can ostracize the most extreme elements among the settler community and preach more forcefully against violence. And with the help of settler leaders, the government can gain vital intelligence on the radicals. To avoid creating a new burst of extremism, Israel must also prepare to handle any future settlement withdrawals more smoothly. It should begin by encouraging settlers in remote areas to relocate to

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Israel proper regardless of the peace process or any forced withdrawal. Several Israeli figures, including Ami Ayalon, a former head of Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s domestic intelligence service, have proposed a wide-ranging program meant to entice thousands of settlers to relocate to Israel of their own volition, but the proposal has thus far faced resistance from the settler establishment and the government. And when actually evacuating settlements, as Israel will have to do as part of any peace agreement, it should devote enough resources to properly compensate the settlers. â&#x20AC;&#x192; The United States also has a role to play. Washington has long hoped that issues related to settler violence would vanish after the implementation of a peace deal. In the absence of meaningful negotiations, however, it must prevent both parties from deepening tensions. By highlighting the problem of settler extremism, the United States can push Israel into responding to it more effectively. In addition, much like Israel, it should consider designating individuals involved in acts of violence against Palestinians as terrorists. Such a designation would allow U.S. authorities to prevent Americans from sending them funding and would be a way to support those Israelis seeking to combat the rise of extremism. â&#x20AC;&#x192; Almost everything related to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute involves complex tradeoffs and sorting through opposing and often equally legitimate claims. But trying to stop settler violence is a clear moral and political imperative. Israelis, who know the horrors of terrorism better than the citizens of any other democracy, should have a special understanding of the need to ensure that extremist violence does not ruin the lives of Palestinians and prevent Israel from making hard but necessary choices about its future. Whether the conflict continues indefinitely or the peace talks soon resume, Israel must confront its homegrown terrorism problem.

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The Rise and Threat of Radical Islam An Interview with Briggitte Gabriel BY ROGER ARONOFF

ith so much media attention in this country focused on the presidential race and the Supreme Court’s ruling on ObamaCare, not enough attention is being paid to much of what is going on in the Middle East, and at the United Nations. Egypt has recently chosen as its next president Mohamed Morsi, who was the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood. He has since ended his association, at least officially, with that organization, which spawned Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls Gaza. And while Morsi has been congratulated by President Obama, and invited for a visit to the U.S., there is great concern by many that this development does not bode well for the advancement of peace and freedom for the people of Egypt and the region. With so much media attention in this country focused on the presidential race and the Supreme Court’s ruling on ObamaCare, not

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Mohamed Morsi “promised the Quran would be the new constitution of the nation, and then led the crowd in chants of the Muslim Brotherhood’s motto. ‘The Quran is our constitution,’ ‘jihad is our path,’ and ‘death for the sake of Allah is our most lofty aspiration,’ the jubilant crowd repeated after Morsi.”

enough attention is being paid to much of what is going on in the Middle East, and at the United Nations. Egypt has recently chosen as its next president Mohamed Morsi, who was the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood. He has since ended his association, at least officially, with that organization, which spawned Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls Gaza. And while Morsi has been congratulated by President Obama, and invited for a visit to the U.S., there is great concern by many that this development does not bode well for the advancement of peace and freedom for the people of Egypt and the region. In recent days we have learned that, incredibly, Iran was elected to a top post on the UN Arms Trade Treaty conference, and Syria is about to join China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia on the UN Human Rights Council. The implications of all this are far reaching, and of great relevance to Americans.

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Accuracy in Media recently interviewed Brigitte Gabriel, the founder of ACT! For America, a grassroots national security movement in the U.S., and the author of They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It, and Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America. Ms. Gabriel is a leading expert on radical Islam and Islamic terrorism, and has given briefings to the Australian Prime Minister, to Members of the British Parliament, the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Special Operations Command, and the FBI. She described her firsthand experience with the forces of radical Islam, growing up as a Christian in Lebanon, and how the civil war in Lebanon fortuitously took her to Israel, and helped open her eyes to the realities around her. Regarding the Muslim Brotherhood, and its direct impact on America, Gabriel said, “We have foreign forces and Islamic front groups representing the Muslim Brotherhood operating in the United States that has infiltrated our society on every level—including government— who are now influencing policy. To give you an example—ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America. They are now advisors to President Obama about foreign policy. Is it any wonder why President Obama is throwing Israel under the bus, for example? Now, why we should be so concerned about the groups like ISNA and CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations]— because they are mentioned in The Muslim Brotherhood Project, which was presented as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial, which is the largest terrorism trial ever in the history of the United States, where the United States took to court the Holy Land Foundation, where our government handed down 108 ‘Guilty’ verdicts against Muslim-Americans or Muslim-American organizations who were raising money in the United States and sending it to the Middle East to fund terrorist operations in the Middle East.”

