Praying for a Moderate Terrorist

 

by  Daniel Greenfield

The Obama Administration may have abandoned the space program and the search for life on other planets, but it is determinedly searching for moderate Islamic terrorists all across this planet. So far it has tried to identify "Moderate Taliban" (these would be Taliban who only chop off your feet, not your head) and "Moderate Hizbullah" (who only support bombing Ashkelon but not Haifa). It has yet to get around to trying to locate any "Moderate Al Queda", but we have to assume that's next on their shopping list.

 

If the same people running foreign policy in the US and Europe had been in charge in 1941, when Rudolf Hess, the third in the line of succession after Hitler and Goring, flew to the UK with a peace offer-- Hess would have  been wined and dined, and the Allies would have prematurely aborted the war in joy at having finally discovered a "Moderate Nazi." Instead Churchill churlishly had Hess thrown into the Tower of London, where he stayed until Germany was defeated and he could be put on trial at Nuremberg.

Of course if we overlay the present on the past, it's easy enough to imagine the ACLU rushing to offer pro bono legal counsel to Rudolf Hess, the New York Times running a series of stories planted by PR companies working for Nazi Germany detailing his plight in the Tower, and demanding that he be given his day in court, and George Clooney making a movie in which he plays Hess' lawyer. Of course all this actually did happen. Except Hess was named Hamdan, and he was Osama bin Laden's bodyguard and chauffeur. And yes George Clooney will play his lawyer.

The difference is that by 1941 there were a shortage of people who still had a weakness for Nazis. Years of brutal war had changed that. And today there is still no shortage of those in the media, Hollywood and of course holding down the polished wooden desks at the State Department and the Foreign Office who have a weakness for Islamic terrorists. And that "weakness" is a prerequisite for the pursuit of the moderate Islamic terrorist.

To understand why that's so, let's examine the logic behind the Great Moderate Terrorist Caper. What is a moderate Islamic terrorist? Boiled down to basics, it's a terrorist who's willing to sit down and negotiate with us. Which means that the only difference between an "Extremist" and a "Moderate" is that the extremist wants to cut our head off without talking to us, while the moderate wants to tell us exactly why he wants to cut our head off, and how many heads we can give him to satisfy his bloodlust.

Let's take at Hamas and Fatah in Israel. Both are terrorist groups with social welfare arms for their followers. Both teach children that becoming a suicide bomber will get them into paradise. Both are covered with the blood of the people they murdered. Both oppress even their own people, and murder anyone who crosses them. But the State Department insists that Fatah is a peace partner and Hamas is a terrorist group. What's the difference between them? Hamas refuses to negotiate any kind of peace plan. Fatah is willing to negotiate a peace plan in bad faith. That is why Fatah gets billions of dollars from the US, and Hamas has to make do with whatever Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, George Galloway, Cindy Sheehan and the good people at Code Pink can smuggle to them.

 

Naturally the Obama Administration has also been in the market for "Moderate Hamas" terrorists to negotiate with, but despite Robert Malley's best efforts, none have yet turned up. Even the prospects for a "Moderate Taliban" don't look good. That may be because our only criteria for "Moderate Taliban" is not based on their respect for human rights or not murdering our soldiers-- but on their willingness to sit down at a table with us and accept our concessions. Now think about the national self-image of the people who think this way and you'll see the source of their "weakness".

Churchill wasn't interested in what Hess had to say, because he knew that England was in the right, and Nazi Germany was in the wrong. Obama and his people are deeply interested in what the Taliban and Hezbollah have to say because they're not sure of any such thing at all. Their mindset is still stuck in 1933. They're still busy apologizing for everything America did wrong-- to people who think nothing of murdering their own daughters over a text phone message. It's as if Chamberlain were still in power in 1941 and was busy apologizing for causing Germany's economic problems, while London was burning around him.

Chamberlain was unfit to govern because he did not see his nation as good, and Nazi Germany as evil. By contrast Churchill was fit to take his place because he saw it exactly that way. Obama and those who work for him not only don't share Churchill's view, they don't even share Chamberlain's. They don't merely suffer from moral equivalence, they actually believe that our enemies have a just grievance against us, while we are experiencing blowback from our foreign policy-- and need to shut up about it and make our peace with the terrorists. And people who see it this way, whether it's Barack Hussein Obama or Nick Clegg or Jean-Marie Le Pen or Rand Paul, are completely unfit to govern in wartime.

That is the heart of the "weakness" that we have been talking about. A corruption of the spirit.

In the logic of appeasement, all Islamic terrorists have a valid grievance against us. They engage in violence against us because of their grievance. If we can only meet with those moderate terrorists who are willing to listen to us, and work with them to resolve that grievance, the extreme terrorists who refuse to listen to us will be marginalized, and peace will prevail. Call it madness or treason, this is exactly what they believe. And work to implement.

 

There are numerous examples to show that this doesn't work. If nothing else, seventeen bloody years in Israel have demonstrated that. But the Obama Administration is determined to follow its sympathies, which are ever hostile to America and its interests, and friendly to those who would destroy us. And so they go on praying for a moderate terrorist. A terrorist who will put on a suit and tie, shake their hands for the camera, accept their concessions and usher in a reign of hell on earth.

What kind of people pray for a moderate terrorist? The kind who let a mosque be built within sight of Ground Zero. Whose preferred form of American history is a list of wrongs that we committed against everyone. Who believe in a reverse form of American exceptionalism, that we are exceptionally bad, exceptionally evil and an exceptionally awful country. Who have a context for everything our enemies do to us, and none for what we do in our own defense. The kind who in not so many words, believe the terrorists have a point and that we need to work it out with them.

