Jeffrey Kaplan

Islamophobia in America?: September 11 and Islamophobic Hate Crime 1

ABSTRACT This article examines the sharp rise in hate crime directed at Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim following the September 11 attacks on the United States. The intense phase of these attacks comprised approximately nine weeks, after which the number of hate crimes fell sharply. The article attributes the abrupt fall in hate crime to four variables: 1) Leadership in the form of effective intervention by the U.S. President; 2) Decisive law enforcement intervention on the federal and local levels; 3) Grassroots outreach to Muslims by religious, civic and educational groups; and much more tentatively; 4) Moral ambiguity in the rapid dissolution of American consensus over the War on Terror following the invasion of Iraq. To illustrate these points, the paper compares the current situation to the treatment of Japanese Americans following Pearl Harbor and to the Red Scare of the 1950s. The impact of technology, especially the internet and the rise of al-Jazeera as alternative sources of information to the government or the major American media outlets, is examined as indirectly contributing to the rapid decline of hate crimes after the initial nine-week period. Finally, hate crime statistics from the FBI and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee from the years 2000–2002 are examined to document the numbers and types of violent hate crimes directed at American Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim.

The Fifth Wave: The New Tribalism? 1

This article builds on David Rapoports Four Waves Theory by identifying several anomalous movements which did not appear to precisely fit with the internationalist model posited in Rapoports Four Waves. Specifically, groups which I have called Fifth Wave movements have turned inward, becoming localistic rather than international, and manifest intense ethnic, racial, or tribal mysticism. They are millenarian and chiliastic in nature, and seek to create a new society—based on the creation of new men and women—in a single generation. Fifth Wave movements thus focus strongly on women and see children as the vanguard of their movements. Following this logic, rape is their signature tactic and child abduction their normal recruiting practice. This study posits the pre-state Khmer Rouge in Cambodia as the avatar of the current Fifth Wave, but finds that after a nearly generation-long hiatus, the fifth wave in its fully modern form emerged in Africa with the Lords Resistance Army in Uganda as its paradigmatic exemplar.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Lone Wolf and Autonomous Cell Terrorism

Lone wolf and autonomous cell violence is as old as time itself. Phineas, the biblical figure who might well be considered the archetypical Lone Wolf (Numbers 25:1-9) is credited with averting the wrath of God from the Hebrews by taking it upon himself to murder an Israelite man and a Midianite woman whose miscegenatistic coupling threatened the survival of the Hebrew people. Phineas’ act was cited by the Sicarii, a radical offshoot of the 1st-century Zealots, as the inspiration for the doomed uprising against Roman rule, which ultimately led to the expulsion of the Jewish people from the Holy Land. In recent years, Phineas inspired eponymous organizations or networks in the American Racist Right and the Israeli Radical Right. The ‘‘Lone Avenger’’ motif has appeared in every era and in virtually every culture in the world.

The Islamic State and the New Tribalism

This article focuses on the apocalyptic zeitgeist of the Islamic State through the lens of what we call the New Tribalism. It finds that IS emerged from the Al Qaeda (AQ) milieu, but soon split with AQ as the messianic excitement surrounding Al-Baghdadi and his teachings grew. In common with previous millennial/messianic movements in all three “Peoples of the Book”—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—IS soon evolved beyond the laws of the normative faith (antinomianism). We hold that for this reason, despite its claims of faith and fealty, IS has left the Islamic Umah behind, becoming a malign sectarian group of its own whose dynamism and successes are attracting a global audience and support from Muslims in almost every country. This helps to explain such abhorrent practices as forced conversion, sexual servitude, the destruction of historic artifacts, and mass executions. We find that the American invasion of Iraq was the vital first step in a series of events, which gave birth to IS. A thorough review of IS history and political culture traces these historic moments in time.

On Tribalism: Auxiliaries, Affiliates, and Lone Wolf Political Violence

In this article, we endeavor to shed new light on the consequences of tribalism in the present day, one of the most important of which is the threat posed by lone wolf actors and the emergence of autonomous cells that operate with no central direction. To better acquaint the reader with the theoretical models used in this article—in particular the Trinitarian model of Carl von Clausewitz—we begin with historic models dating back to Alexander the Great. The central focus of our article posits a reconceptualization of tribalism as a driving force behind the global jihadist phenomenon. We will go into the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan in some depth, believing that it is necessary to provide a close examination of these case studies to better understand the emergence of jihadist lone wolves who operate both in the ungoverned spaces of the Middle East and South Asia and in their Western homelands. We conclude with an examination of cases of jihadist lone wolf terrorism involving recent converts to radical Islam in the U.S. Finally, our article focuses on the emerging security threats posed by lone wolves, autonomous cells, and the challenges ahead for the military, security, and intelligence services.

A Strained Criticism of Wave Theory

In the deepest depths of my Cold War childhood, I recall asking my father “what is Communism?” It was in school, on television, in comic books, and on the radio. The American anti-Communist crusade...

A Review of: “Mia Bloom. Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terrorism.”

the blurring of a clear end-state in war. A war for national borders has a clear endstate or objective, but a war to deliver justice has no clear limits. Islamist militants seek retribution of perceived injustices to Islam perpetrated by the United States and her allies, the allies seek retribution for the terrorist acts committed by Islamist militants. Getting above the cycle of a bipolar world that Bin Laden craves will be consistent challenge in this long war. Another complexity is the reality that Islamist militants and other terrorists must be preempted by policing methods rather than engaged in combat. Hull’s book is designed to bring out hard questions, such as will the military assume more police powers in western democracies? Gilbert continues with an interesting dialogue on the goals of Islamist militants. He postulates the objective is the establishment of a Pan-Islamic super-state that brings all Muslims under a single government. This means in its ultimate expression, jihadists are in a conflict against different nationalisms (Egyptian, Moroccan, Algerian, Kuwaiti, Qatari, the list goes on). The book’s ending chapters explore an ultimate goal of war for western democracies, which is the restoration of peace. This necessitates a new looks on redefinition of such tools as amnesty, recognizing the unequal struggles between ethnic groups (such as recognizing the Serbs inherited the bulk of arms in the 1990s Balkans War). If you enjoy reading theoretical discussions on the socio-political aspects of conflict in the 21st century, you will enjoy Gilbert’s book. Also recommended is Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen’s new book, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006) a psycho-social exploration that conflict is sustained by the illusion of a unique identity. Another recommended book that explores as well as compares the psychological appeal of fascism and democracy is Israel Charny’s book Fascism and Democracy in the Human Mind, (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2006). [Sen and Charney are both reviewed below, ed.]