THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 87, May 25, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
POPULAR NOTIONS LAID BARE: A REVIEW
OF THREE BOOKS ON TERRORISM & JIHADISM
By Dr. Michael Rubin
ISLAMISM, TERRORISM, & JIHADISM: USE OF POLITICS, CHARITY, & TERRORISM IN THE SERVICE OF JIHAD
AGAINST ISRAEL & THE WEST -- MILITANT ISLAM, HAMAS, SAUDI ARABIA, MILITANT ISLAM, ISLAMIC BANKING, &
FUNDING THE GLOBAL WAR BEING WAGED AGAINST WESTERN CIVILIZATION
FULL STORY:
Hamas's election victory shocked the West. "I don't see how you can be a partner for peace if you advocate the destruction
of a country as part of your platform," President Bush said at a January 26, 2006, news conference held after the results of the
Palestinian election were announced. Subsequently, Washington cut off aid money to the new Hamas-dominated government,
but the White House's resolve was not matched elsewhere. Two weeks after the election, Turkey's ruling Justice and
Development Party feted Hamas political leader Khalid Mishaal, a wanted terrorist. And, earlier this month, the Swedish
government broke European consensus to issue a visa for a Hamas minister to attend a conference calling for the Jewish
state's destruction. Moscow has even suggested supplying arms to Hamas.
How timely it is, then, to read Matthew Levitt's Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale
University Press, 334 pages, $26). In an age of instant experts and television terrorism analysts, Mr. Levitt is the real thing. A
former FBI counterterrorism analyst, he currently serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Intelligence and
Analysis.
Mr. Levitt parses many news reports, NGO studies, court proceedings, and legal documents (although he draws on very little
Arabic-language material) to separate the false rhetoric from the reality about Hamas. He lays bare the popular notion
preached by European diplomats that Hamas sports distinct political, social and military wings, or that it differentiates
between military and civilian targets. For example, the political leader of Hamas in Tulkarm, Abbas al-Sayyid, put on his military
hat to mastermind the March 27, 2002, bombing of a Netanya hotel Passover Seder, a civilian target. Hamas participates in the
political process and supports social networks only to advance its core mission, the destruction of Israel.
Mr. Levitt's sketch of Hamas's history and development is also useful. It has become trendy in certain circles to suggest rise
of Hamas to be blowback from earlier support by Israel. A Center for Strategic and International Studies Middle East analyst,
Tony Cordesman, for example, told United Press International that Israel "aided Hamas directly -- the Israelis wanted to use it
as a counterbalance for the PLO." Mr. Levitt corrects such musings in a chapter tracing the group's deep roots in the Muslim
Brotherhood. It is true that Israeli officials lent support to nonviolent Islamist organizations during the first Intifada
(1987-1993), but Hamas was not among them, even if Hamas later absorbed once non-violent civil society organs. Perhaps,
Israeli officials were naive to engage "moderate" Islamists, but, if so, Western calls for outreach to Hamas simply replicate past
mistakes.
Mr. Levitt's analysis is nuanced further through its juxtaposition of the seeming moderation of some Hamas officials inside the
West Bank and Gaza and the external radicals. Here, he warns against comparison: In the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas
moderates its rhetoric and actions out of fear of the Israeli military, not of conviction. It is simply easier for the
Damascus-based Mr. Mishaal to solicit Iranian funds than it is for those in Gaza, who are within reach of Israeli forces.
Any serious terrorism analyst understands the importance of a money trail. Mr. Levitt makes an exceptional contribution with
a chapter on "economic Jihad." He demonstrates how Hamas launders money and uses charities to subsidize terrorism. One
fatwa -- issued from a Saudi governmental body -- even makes it permissible to use non-Islamic, interest-bearing banks to
transfer money, so long as it is used to finance jihad. On April 28, 2006, President Jacques Chirac of France argued, "[F]inancial
aid to Palestinians has to be maintained for human and political reasons." Mr. Levitt shows how Hamas twists such humanitarian
aid to prove that the policy is inane. The group emphasizes early education radicalization and teaches elementary school
students to venerate suicide bombers. Incitement matters. Between 2003 and 2004, children's involvement in terrorism
increased by 64 percent.
The financial operations of Hamas extend to America. The FBI has investigated Hamas's links to drug trafficking, credit card
fraud, sale of counterfeit products, and cigarette tax fraud. Such operations provide between $20 million and $30 million
annually to Middle Eastern terrorist groups like Hamas.