A moderate Islamic terrorist is most in demand by people who are looking to surrender. They just wish there was someone reasonable around for them to surrender to.

 

 

Daniel Greenfield

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

The Palestinians: The Real Traitors

 

by Khaled Abu Toameh

The former PLO "ambassador" to Australia, Ali Kazak, believes that an Arab journalist who writes about financial corruption and theft in the Palestinian Authority is a "traitor" who should be murdered the same way as collaborators were killed by the French Resistance.

Kazak told the newspaper, The Australian: "Khaled Abu Toameh is a traitor. Traitors were also murdered by the French Resistance, in Europe; this happens everywhere."

Asked why he calls the journalist a traitor, the former PLO representative, who lives in Australia, explained: "Palestinians are the victims. He shouldn't write about them, he should write about the crimes of the Israelis."

Kazak's threat does not come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the methods used by Arab dictatorships to silence anyone who dares to demand reforms and transparency.

The threat reminds journalists like me how lucky we are that we live in Israel and not under the jurisdiction of the PLO or Hamas.

We are also fortunate that Kazak and his radical supporters are sitting far away in Australia and not in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where they would be lining up journalists and critics against the wall and shooting them like the "traitors who were murdered by the French Resistance."

The PLO, like most of the Arab dictatorships, has a long history of targeting journalists who refuse to "toe the line." This clampdown is one of the main reasons why the Palestinian media is still far from being independent and free.

One of the first things the PLO did when it entered the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1994 was to wage a campaign of intimidation and terror against Palestinian reporters and editors.

Another photographer had his two arms broken by members of Fatah's armed wing, the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, apparently after he had been heard bad-mouthing senior officials associated with Arafat.

A photographer who took a picture of a donkey strolling along the beach of Gaza City was arrested and beaten by Palestinian security agents on charges of "defaming the Palestinian cause" by distributing a picture of the animal instead of documenting the "suffering" of his people.

A newspaper editor who failed to publish a story about Yasser Arafat on the front page of his newspaper found himself thrown into a Jericho prison for a week.

The offices of a newspaper in east Jerusalem were torched after the editor published an editorial denouncing financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority.

The director-general of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation was gunned down in Gaza City, and it's widely believed that Arafat had ordered the assassination.

Earlier this year, the Palestinian Authority leadership instructed all Palestinian journalists and editors to refrain from publishing allegations of rampant corruption made by Fahmi Shabaneh, the former head of the anti-corruption department in the Palestinian security forces.

The absence of a free and independent media in the Palestinian territories has driven many Palestinians to seek work in the Western media, including Israeli newspapers and radio and TV stations.

But Kazak thinks that it is not enough that these journalists have been forced out of their own media. Now he wants to see them being murdered for working for writing about one of the most significant problem facing the Palestinians: financial corruption and bad government.

Kazak needs to be reminded that the party he claims to represent lost the January 2006 parliamentary election largely due to its failure to combat corruption.

The real traitors are those who established another corrupt dictatorship in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and stole billions of dollars of international aid that was supposed to improve the living conditions of their people.

The real traitors are those who built a casino for the Palestinians instead of building them a hospital and a school.

The real traitors are those who are trying to silence journalists and reformists who want to see a better life for their people

 

Khaled Abu Toameh

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Fancy restaurants and Olympic-size pools: What the media won’t report about Gaza

 

by Tom Gross

In recent days, the international media, particularly in Europe and the Mideast, has been full of stories about "activist boats sailing to Gaza carrying desperately-needed humanitarian aid and building materials."

The BBC World Service even led its world news broadcasts with this story at one point over the weekend. (The BBC yesterday boasted that its global news audience has now risen to 220 million persons a week, making it by far the biggest news broadcaster in the world.)

Indeed the BBC and other prominent Western media regularly lead their viewers and readers astray with accounts of a non-existent "mass humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza.

What they won't tell you about are the fancy new restaurants and swimming pools of Gaza, or about the wind surfing competitions on Gaza beaches, or the Strip's crowded shops and markets. Many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza live a middle class (and in some cases an upper class) lifestyle that western journalists refuse to report on because it doesn't fit with the simplistic story they were sent to write.

Here, courtesy of the Palestinian Ma'an news agency, is a report on Gaza's new Olympic-sized swimming pool . (Most Israeli towns don't have Olympic-size swimming pools. One wonders how an area that claims to be starved of water and building materials and depends on humanitarian aid builds an Olympic size swimming pool and creates a luxury lifestyle for some while others are forced to live in abject poverty as political pawn refugees?)

If you pop into the Roots Club in Gaza, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, you can "dine on steak au poivre and chicken cordon bleu".

The restaurant's website in Arabic gives a window into middle class dining and the lifestyle of Hamas officials in Gaza. And here it is in English, for all the journalists, UN types and NGO staff who regularly frequent this and other nice Gaza restaurants (but don't tell their readers about them).

And here is a promotional video of the club restaurant . In case anyone doubts the authenticity of this video, I just called the club in Gaza City and had a nice chat with the manager who proudly confirmed business is booming and many Palestinians and international guests are dining there.

In a piece for The Wall Street Journal last year, I documented the "after effects" of a previous "emergency Gaza boat flotilla," when the arrivals were seen afterwards purchasing souvenirs in well-stocked shops.

 

 But the mainstream liberal international media won't report on any of this. Playing the manipulative game of the BBC is easy: if we had their vast taxpayer funded resources, we too could produce reports about parts of London, Manchester and Glasgow and make it look as though there is a humanitarian catastrophe throughout the UK. We could produce the same effect by selectively filming seedy parts of Paris and Rome and New York and Los Angeles too.