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“Alla Akba

RA: Thank you so much! Why don’t we start out telling our listeners more about your journey. How did you become an activist and author? Give us a little of your background. BG: As a child, I was born and raised in Lebanon, which used to be the majority Christian country in the Middle East—the only majority Christian country in the Middle East. We were open-minded. We were fair. We were tolerant. We were multi-cultural—we prided ourselves on our multiculturalism. We had open border policy—we welcomed everyone to our country from the Arabic countries surrounding us because we wanted to share with them the Westernization which we had created in the heart of the Middle East. Muslims used to send their children to study in our universities from all the surrounding Arabic countries because we had built the best universities in the Middle East. We built the best economy—they graduated, then worked in our economy. In the ’60s, Beirut became known as “Paris of the Middle East” and the banking capital of the Middle East. Unfortunately, Roger, all that began to change after 20, 30 years of our independence. By that time, the minority Islamic population in the country became the majority simply because of the way they multiplied, compared to people like us, who come from a Judeo-Christian background—they have multiple marriages, they have many children out of each wife. We had the situation contained until the 1970s, when Lebanon accepted a third wave of Palestinian refugees. The majority of them were Muslims, they put their heads together with the Muslims in Lebanon, declared war on the Christians—and that’s when my 9/11 happened to me, and my life turned upside-down. AR: My first trip to the Middle East was in 1975. I was in Beirut just about two months before the civil war—which ended up lasting fifteen years— broke out. It was just a magnificent city—as you say, the Paris of the Middle East.

“Al Ak

“All Akb

“A A

“Alla Akba

“Allah Akba

BG: In 1975, when the war started, the radical Islamists blew up my home,

ahu ar!”

llahu kbar!”

“Allahu Akbar!”

“Allahu Akbar!” “Alla

“Allahu “Allahu Akbar!” Akbar!”

“Allahu Akbar!”

lahu bar!”

Akbar!”

“Allahu Akbar!”

Akba

“Alla Akba

“Allahu Akbar!”

“Allahu Akbar!” “Allahu Akbar!”

Allahu “Allahu “Allahu Akbar!” Akbar!” Akbar!” “Allahu “Allahu Akbar!” Akbar!” “Allahu “Allahu “Allahu Akbar!” Akbar!” Akbar!” “Allahu hu Akbar!” ar!” “Allahu

“Allahu Akbar!”

Allahu Akbar!”

“Allahu Akbar!”

ahu ar!”

“Alla Akb

“Allahu Akbar!”

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bringing it down, burying me under the rubble, wounded, as they shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” That’s when my 9/11 happened to me. I ended up in a hospital, wounded, for two and a half months, and, later, ended up coming and living in a bomb shelter with my parents. For the next seven years of my life, I lived in an underground eight-by-ten room, basically fighting to survive. When I would ask my parents, “Why did they do this to us? Why did they bomb our home? Why am I wounded and lying in a hospital bed?” my father would tell me, “Because we are Christians, the Muslims consider us infidels, and they want to kill us.” So I learned, since I was a ten-year-old little girl, that I am wanted dead simply because I was born into the Christian faith. Whether I practiced it or not was irrelevant in my enemies’ eyes—because in the Middle East, they look at religion as a race. So the Christians are the Christians, the Jews are the Jews, and the Muslims are the Muslims. RA: One of the things you talk about in your book Because They Hate is the act that led to the Israeli Operation Litani. It was sort of your first engagement or involvement with the Israelis, and it was an awakening for you. Describe what happened in Israel that led to this Operation Litani, how that affected you, your interaction with the Israelis, and what influence that had. BG: When the war began in Lebanon, we, the Christian minority, were surrounded by the radical Islamists in southern Lebanon. We were only two Christian towns side-by-side, we were surrounded to be slaughtered, and we knew what our fate was going to be because we’d heard stories from those who’d escaped and come to hide—Christians who’d escaped their cities and come to hide in south Lebanon were telling us about the massacres that were taking place, the killing, the murders, et cetera. So we were surrounded on three sides by the radical Muslims who were basically waiting to slaughter us. Our back was to Israel—we lived on the border of Israel, in a town called Marjayoun in southern Lebanon. So we Christians, and the town, were faced with either being

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THE MUSLIMS WANT T “I remember that night, a friend of ours stopped by and said, “Brigitte, I just want you to know that we heard on the radios that we’re going to be attacked tonight...”

slaughtered at the hands of the radical Muslims and Palestinians, or going to the Jews, going to the Israeli border, and begging for help. Even though, at the time, Israel was considered the “enemy,” we Christians knew that if we went to the Jews and begged for help, the Jews were not going to slaughter us—we had more shared values with them, as Christians, than we had with the Muslims. So a few people from my town went to Israel and begged for help. Israel started coming in the middle of the night, between 1976 and 1978, bringing in food for the military, bringing in bomb shelters for those who did not have bomb shelters, bringing in ammunition, bringing in food for the children because the Palestinians and Muslims had cut off all food supplies. That became our lifeline. They would come in the middle of the night, from twelve midnight to about four o’clock in the morning, and bring all that stuff, then disappear back into Israel during the day. The radical Islamists did not know what was keeping the Christians alive. This went on until 1978