Most gripping is Mr. Levitt's breakdown of the cost of an attack. A November 27, 2001,shooting attack on the Afula central bus
station cost $31,000; the July 31, 2002, attack on a Hebrew University cafeteria that killed seven, including five Americans, cost
$50,000. In contrast, the Holy Land Foundation, a prime financier of Hamas, raised $57 million between 1992 and 2001.
Not all cash goes directly to operations, though; donations also finance aid to the families of suicide bombers and Hamas's
social service-recruitment division. While no formal affiliation exists between Hamas and Al-Qa'ida, Mr. Levitt highlights
numerous financial links between the groups and raises questions about whether such ties could be made operational, either
officially or through rogue cells.
While Mr.Levitt focuses on Hamas, J. Millard Burr and Robert Collins look more broadly at terrorism finance in Alms for
Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World (Cambridge University Press, 343 pages, $28). The two are well-matched
to collaborate: Mr. Burr, a former USAID relief coordinator in Sudan, provides practitioner reality, while Mr. Collins, a
well-published African historian, adds academic depth.They begin with an examination of zakat, Islamic alms.They explain the
difference among zakat, religious gifts and endowment, and show how they can all be used to similar ends.
Lay Muslims once looked at zakat as just another tax levied by their governments. However, the Muslim Brotherhood-run
mosques began collecting alms to fund jihad. Messrs. Burr and Collins demonstrate this with a number of case studies
covering Afghanistan, Sudan, the Balkans, Russia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Holy Land, Europe, and North America.
Throughout, the Saudi royal family played a pernicious role, founding and promoting charities to spread militant Sunni Islam,
not only as an inoculation against resurgent Shi'ism from revolutionary Iran, but also to radicalize the Muslims in Europe and
America. Western bungling amplified the charities' success: Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika enabled Islamist
charities to sink roots in Chechnya, while, in the next decade, the Clinton administration delayed investigations into charities
like the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, doing so out of deference to the Foundation's Saudi royal family patrons.
Messrs. Burr and Collins's examination of Islamic banking is rich with both historical background and contemporary detail,
some of which may surprise: They show how groups like Palestinian Hamas, Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front, Tunisia's
al-Nahda, and Egypt's Jama'at al-Islamiyya all held shares in the Saudi-based al-Taqwa bank. And, though the authors do not
discuss Turkey, the fact that Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey has quietly replaced every member of the Turkey's banking
board with members drawn from Islamic banks is another cause for concern. Still, even though Islamist terrorists began
targeting their Saudi patrons, Messrs. Burr and Collins demonstrate how there remains virtually no government oversight into
charitable donations anywhere in the Muslim world.
While Hamas and Alms for Jihad detail the networks through which terrorist groups grow, Fawaz Gerges, a
professor at Sarah Lawrence University, takes a more holistic approach in Journey of the Jihadist (Harcourt, 296
pages, $25). He seeks to "delve into the world of Islamic militancy," but his narrative falls flat. Based on interviews with a few
Islamists, Mr. Gerges's account is all color and no substance. To conclude, he paraphrases an Egyptian Islamist who faults
American policy for forcing a reaction from Islamists; this is the logical equivalent of exculpating rape because the victim
wore a short skirt.
Messrs. Levitt, Burr, and Collins demonstrate that terrorism is not the spontaneous response to grievance. Never has the gap
between reality and the conventional wisdom peddled by Middle Eastern studies doyens like Mr. Gerges appeared so great.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
The Israeli-Arab Conflict
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Michael Rubin, a Ph.D. in History (Yale University) and a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, Islamic culture and Islamist
ideology, is Editor of the Middle East Quarterly and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research. Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, 2001) and is co-author, with Dr. Patrick Clawson, of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005). Dr. Rubin served as political advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad (2003-2004); staff
advisor on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense (2002-2004); visiting lecturer in the Departments of
History and International Relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2001-2002); visiting lecturer at the Universities of
Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan (2000-2001); Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (1999-2000); and visiting lecturer in the Department of History at Yale University (1999-2000). He has been a fellow at
the Council of Foreign Relations, the Leonard Davis Institute at Hebrew University, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and
International Affairs.
The foregoing book review by Dr. Rubin was originally published in the New York Sun, May 23, 2006, and can be
found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
May 24, 2006
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