Of course there is poverty in Gaza. There is poverty in parts of Israel too. (When was the last time a foreign journalist based in Israel left the pampered lounge bars and restaurants of the King David and American Colony hotels in Jerusalem and went to check out the slum-like areas of southern Tel Aviv? Or the hard-hit Negev towns of Netivot or Rahat?)

But the way that many prominent Western news media are deliberately misleading global audiences and systematically creating the false impression that people are somehow starving in Gaza, and that it is all Israel's fault, can only serve to increase hatred for the Jewish state – which one suspects was the goal of many of the editors and reporters involved in the first place.

 

Tom Gross is a former Middle East correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph and the New York Daily News.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

We Do Not Live in Normal Times: A Small Case Study of Incompetence and Ideological Insanity

by Barry Rubin

Although these two stories—the first regarding Turkey and Brazil's relationship with Iran; the second (covered in another article), anti-Israel hysteria in the United Kingdom—are totally different, they reflect the two parts of our current crisis.

These are the ideological and policy derailment of Western governments, on the one hand and, on the other hand, the collapse of the fail-safe systems for key public institutions, especially academia and media. To understand the crisis in both sectors—the greatest perhaps since the end of World War Two—these two halves of the puzzle must be assembled.

The first story relates to a detail in the recent engineering by Turkey and Brazil of a deal with Iran to try to slow or even stop the effort to put sanctions on Iran regarding its nuclear weapons program. This plan is basically a retread of something that failed more than six months ago. Iran would send out a portion of its potential material for making bombs but keep the rest. It was an obvious trick and quickly rejected as such by the United States and other leading powers.

A friend, however, was deeply puzzled by one detail of this situation. It was widely reported that the Turkish and Brazilian governments consulted with the United States prior to making this farcical arrangement with Tehran and got a green light to go ahead. How, my friend asked, could the U.S. government give the okay to actions that would clearly destroy one of its main policies?

Another element in the story is the defection of two historically reliable allies of the United States to the other side. There's no sense concealing the fact that Turkey and Brazil are friendlier to Iranian interests than to American ones. And this is with the allegedly internationally beloved Barack Obama in the White House!

But the mistake and defection only seem inexplicable because of a failure to face two facts.

First, Turkey is now in the hands of an Islamist-oriented regime, a fact that still seems to be a secret in official Washington. Iran and Syria regard Turkey as their ally, not America's, yet the Obama Administration continues to praise and coddle the government in Ankara, despite its unprecedented repression and step-by-step attempt to dismantle Turkish democracy

Brazil has a president who is as close to a Communist as one can get nowadays. Along with the leaders of Venezuela and Bolivia, he is no friend of the United States, again despite the administration's praise, lack of criticism, and blindness toward these regimes.

The United States and the Western democracies have enemies in this world and they will not be charmed away, won over by appeasement, bought off with material betterment, or made to disappear if they are ignored.

This leads to the other aspect: the incompetence and ideological errors of the Obama Administration. It did not gain popularity for President George W. Bush to say that "you are with us or you are against us." Yet there are times that a president must say that or at least something closer to that than what's being said at present.

The U.S. government is proudly and deliberately refusing to show leadership, having swung too far on the pendulum toward a doctrinaire multilateralism, a UN worship. It has proudly and deliberately set out to show that it is not tough in foreign policy.

What Obama should have done is to tell the Turkish and Brazilian governments: We believe Iran is heading toward nuclear weapons and we feel it is the highest priority to stop it. We need your support and since you are allies for whom we have done a great deal we expect it. Your votes are needed for sanctions on the UN Security Council and, of course, if we don't get them then we will have to think about other aspects of our relationship.


Even many in Brazil were horrified by what their country had done, and worried--being behind the times, perhaps--at how the United States might retaliate. This is leverage that could have been used on this issue. The same applies to Turkey, where the opposition is openly bitter at a U.S. policy they believe goes too far in favoring the incumbent government, and thus helping it stay in power. Yet while some reported that this may damage U.S. relations with these countries, I'll bet the Obama Administration does nothing at all.

Governments need to use both carrots and sticks in diplomacy, but the Obama Administration has countries which are hostile or unhelpful on an all-carrot diet. Given this, a lot of countries aren't going to stick with the United States, at least to the same extent as they formerly did.

Instead, in order not to offend and to keep Obama popular--which sometimes seems the main goal of contemporary U.S. policy--it said something like: sure, go ahead, we aren't going to tell you what to do.

Thus, a major mess results. And it is typical of a whole variety of big problems and growing threats due to mistakes in U.S. policy.

Countries are spinning out of the American orbit due both to internal changes (which must be recognized and acted upon by U.S. policy) and by the conviction that the United States is weak and too friendly to its enemies to safeguard the interests of its friends. For example, this issue is being openly acknowledged by people in Saudi Arabia, fearful that the United States is going to leave them to Iran's "mercy," in practice no matter what the administration's rhetoric claims.

Enemies are being emboldened and are making gains by the same considerations.

Until America's leaders--these or, more likely the next ones--see this, the danger and crisis will deepen.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

The Solution Is in Damascus and Tehran

 

by Michael J. Totten

 

Adam Brodsky at the New York Post says that if Israel wants to kneecap Iran, it should take out Hezbollah in Lebanon. That would indeed go a long way toward rolling back Tehran’s imperial ambitions in the Middle East. Hezbollah moonlights as a Syrian proxy militia, but it is first and foremost Iranian “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei’s army in Lebanon, effectively the Mediterranean branch of the Pasdaran.