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and Operation Litani, when, basically—I remember that night, a friend of ours stopped by and said, “Brigitte, I just want you to know that we heard on the radios that we’re going to be attacked tonight in a major attack by the Islamic forces. If I don’t see you tomorrow, I wish you a merciful death.” And he left. I remember, at the age of thirteen years old, putting on my Easter dress, my Sunday best, because I wanted to look pretty when I was dead, knowing that when they came to slaughter me, there would be no one to bury me. I remember sobbing to my parents, begging them, “I don’t want to die! I’m only thirteen years old!” There was nothing my parents could say to me. I remember sitting in the corner of our bomb shelter with my father reading from Psalms. We all sat together and he started reading, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” My parents told me, “When they come to slaughter us tonight, you just run towards Israel, and you never look back. We’ll create a distraction. You just save your life.” Thank God I didn’t have to make that difficult decision that night—that was the night when Israel came physically into Lebanon, established the Security Zone, kicked the Muslims and Palestinians away from our area, and set up artillery bases on the hills surrounding our town to basically keep them away from us so they wouldn’t be able to come and slaughter us. HOME? We continued living like this for the next five years, until 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon. The reason why Israel invaded Lebanon was that Syria had come to Lebanon at that time as a peacekeeping force, supposedly to keep the Christians and Muslims and Palestinians from killing each other—and Syria was shelling Israel from Lebanese territories, calling it the “Lebanese resistance.” We had nothing to do with it! Basically, the Palestinians, the Islamic radicals, and the Syrians had all come together to Lebanon as a base from which to shell Israel. They wanted to drive Jews into the sea and kill them, and use Lebanese territories to do it. That’s what forced Israel to come into Lebanon in 1982, in the invasion where they went all the way to Beirut. Israel was working

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My parents told me, “When they come to slaughter us tonight, you just run towards Israel, and you never look back. We’ll create a distraction. You just save your life.”

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.”

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with the Christians to help the Christians take back their democracy, take back their country, re-establish the democracy, and have a peace treaty with Israel. Up to that point, I knew the Israelis were keeping us alive—obviously, by that time, for seven years we’d been working with the Israelis. They were our friends. I had actually been into Israel before my mother was wounded and taken to the hospital—I used to go there on trips with friends of mine. But my mother became wounded in Operation Mivtsa Shlom HaGalil, “The Peace for Galilee,” in 1982, and we had to take her to Israel for treatment. That was the only time I was in Israel alone, with my unconscious mother, in a war scene where I saw the true compassion and true heart of the Israelis—they were able to treat their enemy with such a compassionate heart, something I had never seen, nor experienced, in Lebanon. I ended up being with my mother in Israel, in that Israeli hospital where she was treated for her injuries, for 22 days. Those days truly changed my heart, made me realize that everything that I heard on the radio, or heard on television, and everything that is said to Arab children all throughout the Middle East about Israel is nothing more than a lie. That’s when I decided, I want to move to Israel, I want to work in Israel, I want to adopt the values and the character that the Israelis have. I knew they had something even I did not have: They were able to love and forgive their enemies, the Palestinians, in a way that I wasn’t able to—and I was a Christian who was supposed to love like Jesus taught! That was truly a turning point in my life. Thankfully, I ended up moving back to Israel in 1984, living in Jerusalem, and becoming a news anchor for World News. AR: The event that led to that operation, Litani, was the hijacking of a bus, which you describe in the book. Tell us about that briefly. I think a lot of people are kind of removed from the sort of acts of terror that took place before Israel really secured its borders better. BG: The securing of the border happened before the Lebanese war.

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AR: Right. BG: —and the Palestinians—who have no compassion towards children, no compassion to people, because when you’re raised, being taught that a certain group of people are basically beneath animals, and deserve to be killed, you lose all sense of consciousness, and sense of conscience, to feel any remorse when you kill those people—attacked a bus carrying students, actually, in northern Israel, so Israel had to begin fortifying its northern border and defending it. But what started the Israeli involvement in southern Lebanon, and them coming into southern Lebanon, was that operation. It made the Israelis realize that they needed to partner together with the Christians in the south and create a buffer zone which would keep the Palestinians and Muslims from basically entering Israel illegally and committing suicide operations within Israel—that began a partnership between the Israelis and the Lebanese Christians in the south which later extended to the Christians in Beirut, the capital. At one point, Israel would take the Christians from Lebanon and train them in Israel—for seven days they would go through military training, and then would go back into Lebanon to fight, because the Christians in Lebanon didn’t know how to fight. That created a partnership that lasted for years. AR: Okay. In your book, They Must Be Stopped, you make a distinction between the values of Judeo-Christianity and those of Islam—you call it the “Sword of Islam.” Tell us your view on that, the difference between these two. BG: There is a huge difference, because we Christians and Jews have reformed our religion. In the Old Testament we have violent verses—you know, “A tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye”—yet you do not see any Jews today strapping bombs on their bodies, going to mosques, and blowing themselves up in order to kill other human beings in revenge for suicide bombings in Israel, for example. In Christianity, Jesus said,

