Middle East Reviews

LT Youssef H. Aboul-Enein (USNR)

Bin Laden, The Man who Declared War on America by Yossef Bodansky. Prima Publishing. Rocklin, California. 439 pages, 1999.

Yossef Bodansky, Director of the U.S. House of Representatives Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare has spent more than a decade studying, analyzing and gathering intelligence on Osama Bin laden. His latest book is not merely an autobiography, but a meticulous reconstruction of the global network Bin Laden built within Jihadist movements throughout the Middle East and Asia. It traces two decades spent developing a sophisticated terrorist web involving several nations on the United States list of states sponsoring terrorism. Bodansky does not view the man as public enemy number one, but cuts through the hype to give an analysis of the others that surround and influence Bin Laden as well as analyzing his strengths as a leader. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Council have both used Bin Laden and his organization in proxy wars in the region.

The author begins with the development of Jihad International, a termed used to describe the forging of relationships among Islamic zealots battling the Soviets in Afghanistan and returned to their respective nations at the end of the conflict. Thereafter, Algerian, Egyptian, Saudi, Sudanese, Jordanian and Filipino Islamic radicals began to cooperate under one banner and several leaders stepped up to take charge including Hassan Al-Turabi and Osama Bin Laden.

Hassan Al-Turabi, who effectively controls Sudanese politics and heads the National Islamic Front (NIF) hoped to gain influence in Africa and the Middle-East through clandestine and unconventional alliances with Islamic radical movements. His attempt would lead to Bin Laden spending several years in Sudan before being exiled to Afghanistan. Pakistan's ISID then sought to cultivate these Islamic radicals in an effort to wage a proxy war in Kashmir. This would give them a force to battle Indian forces and at the same time claim plausible deniability. The author highlights in detail Bin Laden's skills in organizing logistical and fiscal support for Islamic radicals in the Philippines, Somalia, Europe and the United States. His method of organizing terrorist cells is also discussed in the book. Bodansky also explores the Saudi connections who prefer paying off Bin Laden in the hope that he does not agitate rebellion in Saudi Arabia.

The Untold History of Israel by Jacques Derogi and Carmel Hesi. Grove Press, Random House, New York. 338 pages, 1979.

Derogy and Hesi first published this book in French before translating it into English. Both wrote for the French magazine L'Express and covered conflicts involving Israel for many years. The book highlights the more interesting operations and political gambits conducted by Aman (Israeli Armed Forces Intelligence Service), Mossad (Israel's Secret Service) and the Israeli Defense Forces. These organizations did not have a glamorous start The 1955 Lavon Affair, named after the Israeli Prime Minister Pinchas Lavon, describes how a young Israeli agent who was carrying explosives, had his pants catch fire in front of an Egyptian movie theater. This quite literally blew the lid off a plan to destabilize Egyptian President Nasser's regime while the negotiations for the withdrawal of British Forces from the Suez Canal commenced. From there the author describes how Israel dealt with a proliferation of German rocket scientists working in Egypt to develop missile technology and delivery systems. An entire chapter deals with how the Mossad brought Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann to justice and how an Iraqi pilot was courted to fly his Russian MIG-21 jet fighter into Israeli hands. As terrorism began to increase, the authors discuss how Jordan's King Hussein almost lost his throne to Palestinian radicals in September 1970. Israel would figure prominently in stemming this crisis which involved Syria sending hundreds of tanks into Jordanian territory to take advantage of the weakness of King Hussein.

The book also shows how events make for interesting bed-fellows. In 1970, Anwar Sadat took power and in one year his own head of intelligence and Minister of Interior would threaten his authority, even bugging his presidential palace and passing information to the Kremlin. The Israelis fearing that pro- Communist radicals might take over in Cairo and threaten their security, chose to provide Sadat with information leading to their arrest. The Untold History of Israel makes for interesting reading and at times takes on a quality of an Ian Fleming novel, proving once again that in the Mid-East, the truth is often stranger than fiction.

Arafat, from Defender to Dictator by Said K. Aburish. Bloomsbury Publishing New York. First Printed 1998, Paperback edition published in 1999. 360 pages, $15.95 (Paperback).

Palestinian Journalist Said Aburish has written several books on the Middle-East, his most recent work on Saddam Hussein appearing just this year. His best books deal exclusively with his people, the Palestinians. Arafat, From Defender to Dictator is the first book written about the Palestinian leader by a Palestinian author. After reading Aburish's book on the The Coming Fall of the House of Saud and feeling that it was a personal attack on the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, I found this book much more temperate. It offers an objective look into the enigmatic Yasser Arafat. Called by his nom de' guerre of Abu Ammar, the book highlights how the Palestinian leader built-up his public image and consistently made the best out of what seems very long odds. In his early years, we see how he abandoned his college studies to organize student groups in Egypt, eventually assuming leadership of the General Union of Palestinian Students in 1953. He was not beyond claiming relations to prestigious families and forming alliances with Islamic groups that furthered the cause of Palestinian self-determination. He toiled in obscurity and was not even part of the newly formed Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964, when it was beginning to unify the patchwork of Palestinian Liberation movements sponsored by various Arab governments, religious radical groups and communist organizations. Arafat's group Al-Fatah, escaped assimilation into Egypt's strategic plans, and set up in Damascus, Syria.

The 1967 Six-Day War humiliated Nasser and gave Arafat an opportunity. Utilizing the military wing of Al-Fatah called Al-Asifah (The Storm), he made the first strike against the Israeli Armed Forces at a place called Karameh, on the Jordanian border. The Israelis wishing to consolidate their hold on the West Bank and stop raids from Al-Fatah took their usual draconian approach. Although militarily the Israeli Army succeeded, it was at a cost of 28 Israeli soldiers to 100 Palestinian guerillas. This loss-ratio was not acceptable to Tel-Aviv and they did not press the attack, giving Arafat a psychological boost and showing in 1968 that these were not the Arabs of 1948, 1956 and 1967. Arafat from this point rode a wave that would take him to the leadership of the PLO. The author next illustrates how Arafat nearly succeeded in removing King Hussein of Jordan, and how he fit in among the 75 militia groups in Beirut that eventually were forced by Israel to withdraw to Tunis.

The author then scrutinizes the Intifadah, the 1987 eruption of Palestinian youth in the West Bank and Gaza and shows how Arafat would wrestle his way to controlling this movement from Tunis. The final chapters deal exclusively with his performance as de-facto governor of the West Bank and Gaza, it chronicles how he had resorted to dictatorial measures in order to keep control of the former Israeli Occupied Territories and the various Palestinian factions that continue to jockey for control of this region. Middle-East FAOs should take time and read Aburish's latest book on Saddam Hussein and this one on Arafat. It is from purely Arab perspective, and therefore of value to analysts of the region.

2000, Foreign Area Officer Association
Springfield, Virginia
Maintained by LTC Steve Gotowicki.
http://www.faoa.org