It’s also the most resilient and capable terrorist army in the world and, for that very reason, difficult to root out conventionally. The Israel Defense Forces fought Hezbollah to a standstill between 1982 and 2000 and failed to destroy it during the Second Lebanon War in July and August of 2006. Hezbollah emerged stronger than ever after the 18-year counterinsurgency in 2000 and emerged stronger still from the 2006 war. After neutralizing the Lebanese government during another short war in the spring of 2008, it is now, like Israel itself, an undefeated heavyweight of the Levant.

Effective counterinsurgency of the type General David Petraeus waged in Iraq is impossible for Israel in Lebanon for three reasons. First, it takes a long time, years when applied correctly, and time is something Israel just doesn’t have. Second, the American counterinsurgency effort in Iraq would have failed if the insurgents hadn’t murdered and terrorized so many Iraqis while fighting Americans — something Hezbollah is most unlikely to do in the Shia regions of Lebanon where it is embedded. Third, anti-Israel sentiment is too broad and too deep in Lebanon for the IDF to recruit sufficient local assistance — especially after the abrupt collapse of its allies in the South Lebanon Army following the withdrawal in 2000.

Prior to getting bogged down in Lebanon in the early 1980s, the Israelis racked up one lightning fast military victory over their enemies after another. That was before hostile Middle Eastern governments learned they stood no chance of prevailing in conventional warfare and before they opted for asymmetric terrorist warfare instead. Hit-and-run guerrilla tactics work for them, sort of, so it’s in the interest of those who haven’t yet made peace with Israel, or at least acceded to some kind of modus vivendi, to keep at it.

It is therefore not in Jerusalem’s interests to let them. Israel has a perfect record against standing state armies in the Middle East foolish enough to pick fights they can’t win. So why agree to fight some of the very same states asymmetrically in wars with ambiguous endings?

The Israelis should consider returning to what they do best, if and when they have to fight again. If they want to beat their enemies rather than fight to bloody and destructive standstills, they’ll wage the kind of war they’re good at and shatter one or both of the governments that field third-party proxies against them.

 

Michael J. Totten

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Can Jihadis Be Rehabilitated? Part I

 

by Katherine Seifert

 

1^st part of 2

 

As U.S. policymakers become increasingly uneasy about the fate of the remaining detainees currently held at Guantánamo Bay, greater attention is being paid to so-called jihadist rehabilitation programs that have been established abroad. Numerous governments, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Singapore, Canada, and Britain, have established programs that seek either to rehabilitate Islamist terrorists or to prevent further radicalization of jihadist sympathizers. Different states tailor their programs to the mores, laws, and needs of their societies. Muslim-majority countries concentrate on radicals who have either crossed the line into actual terrorist activities or who are active members in Islamist organizations deemed to be a threat to the state. Western initiatives focus instead on individuals who may seek camaraderie with extremist groups online or at local mosques; their programs seek to forestall further radicalization. While there is a clear divergence in approach, both must answer the same question: Have their efforts been successful or have they merely released detainees into their respective societies who feign detoxification but whose commitment to jihad has merely gone underground? The wrong answer to this question poses a serious threat to global, as well as local security.

In 1997, Egypt became the birthplace for a new approach to counterterrorism when it allowed imprisoned members of the Islamic Group (Al-Gama'a al-Islamiya or GI), a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, to meet and reevaluate their core ideology, hoping they might renounce violence as the parent organization did in the 1970s. That year, imprisoned leaders issued a cease-fire, and a few years later, after consulting with Islamic scholars from Al-Azhar University, high-ranking members of the organization released twenty-five volumes of revisions to their philosophy, entitled Tashih al-Mafahim (Corrections of concepts).[1] The revisions, for example, argue that Islam does not permit killing or terrorizing non-Muslim civilians and discusses the dangers that Al-Qaeda poses to Muslims worldwide.[2] The group was also permitted to keep its leadership within the prison in the hope that once senior members renounced violence, they would help convince others to follow a more moderate path. In 2007, imprisoned leaders of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Al-Gihad al-Islami al-Masri or GIM), another violent Islamist group founded in the late 1970s, followed in the footsteps of GI by instituting what they called their own "collective reform." With the support of Egyptian security authorities, incarcerated GIM leaders, including founder Sayyed Imam al-Sharif (aka Dr. Fadl), were allowed to hold meetings with other imprisoned members. In May 2007, Sharif publicly condemned violence using the pages of the influential London-based daily, Asharq al-Awsat to make his announcement.[3] In response, prison security authorities began to separate those prisoners who objected to this new initiative from those willing to follow Sharif's path and renounce violence.[4]

By encouraging extremists to reevaluate their groups' ideologies, Egyptian authorities were able to get leaders of GI and GIM ostensibly to revise their strategies and steer members away from violence. At the same time, allowing the leadership to stay intact may have helped legitimize these groups and their messages. Over the years, however, these groups have splintered into factions, some of which refuse to acknowledge these nonviolent reforms. For example, prominent Muslim Brotherhood member Essam el-Erian, who had apparently wearied of reform initiatives for not providing solutions to members waiting on real-world reform, complained: "We welcome these revisions because we have called for many years to stop violence … But these revisions are incomplete. They reject violence, but they don't offer a new strategy for reform and change."[5]

Although Egypt's counter-radicalization program has been called "the most extensive of any Arab country,"[6] accurate recidivism rates for formerly imprisoned members of these terrorist organizations are hard to come by. One source notes that the program has not been "actively pursued."[7] Meanwhile, the Egyptian government has released hundreds of prisoners whose once-militant leaders renounced violence.[8]

It is far from clear whether these jailhouse conversions are part of a collective effort to fake cooperation and ensure a quick release of members or whether they are sincere. Despite this, other Muslim-majority countries are now following the Egyptian example, using counselors and clerics to de-radicalize terrorist detainees and trying to make sure that the "right" message is taught.