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“Whoever slaps you on one cheek, you turn the other.” Christianity is all about forgiveness, about doing unto others what you want others to do unto you. “Do not judge others lest you be judged.” So we as Christians and Jews have reformed our religion. We know that we live in a different world today. We value human life. There is nothing in the Bible, in Christianity, that sanctions the killing of another human being. This is why those we would consider even our most radical pastors, like Pat Robertson or former Jerry Falwell, any of these type people, when the abortion clinics were happening in the ’80s, American pastors considered radicals by mainstream Christianity—by the Catholics, for example—came out condemning the killing of doctors or the bombings of abortion clinics, even though they themselves disagreed with abortions. Yet they knew that there is nothing in the Bible that sanctions or justifies the killing of another human being regardless of what the excuse is. That’s the difference between Christianity and Islam. Under Islam, killing of infidels, or non-Muslims, not only justified, but encouraged, but praised under the Qur’an. A Muslim is only guaranteed an entrance into heaven when they commit to martyrdom fi sabilillah—in the cause of Allah. While Christians and Jews can do good deeds or good work and buy themselves forgiveness that will enable them to get into heaven, in Islam it does not exist. Under Islam the Qur’an is very clear about what to do to the infidels—cut off their heads, cut off their fingers and toes, smite them on their heads because they disobeyed Allah. The Qur’an’s sura 9—they go verse after verse, sura after sura, encouraging Muslims to kill infidels, kill apostates, kill those who do not believe in Allah or have gone against his path. This is why when we see the radicals come up against the moderates in a debate, when the moderates say, “Islam is a peaceful religion, Islam does not call for the killing of others,” the radicals begin quoting chapter after chapter and verse after verse— because the law is on their side. That’s why they leave the moderates silenced, unable to come back with a response: Islam in itself, as a religion, approves and encourages the killings of infidels.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Christianity is all about forgiveness, about doing unto others what you want others to do unto you.â&#x20AC;?

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“Under Islam the Qur’an is very clear about what to do to the infidels—cut off their heads, cut off their fingers and toes, smite them on their heads because they disobeyed Allah.”

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AR: I want to talk about some of the current events, particularly the socalled “Arab Spring.” I noted the irony last year, at the same time as the Egyptian revolution started—really Lebanon, your country of birth, had that Cedar Revolution, and it really appeared to be going back to 2004 and 2005, the first country really to become democratic and peaceful. It was looking that way and then, of course, with the assassination of Hariri went through all of these changes. But the day that the Egyptian revolution started last year, in January, was the day that Hezbollah basically took over control of Lebanon. I thought that was quite ironic. I mean, really, it was sort of the end of the Arab Spring in Lebanon and sort of the start of it in the rest of the world, but— BG: Here’s what led to that. AR: Yeah. BG: Lebanon is a republic exactly like the United States of America. From its foundation in the ’40s, Lebanon has been nothing but a republic, just like the United States of America. There are two democracies in the Middle East: The state of Israel, and Lebanon—because the majority of Lebanese were Christians by the time we got our independence from France. This is why Lebanon and Israel became the only two countries in the Middle East that were able to prosper without having any oil: We prospered based on our intelligence, our contribution to math, to science, to education. We educated men and women in the same way because we did not believe that women are secondary to men. This is why Lebanon became Paris of the Middle East, and this is exactly why Israel is the incredible amazing country that it is today. The reason why Lebanon fell into war is because our enemies, the Islamists, were able to use Lebanese democracy to topple our democracy, and we allowed them to do it because of our open-mindedness and our multiculturalism. We refused to read the writing on the wall. We refused to believe our enemies when they would say, “We want to kill you because we hate

