The Terrorist Conjunction: The United States, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and Al-Qa'ida Alfred G. Gerteiny PRAEGER SECURITY INTERNATIONAL THE TERRORIST CONJUNCTION Praeger Security International Advisory Board Board Cochairs Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Public and International Affairs, School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia (U.S.A.) Paul Wilkinson, Professor of International Relations and Chairman of the Advisory Board, Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St. Andrews (U.K.) Members Eliot A. Cohen, Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies and Director, Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University (U.S.A.) Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies (U.S.A.) Ther´ ese` Delpech, Director of Strategic Affairs, Atomic Energy Commission, and Senior Research Fellow, CERI (Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques), Paris (France) Sir Michael Howard, former Chichele Professor of the History of War and Regis Professor of Modern History, Oxford University, and Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, Yale University (U.K.) Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy, USA (Ret.), former Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army (U.S.A.) Paul M. Kennedy, J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History and Director, International Security Studies, Yale University (U.S.A.) Robert J. O’Neill, former Chichele Professor of the History of War, All Souls College, Oxford University (Australia) Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat, Chair for Peace and Development, Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland (U.S.A.) Jusuf Wanandi, cofounder and member, Board of Trustees, Centre for Strategic and International Studies (Indonesia) Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Newsweek International (U.S.A.) THE TERRORIST CONJUNCTION The United States, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and al-Qa’ida¯ ALFRED G. GERTEINY Foreword by Jean Ziegler PRAEGER SECURITY INTERNATIONAL r Westport, Connecticut London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gerteiny, Alfred G. The terrorist conjunction : the United States, Israel, the Palestinians, and Al-Qaida / Alfred G. Gerteiny ; foreword by Jean Ziegler. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–275–99643–7 (alk. paper) 1. Terrorism. 2. Terrorism—Religious aspects—Islam. 3. Arab-Israeli conflict—History. 4. United States—Foreign relations. I. Title. HV6431.G47 2007 363.325–dc22 2007005897 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright c 2007 by Alfred G. Gerteiny All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007005897 ISBN-13: 978–0–275–99643–7 ISBN-10: 0–275–99643–3 First published in 2007 Praeger Security International, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10987654321 Contents Foreword by Jean Ziegler vii Preface xiii Acknowledgments xv Introduction xvii 1. On Political Power, Legitimacy, and Violence 1 2. Anatomy and Physiology of Contemporary Terrorism 12 3. Islam,¯ Islamism,¯ and Apocalyptic Terrorism 33 4. Consequential or Reactive Nationalism-based Terrorism 55 5. Terrorism and the Palestine Problem 67 6. Human Rights and Israel’s National Security 85 7. The Neocons and the Dishonoring of America 97 Appendix 107 Notes 137 Bibliography 149 Index 155 Foreword BARBARITY AND ITS MIRROR The Terrorist Conjunction: The United States, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and al-Qa’ida¯ is a brilliant analysis, innovative and profoundly original, of one of the most frightful yet evasive phenomena of our time: the devastating acts of armed terrorists. How is it possible to analyze in rational terms a political, military and ideological poisoning whose roots are buried in the darkest irrationality? Professor Gerteiny has done so admirably. A celebrated international specialist in the relations between the West and the Muslim Arab and African worlds, he has produced an impressive scientific study with a perception of the Muslim people rare among his American and European colleagues. Born in Cairo, he received a solid education at the French Jesuit College, before pursuing graduate studies in Paris, The Hague, and New York. As a youth, he was exposed to various cultures. The fascinating multiculture of Egyptian society between 1940 and 1950 opened for him an historic horizon both vast and vibrant. The great majority of organized terrorist groups currently in operation against the West and its allies is of Muslim Arab origin. Gerteiny understands the frustra- tions and motivations, both conscious and subconscious, that impel their actions. The bloody terrorism practiced by global organizations and local groups, mainly of aforesaid Muslim Arab origin, has given rise in the West, to a perverse variation: the terrorism of the state, practiced by