 

Yemeni Attempts

Yemeni judge Hamoud al-Hitar began visiting radical Muslim prisoners held in Yemeni detention centers and engaging them in theological debates as early as 2000.[9] In 2002, he was named head of the Dialogue Committee, an initiative called for by presidential decree, with a brief of rehabilitating imprisoned jihadists.[10] With ideology at the core of radical organizations, Yemeni officials thought that by dialoguing and correcting beliefs, violence would be rejected by inmates once freed. The committee planned on selecting a small group of prisoners, questioning them about their views on Islam, and challenging them to use Qur'anic texts to justify their resort to violence.

The results of the program have been poor, with Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh admitting to only a 60 percent success rate.[11] Yemen has released five hundred prisoners, and many are known to have returned to their violent pasts,[12] making it one of Al-Qaeda's top countries for recruits. The ineffectiveness of the Yemeni initiative lay in the ease with which detainees could go through the motions of de-radicalization by signing a slip of paper, being granted their freedom, and only being required to check in regularly with their parole officers. Dozens have returned to violent jihad and have been recaptured by U.S. forces; the program has even become a joke among detainees. As one detainee interviewed by Newsweek put it, "To be frank, everyone was making fun of [Judge Hitar]."[13]

The program was forced to shut down in 2005, but Yemen is now being pressured by U.S. counterterrorism officials to create a new facility for detainees returning from Guantánamo Bay (nearly one hundred of the approximately 229 remaining detainees are from Yemen).[14] However, President Saleh refuses to commence construction on a center without U.S. funds; he has claimed he was promised $11 million for the center.[15] According to one source, the prisoners in the original program saw it as an insincere attempt to bolster Yemen's reputation as a country tough on its terrorists. Saleh's current refusal to act bolsters the claim of one of Hitar's former students: "We all understood that it was just extortion to take money from the Americans. They were just playing with us."[16]

The Saudi Model

The Saudi Arabian government also faced skepticism from its prisoners when it first began the Munasaha (advisory committee) initiative in its prisons in 2004, but since then, it has managed to convince detainees that the scholars who run the program are respectable clerics rather than government puppets.[17] The kingdom's overall strategy goes in English by the name PRAC for Prevention, Rehabilitation, and AfterCare[18] and includes lectures arranged by the Ministry of Education as well as published material condemning violence along with government-sponsored programs aimed at deterring citizens from radicalism. Exactly how this is accomplished is not entirely clear, as the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam which serves as a basis for all these efforts, is arguably one of the most extreme versions of the faith as well as the official religion of Saudi Arabia. For example, the state cannot condemn jihad itself as the concept is rooted in the Qur'an. Instead, Saudi clerics employed by the PRAC initiative are forced to stipulate conditions under which it is acceptable to take up arms instead of fully denouncing the practice.[19]

The Munasaha program is conducted in Saudi prisons, which have been updated to fit the needs of jihadist detainees. New prisoners are interviewed and examined for psychological problems, and their individual belief systems are evaluated. Unlike typical prisons, each cell contains a television that transmits religious lectures,[20] and the inmates are able to debate opinions with scholars via intercom. The Saudis claim that from 2004 to 2007 only 3 to 5 percent of parolees[21] in the Munasaha program have returned to extremist action, but it must be noted that the initiative itself is self-selecting.[22] Reliable statistics have not been made available, and there are reasons to think the Saudis may want to present a positive image for themselves, given their vulnerability to the charge that their own clergy are among the most extreme. Those who participate in the program are those willing to renounce their beliefs; many were new recruits to jihadist activity, and there is evidence to suggest they are as susceptible to persuasion by Munasaha counseling as they were previously to extremist mentors.[23] Many in the program seem to have received a poor religious education, unlike the hard-line jihadi leaders captured outside of the country and transferred to Saudi hands from Guantánamo.

In 2007, counseling for terrorists expanded in Saudi Arabia to several halfway houses, collectively known as the Care Center, for post-prison continuation of rehabilitation. In November 2008,[24] Katherine Zoepf described the grounds of the center, which included swimming pools, volleyball courts, PlayStations, and ping pong tables. Upon arrival, detainees are given clothes, watches, and candy bars to ensure their comfort. Classes are offered which break down terms such as jihad and takfir (condemning fellow Muslims as unbelievers) in ways that match the Saudi government's definition of "correct" Islam (which views many non-Wahhabi Muslims as heretical). Instead of forbidding jihad, for example, the program teaches the conditions under which it is acceptable (i.e. with the approval of the Saudi government and the permission of one's parents). Family members are encouraged to visit the facility, and both the detainee and a family member must sign a pledge renouncing violence before the prisoner's discharge. On release from the program, the detainee is given several thousand dollars, a car, and sometimes additional money for marrying.[25] Those deemed to be successfully reformed are encouraged to return to the Care Center and share their stories with those currently enrolled in the program and mentor prisoners.