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you.” So when Islamic forces started going into Lebanon, like Syria— I know in Western countries people don’t look at Syria as a Muslim country, but in the Middle East, when you are minority Christians and Jews, all the countries surrounding us are basically part of the ummah, the Islamic nation. They relate to each other as one family against the infidels. And it’s ironic when you look at the Arabic countries surrounding Israel and Lebanon—basically, it’s a one-man dictatorship. You can identify every country with one man or one religious leader. I write in my book, “When you look at the Arabic world you are looking at tribes with flags. They’re not necessarily countries like we look at countries in the West.” So when the so-called revolution happened in Beirut in 2004, it was basically a response of the Lebanese Christians and the Sunni Muslims in Lebanon taking to the street exercising, or trying to exercise, whatever was left of their freedom or their democracy. They were empowered by President George Bush, who went into Iraq and showed people in the Middle East that America was willing to stand behind those who are pushing for democracy. The Christians in Lebanon felt that while America is standing with Iraq, America had a powerful ally in the White House, George Bush, who would be able to pressure Syria to leave Lebanon and pressure Hezbollah to disarm. Unfortunately, because America failed to show strength after that, that’s why Hezbollah was not disarmed. Syria had left Lebanon on its own, fearing that America’s was going to react, but when they saw that America did not react like in 2006, Syria came back into Lebanon—because by that time it was apparent to the world stage that America had become a paper tiger, and America did not stand by those who are true democratic forces in the Middle East, standing up for democracy. America left them to be slaughtered and that’s why democracy, or the attempt of basically reviving Lebanon back, failed. AR: So what about in Egypt, in Libya—there was such hope that they were going to overthrow these tyrants, these dictators. Very different—[Hos-

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America has become a paper tiger

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ni] Mubarak and [Muammar] Gaddafi, of course—but in both cases we seem to have arrived at a Muslim Brotherhood government. What are the implications of that? Are we really— BG: Exactly. AR: —accepting them as, “Now a moderate force in the world,” BG: Well, here’s a good point you brought up— AR: —how do you see all this? BG: Here’s a good point you brought up: What about the Egyptian revolution? After the revolution in Lebanon in 2004 and 2005, when American

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failed to back—disarm Hezbollah, or really truly stand up with the true forces of democracy, the radical Islamics learned a very important lesson—that America has become a paper tiger—but it gave the opportunity, especially after 2006, when Hamas came to power in Gaza, and they did it democratically, using the so-called “America wants democracy in the Middle East” to come to power, the Islamic radicals in the rest of the Middle East thought. This is our opportunity to use the West’s thinking by basically saying the words, the buzz-words, that the West will relate to, that we want to democratically change the regime against dictators. That’s how they organized, and that’s how they started rising. In Tunisia, which led the Islamic Revolution, what started as a true revolution because they wanted change, wanted a better economy, they learned very quickly that the radicals were much more organized, and the radicals took over. We saw the same thing happen in Egypt. In Egypt, while the revolution started with good intentions, by young people wanting jobs, and who knew how to operate Facebook and Twitter, they learned very quickly that the radicals took the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood— because after everything was said and done, and Sadat and Mubarak stepped down, the Muslim Brotherhood had the money, while the new young activists did not have any money, who started the revolution. The Muslim Brotherhood had already candidates in government, and had political training. The young revolution—the young ones in the streets did not have even a spokesperson on their behalf. They did not know anything about politics. They did not know how to run a campaign. They were the youth, while the Muslim Brotherhood were the educated lawyers, the doctors, the engineers. This is why the Muslim Brotherhood had everything in line to be able to truly organize a movement, have a seat at the power table—and look what’s happening right now. I mean, they’re very well organized. They have their candidates, they have the money, and the young people who started the revolution are nowhere to be found. AR: Today the world’s attention is focused on Syria. Considering that Syria

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is an ally of Iran, and of Russia, it would seem like we would want Assad to fall. Yet, once again, who or what would he be replaced with? How do you see this situation? What do you think the West, the U.S., should be doing? Should we get involved? Should we not? How do you see this situation? BG: The situation in Syria is a no-win situation regardless of the outcome. [Bashar] Assad is not a friend of the United States, but he certainly is much better off than those who are trying to topple him, because those who are trying to topple him are the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood tried to rise in Syria in Hama back 30 years ago—remember when Hafez Assad, Bashar’s father, massacred 30,000 of them in Hama? These are the same people who are now rising because they believe that the Assad regime is not Islamic enough, is not devout enough, is not supportive enough of the Islamic agenda, is too Westernized. This is why they’re rising up against him, and they are feeling empowered by what they saw in Egypt. Now, him being a very strong dictator, Assad the son is holding onto the throne, and as you mentioned, he is supported by Iran. Iran actually sent its proxy Hezbollah army from Lebanon to fight with the Assad regime, and to keep him in power, because it’s in Iran’s best interest to keep Assad in power. But Iran is going to win no matter who wins. If Assad is toppled and the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power, they are so radical—they are just like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This is why we are very concerned about who’s going to replace Assad. It is better for the United States and the West for Assad to stay in power than for the Muslim Brotherhood to win the election or to be able to topple Assad and take over, because then you’re going to have a very organized, very radical, very-hateful-towards-theWest Islamic movement rising throughout the Middle East that will empower the rest of the radical Islamists throughout the world, not only in the Middle East. That’s a major problem for the West. AR: So the dilemma is, while watching all the slaughter going on and then

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"Since when do we actually give a care about whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s being slaughtered?"