the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq and by Israel in Palestine and Lebanon. Islamist¯ barbarity is reflected in Bush and Olmert’s barbarity and vice versa. viii foreword Regis Debray sums up the situation thusly: “The choice is between an exas- perating empire and an insufferable Medievalism.”1 Precision is, at this point, necessary: I use the term “Islamist”¯ because it has entered the Western and Arab worlds’ lexicons, for it would be injudicious to inculpate Islam,¯ or the Qur’an¯ as a whole for the mindless massacres of children, women, and men, and we trust that the fundamental obsession with theocracy will be overcome by reason. In its endless war on global terrorism, a phenomenon which knows no restric- tions in the normative sense, the current United States government has unilaterally rescinded basic norms of international law by endorsing the concept of preventive war, violating the Charter of the United Nations and condoning torture on a grand scale. I recall an autumn afternoon in Manhattan: the special Chairman of the Hu- man Rights Commission on Torture, Theo van Bowen, was speaking before the General Assembly of the United Nations. It was Wednesday, October 27, 2004. The audience listened in a subdued state of shock and horror as he enumer- ated meticulously the torture techniques used by the occupying power in Iraq and Afghanistan, against both war prisoners and mere suspects—sleep depriva- tion for long periods of time; confinement in cages where captives could neither stretch out nor could barely stand or sit; transfer of detainees to secret prisons in states where the most atrocious methods of mutilation are practiced; sexual violation and humiliation; sham executions; intimidation by attack dogs; and more. The American president can now decide at his discretion which of the de- tainees captured by the American authorities are to benefit from the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols as well as the established principles of humanitarian rights and which will be “legally” surrendered to the whims of their jailers. In the September 19, 2006, International Herald Tribune, Paul Krugman poses an interesting question, providing his own answer: Why is the Bush administration so determined to torture people? To show that it can. The central drive of the Bush administration—more fundamental than any particular policy—has been the effort to eliminate all limits on the president’s power. Torture, I believe, appeals to the president and the vice president precisely because it’s a violation of both law and tradition. By making an illegal and immoral practice a key element of U.S. policy, they’re asserting their right to do whatever they claim is necessary. Krugman echoes Gerteiny’s own words: Bush finally found some things he wants Americans to sacrifice. And those things turn out to be our principles and our self-respect. foreword ix The Terrorist Conjunction subtly documents the neo-imperialism of the Bush regime. But this neo-imperialism was not born solely of a reaction to the frightful crimes committed by the al-Qa’ida¯ murderers of September 11, 2001. In the United States, imperialism already had a history of applying its own definition of what is lawful. It’s here and only here that I must criticize Gerteiny: he fails to analyze the historic roots of President Bush’s neo-imperialism. According to Bob Woodward, Henry Kissinger, now 83, is one of Bush and Cheney’s principal advisors.2 In 1957, Kissinger published his doctoral thesis under the title: AWorld Restored: Metternich, Castelreagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812–1822.3 Here he developed the imperialist credo which he later applied to the period from 1969 to 1975, when a member of the National Security Council and from 1973 to 1977, as secretary of state. His central theme: Multilateral diplomacy produces only chaos. Strict adherence to the people’s rights to self-determination and United States sovereignty does not constitute a guarantee for peace. Only a planetary power possesses the material means and the capability of swift global intervention in times of crisis. This power alone can impose peace. During a recent conference at the Center for Strategic Studies at the University Institute of High International Studies in Geneva, Dr. Kissinger brilliantly analyzed the deadly conflict in Bosnia. As I listened to him, doubts began to rise in me. Could he be right? For twenty-one months, Sarajevo had been bombarded and surrounded by the Serbs: 11,000 dead, tens of thousands wounded, mainly civilians—the majority, children. Yet there was total inability on the parts of the United Nations and Europe to bring the murderers of Milosevic to justice, until one day, in June, 1995, when the American president made the decision to bombard the Serbian artillery posted around the Sarajevo basin, to force the Dayton meeting, and finally, to impose peace in the Balkans through military might.