Should a parolee return to violence, the entire family may be punished.[26] When "graduates" Muhammad al-Oufi and Said al-Shihri appeared in an Al-Qaeda video in January 2009, their families immediately released statements denouncing them as "irreversible deviant members of society. "[27] In the video, Oufi specifically mentioned the program, warning of the Saudi attempts to reform extremists: "We warn our fellow prisoners [from Guantánamo] about this Care program ...We were used ...They tried to lead us away from Islam. But thank God, we were able to escape their power."[28] One Guantánamo returnee expressed disgust at Oufi and Shihri's actions, saying, "They have forgotten the effort extended by the state to set them free. They [should] have been very grateful and thankful to the government for the confidence it has placed in them instead of biting the hand extended to them. It shows that they are untrustworthy and don't deserve this generous and noble treatment."[29]

The Care Center program initially boasted a low recidivism rate. Then, in early 2009, the Saudis released a list of eighty-five wanted terrorism suspects,[30] eleven of whom were graduates of the counseling initiative. Saudi officials remain convinced that their program works and note a recidivism rate of 10-20 percent, [31] a number some claim is inflated in part by the higher percentage of hard-line radicals who have come straight from Guantánamo Bay and by the inclusion of those who have failed or refused to participate in the program but remain detained. A low recidivism rate would be of real significance, given the central role of Saudi radicals in international jihad. But it is not clear how graduates of the program who are not recidivists are able to retain their commitment to moderation while living within normal Saudi-Wahhabi society, a society that is openly tolerant of levels of extremism that would be troubling in the West.

Despite this, in July 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense and Department of Justice commended the Care Center for its efforts at de-radicalizing detainees.[32] It is unclear what was behind this public praise, fueling speculation that the Obama administration was seeking a quick way to fulfill its pledge to empty Guantánamo by January 2010.

 

 

Katherine Seifert

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

Can Jihadis Be Rehabilitated? Part II

 

by  Katherine Seifert

 

2^nd part of 2

 

American Programs in Iraq

 

The U.S. military contends that the programs it has developed have yielded positive results.[33] Initially, U.S. military officials admitted that the detention centers they operated were breeding extremists; captured terrorists acted as recruiters and were turning formerly moderate detainees into radicals. The development of a rehabilitation program inspired by the Saudi model quickly followed this discovery. Task Force 134, the outfit charged with overseeing coalition detainee operations, staked out a new approach intended to incorporate detention into the broader U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. The plan hinged on tactics that sought to segregate extremists, nurture moderates, and ensure first-rate care and custody for every detainee. Each incoming detainee now undergoes a thorough background check, and psychologists analyze education, skills, motivation, and religiosity, enabling authorities to separate recruiters, who may be looking for prisoners to radicalize, from the other inmates.[34]

Task Force 134, which oversees two camps for detainees, offers more than the theological debates upon which other rehabilitation programs depend. Alongside religious discussions conducted by U.S.-vetted Iraqi imams, Iraqis are taught to read and write (64 percent were found to be illiterate),[35] enabling them to read the religious texts for themselves for the first time.[36] They also follow a curriculum that includes English, mathematics, and other foundational classes. Work programs are another important feature of the Task Force 134 program, training Iraqis in fields such as carpentry, masonry, welding, and textile manufacturing.

According to the U.S. government, this education initiative has proven immensely successful; Iraqi parents whose children have not been detained "have petitioned to enroll [them] in the program,"[37] and some detainees have stayed past their release dates to finish their studies. Between January and September 2008, approximately one hundred detainees were recaptured out of the over fifteen thousand released from the "Anti-Jihad U" (as some troops refer to the program).[38] Major General Douglas Stone, formerly responsible for both camps, cited a recidivism rate of detainees released early in the program's evolution at about 10-15 percent; however, in March 2009, he claimed the rate had plummeted to about 1 percent,[39] a remarkable drop that should, perhaps, be viewed skeptically.

Singapore's Approach

The issue of releasing radical detainees into societies in which Muslims are a minority poses a separate set of problems. After the 2001-02 arrests of more than thirty members of the Southeast Asian branch of the terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiyah (Islamic community), who were plotting attacks in Singapore,[40] the government there founded the Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG) to de-radicalize these terrorists.[41] With a Muslim population of 16 percent, Singapore chose to act cautiously when rehabilitating offenders, working on amending their beliefs instead of administering harsh measures. Nearly forty Islamic scholars and religious leaders make up a group dedicated to "deprogramming" detainees. By approaching the jihadists on religious terms, the RRG seeks to treat the problem at its root. As one security officer explained, "Once you have taken an oath of God, it will take another man of God to undo it."[42]

Counselors hold one-on-one sessions with inmates to challenge radical ideologies and meet with detainees' families to ensure extremism has not "infected" other relatives. The government provides financial support for families, secures jobs for the detainees once they are freed, and requires counseling after release. Forty former terrorists (two-thirds of detainees since 2001) have been rehabilitated and released, and as of May 2009, it seems none have returned to extremist activities.[43] The remaining third, deemed unready to reenter society, have been kept in the program. If these figures are valid, they would suggest that Singapore's system is moderately effective. According to William Dobson, former managing editor of Foreign Policy, "A detainee in Singapore is not released until his case officer, a psychologist, and the religious counselor signs [sic] off. Even then the decision goes to the prime minister's cabinet to give its approval."[44] Furthermore, Singapore's privacy laws allow for greater monitoring of individuals and help the government keep tabs on those released.

The U.K.'s Ounce of Prevention

Unlike programs in Muslim-majority countries and Singapore, or U.S. efforts in Iraq, the detoxification program developed in Great Britain is geared towards preventive measures before high-risk individuals resort to violence. Its success is even harder to determine since there is no clear way of measuring whether someone with jihadist sympathies would have actually crossed the line into terrorism.

The Channel Project, an English initiative developed in 2007 and run by the Association of Chief Police Officers,[45] began in Lambeth (a section of London) and Lancashire and has expanded to eleven (soon to be fifteen) sites across the United Kingdom. According to the British Home Office, more than two hundred individuals (some as young as thirteen, others as old as fifty) have been referred to the program, which they state involves police officers working alongside members of Muslim communities to identify those who seem particularly vulnerable to the teachings of Muslim extremists.[46] The project first came to the public's attention when a teenager publicly detailed how he had been "groomed" for jihad in a south London mosque.[47] Along with forty-five other young men, the youth received rehabilitation sessions in an educational center attached to the same mosque in which he was first recruited for jihad.