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"Two million Sudanese were slaughtered in Sudan, you didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hear a blurb out of the United States."

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"Since when does America care about the slaughter of innocent people?"

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"America only cares about the slaughter of innocent people when it serves America and is up there on the news."

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"Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why Obama is talking the way heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s talking, trying to show strength."

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there are conflicts around the world between Muslims and non-Muslims...

sitting by and saying, “Well, we’re not going to do anything,” especially after Obama, when he finally went into Libya, stood up there and said, “We don’t sit by while people are being slaughtered.” That’s exactly what’s happening there today, yet you’re suggesting it makes sense, and we don’t really want to help the opposition, because if they come to power, it would even be worse for us, strategically, than it currently is with Assad. BG: Exactly. And the hypocrisy in our country—I mean, since when do we actually give a care about who’s being slaughtered? Two million Sudanese were slaughtered in Sudan, you didn’t hear a blurb out of the United States. Thank God for Charles Jacobs and a few organized Jews who sounded the alarms and demonstrated at the U.N. about the massacres of the Sudanese. What about all the massacres in Congo? Since when

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How can we fight a war declared on us by a group called Islamic Jihad if we’re not courageous enough to even identify them by name so we can win the war?

“

does America care about the slaughter of innocent people? America only cares about the slaughter of innocent people when it serves America and is up there on the news. That’s why Obama is talking the way he’s talking, trying to show strength. You know, it is unfortunate that we have such collective memory and collective caring in this country. But the slaughter in Syria is something that we should not get involved with. We have much more strategic places in the world to worry about and care about, that will affect directly the United States much more than what’s happening in Syria right now. AR: The time’s going fast. We’ve got maybe fifteen minutes, but I want to cover a number of things, so: In this country we have what’s generally been called a War on Terror. How do you define it? “War on Terror”? “War on Terrorism”? “War Against Radical Islam”? What are we engaged in and how are we doing in that engagement?

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BG: We are engaged in a war with radical Islam. The war has been declared against the United States by the radical Islamists. They initiated it. We’re not fighting a “War on Terror.” Terror is only a tactic. The radical Islamists are rising throughout the world. As I’m speaking with you right now, Roger, there are 44 conflicts around the world between Muslims and non-Muslims, regardless of what nationality these non-Muslims are, or what language they speak, what passport they hold, or what region of the world they live in. 44 conflicts. Look what’s happening in Djibouti. Look what’s happening in Chad, what’s happening in Mauritania. Americans don’t even look at these countries. It’s not even on our radar screen. So a war has been declared on the West by radical Islamists who want to bring back the Islamic Caliphate. They are empowered. The revolution started with Iran in 1979, with the coming of [Ruhollah] Khomeini, who birthed, basically, life into the Islamic radical movement worldwide. The sooner we wake up and identify the enemy we are fighting—how they think, what their goal is, what’s their strategy, who are the key players in this war, who are the financiers of this war—that’s when we’re going to be able to make progress and come up with a plan where we can actually defeat our enemy. But President Obama, right now, is in the process of deleting from the lexicon anything relating to radical Islam out of our counterterrorism strategy, whether at the FBI, whether at the Pentagon, whether at the CIA, whether at the State Department. I mean, they are doing it now down to the local first responders’ training. They are taking out words such as “Islamic jihad,” “Islamic terrorism,” “Islamic radicalism.” How can we fight a war declared on us by a group called Islamic Jihad if we’re not courageous enough to even identify them by name so we can win the war? This is why I encourage people to join us—go to our website, actforamerica.org. We are now putting pressures on members of Congress to stop this insanity, to make sure that we do not mess with changing the training manuals at the FBI and for our first responders. Let’s not insert political correctness into our counterterrorism strategy. Otherwise, we are endangering the lives of

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millions of Americans in the name of political correctness, because we are afraid to identify our enemy. This is the time to act and take action, so I encourage our listeners to go to actforamerica.org. Sign up to get our E-mails and Action Alerts so we can reach you when there’s an important legislation coming down, or an Action Alert where we need you to pick up the phone and call your elected officials, where your voice matters most. RA: So you attribute this to political correctness, why we are removing these terms—jihad—from, from the government handbooks and things. Go into that a little bit more. What is the real motivation here? Why are we removing that language? Why aren’t we trying to wake people up to what threatens this country? BG: Because we have foreign forces and Islamic front groups representing the Muslim Brotherhood operating in the United States that has infiltrated our society on every level—including government—who are now influencing policy. To give you an example—ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America. They are now advisors to President Obama about foreign policy. Is it any wonder why President Obama is throwing Israel under the bus, for example? Now, why we should be so concerned about the groups like ISNA and CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations]—because they are mentioned in The Muslim Brotherhood Project, which was presented as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial, which is the largest terrorism trial ever in the history of the United States, where the United States took to court the Holy Land Foundation, where our government handed down 108 “Guilty” verdicts against Muslim-Americans or Muslim-American organizations who were raising money in the United States and sending it to the Middle East to fund terrorist operations in the Middle East. In that lawsuit our government introduced evidence called the “Muslim Brotherhood Project,” which is a 100-year plan for radical Islam to infiltrate and dominate the West. In the Muslim Brotherhood Project, the last page of the project lists

