The Origins of Middle Eastern Terrorism

When discussing contemporary Middle Eastern terrorism it is important to recognize that it has identifiable historical roots. According to Jonathan R. White, those roots have religious as well as political aspects that extend as far back as the 7th century, with the founding of Islam by Mohammed. Islamic monotheism was born in violence, since Mohammed was targeted for assassination by polytheistic rivals and since the response of Mohammed and generations of Muslims after him retaliated in kind. Over the next several centuries Muslims imposed Islam throughout Arabia and the eastern Mediterranean area, successfully supplanting the other two monotheistic religions that were founded in the Middle East: Judaism and Christianity. By the 11th century the Christians embarked on the Crusades, which were meant to win back the Biblical lands for Christianity. Their greatest legacy, however, was that they "instigated centuries of hatred and distrust between Muslims and Christians" (White, 2003, p. 95). The ethos of the Crusades devolved into political rivalry between the European dynasties and the Ottoman Empire that lasted until the period of Ottoman decline and European (Christian) imperialism ascendant in Africa and the Levant in the latter part of the 19th century. Although there were some nation-states in the Middle East at that time, such as Syria and Egypt, the dominant form of social organization was tribal, and there was no

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ted in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Terrorist methods were to be brutal, and targets were to be white colonists/settlers and the indigenous bourgeoisie (White, 2003, pp. 113-114). Fanon's methods were adapted in Latin America, starting in Brazil with Carlos Marighella, a Communist legislator-turned-revolutionary. His theory, articulated in two books on the subject, valorized violence against targets culturally symbolic of the ruling class as a tactic for fostering social and government instability, with leadership to emanate from an urban cadre; he appears to have originated the term urban guerrilla. Despite his death at the hands of Sao Paolo police in 1969, his ideas spread. Marighella's ideas incorporated the value of terrorist-support networks and logistical support and envisioned gradual psychological control of the target culture by foisting violence for its own sake on national experience and forcing the state to adopt repression and thereby alienate the public. The terrorists would organize a shadow army (and government) that could eventually mobilize and operate with the thanks of a grateful nation. White comments: "There is only one political weakness in Marighella's theory: It does not work" (p. 117). In other word
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