The authors of the program state that it is designed to address not only the version of Islam that was taught to the youths but also includes activities designed to combat feelings of "estrangement from family or community,"[48] this despite mounting evidence that would-be and actual U.K. jihadists were integrated into British society.[49] There are additional concerns about which instructors the British authorities may have chosen to steer the detainees away from radicalism. Tariq Ramadan, for example, whose bona fides as a "moderate" have been sharply challenged,[50] was hired by the government following the 7/7 London bombings to argue against terrorism to U.K. Muslims.[51]

While there are claims that as of June 2009, none of those individuals referred to the Channel Project has gone on to commit an offense,[52] this is scarcely enough time to accurately assess the program's success. More telling is a recent report that many incarcerated British Muslims are refusing to participate in rehabilitation sessions or court-ordered courses dedicated to affecting attitudinal and behavioral changes in a detainee. As one prisoner explained, "It is an established concept within the Sharia that a Muslim must not speak about the haraam—prohibited things—and certainly should not advertise past mistakes to their peers."[53] Meanwhile, there are reports that Muslims in British prisons are converting others and taking control of various criminal matters.[54]

Notwithstanding the uncertain efficacy of the Channel Project, the Scottish Preventing Violent Extremism Unit decided to develop its own "tartanised" version of the program. In addition to radical Muslims, the program will target those "lured into other forms of political violence, such as fanatics on the fringes of Scottish nationalism or the animal rights movement."[55] Project organizers hope that community members such as teachers and parents will refer suspects for "interventions." It is far from clear how successful such a program can be as it lumps together populations susceptible to the promptings of religious figures with secular groups like the League Against Cruel Sports (anti-fox hunting).

Canadian Efforts

On the other side of the Atlantic, Sheikh Sayyid Ahmed Amiruddin presented a 12-step detoxification program to members of various Canadian Muslim communities and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in December 2008. Amiruddin, a Sufi cleric, has been a vocal critic of the Wahhabist interpretations of Islam inserted into Qur'ans imported from Saudi Arabia and has himself been criticized by his compatriots for betraying Canadian Muslims.[56] The project emphasizes the importance of peace and tolerance in a secular community like Canada and counsels against "a narrow-minded brand of the faith."[57] The plan was sponsored by Mohammed Shaikh, the imam of Toronto's Al-Noor mosque, who speaking of Muslim radicals stated: "Those addicted to alcohol are locked within a certain thinking pattern that makes them rely on alcohol. The same applies to extremists who can only think about events around them in one way."[58]

Shaikh and Canadian Muslim convert Robert Heft have used Amiruddin's strategies in their Specialized De-radicalization Intervention Program to stress interfaith acceptance and show that Al-Qaeda's teachings are theologically incorrect.[59] The steps included in the Heft detoxification program are intended to promote understanding of other religions and explain how extremists misinterpret events in Islamic history to promote their agenda. Some of these steps include "using verses from the Holy Koran that speak of peace and good conduct"; learning about Muhammad's "mercy, kind manner, humble attitude, wisdom, patience"; "using hadith … that provide ethics and other moral training"; exploring stories from history to see the "contexts and underlying factors, not always [to the] glory of God"; and exploring the "interconnectedness of Judaism, Christianity and Islam."[60]

Heft and Shaikh hope members of the Toronto 18, a terrorist group that planned to carry out a three-day bombing assault across Canada,[61] will be referred to the program upon their release from prison. They hope to reintegrate these jihadists into Canadian society. Although the program has received coverage from several Canadian newspapers, no recidivism rate has been published, as it has not officially released any graduates. This makes it impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of the program.

Conclusions

The question for the U.S. government grows ever more pressing: When Guantánamo Bay closes, where should these detainees be sent? And can the urge to return to violent action actually be suppressed by ideological counseling?

While it seems de-radicalization programs are helping to ease jihadist detainees back into society, former prisoners may still possess ideological sympathies for terrorist groups and subsequently fall back into earlier, radical behaviors. The Saudi program, previously praised by policymakers, has recently come under fire. Said al-Shihri, a Saudi program "graduate" and former inmate at Guantánamo Bay, is the deputy leader of Al-Qaeda in Yemen and has been linked to the attempted airline bombing of a Detroit-bound airplane on Christmas day.[62]

Even if the Saudi program were considered an unequivocal success, not all countries can afford resource-intensive initiatives like the Saudi Arabian "aftercare" program. Additionally, there is the issue of the nature of the Islamic norm that released prisoners are expected to follow and how that might impact global security. The Saudi model, for example, is based on a Salafi perspective, which has its own narrow version of who is and is not a kafir (apostate) and how such reprobates should be treated.

The programs developed in Muslim-minority countries may become serious assets in efforts to combat homegrown radicalism. Graduates do not face quite the same temptation of returning to, or even taking up, violent action that they might encounter in Muslim-majority states. Nevertheless, pressures are there as long as the Muslim communal institutions in these countries vacillate between rejecting jihadist ideologies and sympathizing with their long-term goals.

Government-provided figures on recidivism and signed pledges are not accurate gauges for the success of de-radicalization efforts. The few success rates published by authorities cover such a short period of time as to be close to meaningless. Accurate numbers collected over a prolonged period of time may eventually offer a truer measure of achievement or failure but without a way of comparing the behavior of those who have undergone these programs with those who have not, assessing success rates becomes an unconvincing exercise.