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29 front Islamic organizations set up in the United States by the Muslim Brotherhood in order to “sabotage the miserable house of America from within,” according to their words. Part of the names mentioned in that project are ISNA, Islamic Society of North America; the MSA, the Muslim Student Association; NAIT, the North American Islamic Trust, which owns the deeds to the majority of mosques in the United States; IAP, the Islamic Association for Palestine, which later became CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations. So what we have right now is, these groups who are our enemy, groups set up in the United States with the specific purpose of sabotaging America from within, are now consulting with the media—you always see CAIR on television giving interviews as supposedly the spokespeople on behalf of the Muslim community, ISNA advises President Obama about Middle East policy, MPAC and other organizations like this are putting the pressure on our government to clean up this type of language from our counterterrorism training manuals and threatening lawsuits if we don’t: That’s the reason why we are changing the language. RA: And why do you think, for instance, President Obama brings these people in as advisors, as consultants? What is his motivation in doing this? BG: That’s a very interesting question. I cannot answer what’s going on inside President Obama’s head, but I can tell you one thing: Actions speak louder than words, especially when you are the President of the United States and you are making decisions whether to protect your own citizens and put the interests of your own country before anybody else in the world, or whether you listen and are influenced by foreign forces that you know for sure are in our country to do our country harm. Obviously our President has regular intelligence briefings. I cannot imagine our President not being briefed on the Muslim Brotherhood plan, or the Muslim Brotherhood Project in the United States, and about the Holy Land Foundation trial, which took place in Dallas, Texas in 2007 and 2008. Obviously he knows the information, he knows what

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“...right now, we have a President who is practically endangering the lives of Americans by putting foreign interests first, before America...”

these organizations are—and for him to know all this information and still bring these types of shady characters and hire them as his advisors, to work with him on coming up with our foreign policy and our policy in the United States on counterterrorism, is something very concerning, to say the least—very alarming to put it, to put it mildly—because right now, we have a President who is practically endangering the lives of Americans by putting foreign interests first, before America, while ignoring what needs to be done in order to protect and secure the United States of America, the same country he took an oath to protect—he’s not doing the job. As a matter of fact, he is sabotaging the job of protecting the United States, and that is very, very alarming, and I do hope that people this November will take into account all the information that is out there—whether on the Internet, whether through blogs, whether through radio, whether through national security organizations like ourselves—and make an informed decision before they go to vote, because

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the future of our country depends on their vote this coming election. RA: How do you view the media’s participation or involvement in this? Are they keeping us well-informed on this infiltration, the influence of these Islamist groups? How do you see our mainstream media’s involvement in this? BG: Well, certainly the mainstream media is not going to give us the news that you and I are sharing right now on this broadcast! RA: Why not? BG: You know—you read my books, Roger— AR: Right— BG: —and you know in my book I discuss how the media has been influenced, starting in the college, by all the influx of the money flowing from Saudi Arabia and the Islamic countries into our universities, brainwashing our students, setting up Middle East policy, Departments of Political Science department, and appointing professors who are anti-Israel and anti-America, who basically have been brainwashing our students for the last sixteen, twenty years, graduating out of our universities into believing America is bad, Israel is evil, and the Islamic world is under pressure by American imperialism. So what we have today is a new generation of Americans who are the decision makers when it comes to media—who are the news anchors, the news writers, the opinion shapers, the opinion makers, the foreign policy makers—and this is why, when you watch CNN or any of the mainstream media, they are very sympathetic to the Islamic world, they are very sympathetic to the Islamic cause, they bend backwards and forwards accommodating Islamic radical groups and their views, like CAIR, for example. You always see CAIR interviewed on CNN and MSNBC—I mean, even Fox News! But at least with Fox News,