Monitoring of parolees' associations and Internet activities may, to a degree, help determine the success of these programs, but ultimately, the primary way to measure how many detainees leave the programs still radicalized and dedicated to violence is if they resort to violence. While the limited data would indicate that the majority have not, they can continue to support jihad in other nonviolent but effective ways: Groups such as Al-Qaeda will always need recruiters and fundraisers to help run their operations. Other parolees may seek the path of "soft jihad" by engaging in frivolous lawsuits against opponents, shutting down forums for free speech and criticism, invoking hate speech laws, and working to impose Shari'a in Western nations. By attacking the problem from both ideological and societal perspectives, these programs may be aiding counterterrorism efforts. Time will tell as to their effectiveness. A healthy amount of skepticism needs to be maintained before any program can be credited as a cure for jihad.

 

Katherine Seifert is an undergraduate at Bryn Mawr College and an intern at the Middle East Forum.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

[1] The Straits Times (Singapore), Aug. 3, 2009.
[2] IslamOnline.net, July 9, 2007.
[3] Lawrence Wright, "The Rebellion Within," The New Yorker, June 2, 2008.
[4] Nicole Stracke, "Arab Prisons: A Place for Dialogue and Reform," Perspectives on Terrorism, 2007, no. 4.
[5] Wright, "The Rebellion Within."
[6] The Guardian (London) July 27, 2007.
[7] The Straits Times, Aug. 3, 2009.
[8] Holly Fletcher, "Jamaat al-Islamiyya," Council on Foreign Relations, May 30, 2008.
[9] Kevin Peraino, "The Reeducation of Abu Jandal," Newsweek, May 29, 2009.
[10] The Yemen Times (San'a), Aug, 12, 2009; Gregory D. Johnsen, "Yemen's Passive Role in the War on Terrorism," Terrorism Monitor (Jamestown Foundation), Feb. 23, 2006.
[11] Peraino, "The Reeducation of Abu Jandal."
[12] The Yemen Times, Aug. 12, 2009.
[13] Peraino, "The Reeducation of Abu Jandal."
[14] Time Magazine, Jan. 7, 2010.
[15] Peraino, "The Reeducation of Abu Jandal."
[16] Ibid.
[17] Lawrence E. Cline, "Changing Jihadist Behavior: The Saudi Model," Small Wars Journal, Apr. 10, 2009.
[18] Christopher Boucek, "Saudi Arabia's 'Soft' Counterterrorism Strategy: Prevention, Rehabilitation and Aftercare," Carnegie Papers, no. 97, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sept. 2008.
[19] The New York Times, Nov. 7, 2008.
[20] Shiraz Maher, "A Betty Ford clinic for jihadis," The Sunday Times (London), July 6, 2008.
[21] Stracke, "Arab Prisons: A Place for Dialogue and Reform."
[22] Cline, "Changing Jihadist Behavior: The Saudi Model."
[23] Ibid.
[24] The New York Times, Nov. 7, 2008.
[25] The New York Times, Nov. 7, 2008.
[26] Peraino, "The Reeducation of Abu Jandal."
[27] The Saudi Gazette (Riyadh), Jan. 29, 2009, accessed Oct. 11, 2009.
[28] Kelly McEver, "They Tried to Make Mohammed al-Awfi Go to Rehab," freedetainees.org, accessed Feb. 3, 2010.
[29] The Saudi Gazette (Riyadh), Jan. 29, 2009, accessed Oct. 11, 2009.
[30] The New York Times, Feb. 3, 2009.
[31] Boucek, "Saudi Arabia's 'Soft' Counterterrorism Strategy."
[32] "U.S. Officials Commend Saudi Detainee Rehabilitation Program," Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington, D.C., July 8, 2009.
[33] Jeffrey Azarva, "Is U.S. Detention Policy in Iraq Working?" Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2009, pp. 5-14.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Judith Miller, "Anti-Jihad U.," City Journal (New York), May 2, 2008.
[36] Azarva, "Is U.S. Detention Policy in Iraq Working?"
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid.
[39] The Malaysian Insider (Singapore), Mar. 22, 2009.
[40] Valerie Chew, "Jemaah Islamiyah's bomb plot against diplomatic missions in Singapore, 2001/2002," Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board Singapore, Jan. 20, 2009.
[41] "About RRG," Religious Rehabilitation Group, Singapore, accessed Oct. 12, 2009.
[42] William J. Dobson, "The Best Guide for Gitmo? Look to Singapore," The Washington Post, May 17, 2009.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Ibid.
[45] The Prevent Strategy: Guide for Local Partners in England (London: U.K. Home Office, May 2008), p. 28.
[46] The Independent (London), Mar. 28, 2009.
[47] The Sunday Times, May 17, 2009.
[48] The Prevent Strategy: Guide for Local Partners in England, p. 28; The Sunday Times, May 17, 2009.
[49] See for example, The Telegraph (London), Nov. 8, 2008.
[50] Stephen Schwartz, "Tariq Ramadan Repudiated," The American Thinker, Aug. 28, 2009.
[51] The Guardian, Aug. 31, 2005.
[52] Scotland on Sunday (Edinburgh), June 14, 2009.
[53] The Telegraph, Jan. 11, 2010.
[54] BBC News, Mar. 12, 2010.
[55] Scotland on Sunday, June 14, 2009.
[56] Little Green Footballs, June 9, 2006.
[57] The Toronto Star, June 3, 2009.
[58] AlArabiya.net (Dubai), Mar. 11, 2009.
[59] CBS News, July 20, 2006; AlArabiya.net, Mar. 11, 2009.
[60] National Post (Don Mills, Ont.), Feb. 11, 2009.
[61] The Toronto Star, June 23, 2009.
[62] BBC News, Jan. 2, 2010.