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you get fair and balanced debate. But when it comes to CNN and ABC and MSNBC and CBS and NBC, basically, you are not getting nothing but a whitewashed version of the truth, and many issues are not being covered. But again, that’s why the media is at this point, because our enemy has been very smart, and they began at the university level and brainwashing the students. We’re paying the price today. And what’s scary, Roger, is they’re doing the same thing right now in middle and high school, changing the Islam curriculum and inserting their own view of how Islam is being taught at the middle and high school, which is going to impact the next generation of Americans. I discussed this in my book They Must Be Stopped, but Act for America Education just came out with a report that is now posted on our website—our sister organization, actforamericaeducation.com—on how Islam is being portrayed in public schools in sixth and seventh grade. RA: And with your Act for America, why don’t you tell people about your conference coming up, what they could expect if—will they be able to view it online, or do they have to attend? Also, what your group does is, they go into different states and get involved in these efforts to keep sharia law from being considered as part of the American justice system—tell us about that. BG: A great question. Thank you. You and I have known each other and have, you know, talked before on different broadcasts. You and I understand that there’s a lot of information out there about radical Islam. When I started speaking out a few years ago, when I started, ten years ago in 2002, I would speak to groups from 100 to 10,000 at a time, and the same question kept coming up: Now that I am informed, what can I do? Now that I’m educated—just like people who listen to us on this broadcast—now that I know all this information, I’m more frustrated. What do I do? Give me something to do. I learned very quickly, Roger, when I heard this question over and over again, that while education is

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"When it comes to CNN and ABC and MSNBC and CBS and NBC, basically, you are not getting nothing but a whitewashed version of the truth, and many issues are not being covered."

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important, education is not sufficient. Education must be coupled with action. That’s when I launched ACT! For America. ActforAmerica.org is now the largest national security grassroots movement in the United States. We have 230,000 members nationwide, 700 chapters nationwide, and a full-time lobbyist on Capitol Hill. We are actually creating the NRA of national security. We are creating the most powerful citizen movement dedicated to national security that will put pressure on elected officials to do the right thing. In our upcoming national conference on the 27th, 28th, and 29th of June, we have eighteen elected officials coming to speak on our conference about national security—what they are doing behind the scenes, legislations they are working on—and the reason why they’re lining up to come speak at our conference, because they know we have become the most powerful national security organization in the United States. Our members tackle issues and legislations coming down for a vote. We monitor the votes and the bills coming down on Capitol Hill. We send an E-mail out to our members telling them, “Tomorrow there is a bill coming down, H.R. 1640 sponsored by Congressman Such-and-Such or So-and-So, this is what the bill says, we want to make sure we alert you so you can call your elected official and express your opinion—either ‘Vote for it!’ or ‘Don’t vote for it!’” We give them the information and we empower them to make a phone call. At certain times we have had over 30,000 phone calls go to Capitol Hill, to a certain Congressman’s office in one day—which shut down their phone system. That’s the type of people power that our government needs to see in order for our elected officials to do the right thing by the American people. Our philosophy is this: If our elected officials are not willing to see the light, we’re going to make them feel the heat because the only language they understand is pressure, and getting reelected—and that’s exactly what we’re doing. So we have our chapters nationwide, who get involved, who are very organized, who meet with their elected officials, who do events in their community, who monitor what’s happening in their community, and they are very, very active. To give you an idea of the type of activities that we do, for example, ALAC—

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American Laws for American Courts—which is a legislation that will ensure that only American laws will be considered in American courts, and no foreign law will be applied when it contradicts our Constitution. Right now we have introduced this bill in twenty states and we already passed it in three states, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arizona. Now it has been introduced in six other states in the Republican Party platform, as a topic the Republican Party’s going to push for. So that’s the type of things that we do. I encourage people to come and learn more about us at our national conference in Washington, D.C. on the 27th, 28th, and 29th, and for more information and details, you can go to actforamerica. org—make sure you sign up to receive our E-mails and Action Alerts. We want to be able to reach you, to empower you to make a difference for our country.

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"We are creating the most powerful citizen movement dedicated to national security that will put pressure on elected officials to do the RIGHT thing."

COUNTRIES WITH MOST DEATHS CAUSED BY TERORISTS 2008 (National Counterterrorism Center) Iraq - 5,016 Pakistan - 2,300 Afghanistan - 2,000 Somalia - 1,250 India - 1,200 Congo - 950 Thailand - 480 Sudan - 475 Sri Lanka - 470 Colombia - 470 Philippines - 465 Russia - 250 Chad - 235 Algeria - 140 Lebanon - 138

U.S. STATES EXPERIENCING THE MOST TERRORIST ATTACKS 1970â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2011 (Washintonpost.com) California - 574 New York - 492 Puerto Rico - 241 Florida - 144 Illinois - 108 Washington - 88 District of Columbia - 81 Oregon - 60 Massachusetts - 50 Texas - 48

U.S. STATES EXPERIENCING THE MOST TERRORIST FATALITIES, 1970â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2011 (Washintonpost.com) New York - 2,818 Virginia - 196 Oklahoma - 170 California - 61 Pennsylvania - 48 Puerto Rico - 22 Texas - 19 Colorado - 18 District of Columbia - 17 Florida - 15