“The problem of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was always trust. This is just a case of broken trust, this is a case of broken everything.” –Professor Ron E. Hassner Conflict Breaks Out: A Timeline October 7th, 2023. Hamas, a terrorist group operating within the Gaza Strip, fired a cascade of around 2,200 rockets into southern Israel. […]
Tag: Terrorism
Women Can be Anything! Even Suicide Bombers.
She was sixteen years old when she killed three people. Passing through an Israeli checkpoint in Southern Lebanon on April 9, 1985, Sana’a Mehaidli was determined to become a martyr of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. She triggered her explosive-laden Peugeot, killing herself and two nearby Israeli soldiers. She went down in history as the […]
Boko Haram’s Terror Festers Unabated
With close to 100,000 deaths occurring in Nigeria, it’s unsettling that the name “Boko Haram” isn’t dominating headlines. The insurgency group has destabilized and devastated the Eastern Nigerian region, leaving a severe humanitarian crisis in their wake. The militant group has terrorized in the name of a purer Islamic state and to oust the current […]
France, The Sahelian Insurgency, Climate Change, and The Recent Coup d’etats
One Day In January Early Sunday, January 23, 2022, intense gunfire was heard outside of military bases and Burkina Faso’s presidential palace in Ouagadougou. Mutinous troops demanded the dismissal of their country’s military chiefs and more significant resources to fight the Islamist insurgency, which killed 2000 and displaced over 1.5 million in recent years. On […]
The Man Behind Al Masri In Life and Now Death
Osama bin Laden’s body slid into the North Arabian Seas from a US warship within twenty four hours of his assassination on May 2, 2011, in accordance with Islamic tradition. A broadcast by former President Obama announced the news late at night to US citizens and the world. The image of the White House Situation […]
Post-Charlie Hebdo: After the Nice Attacks in 2020, When Will France Address The True Elephant In The Room?
Two men march into an office building at around midday. They were not extraordinary men, yet they were loaded with rifles and other weapons. Within the next few hours, they would take hostage and kill 12 people. The two suspects identified were Said and Cherif Kouachi. The date was 7th January 2015. This would be […]
What Makes a Terrorist, What Makes an Ally
As members of the United States, we are given a designated list of what groups and which people we ought to believe engage in terrorism. Yet what the government considers and what is ignored when adding or omitting a name to that list is obscured. The United States’ relationship with terrorism was choreographed following the […]
Mozambique’s Resource Curse
Just last month, Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi signed a peace accord with Renamo, a former rebel movement, and proclaimed that it would “allow for the long-lasting peace that all Mozambicans have so longed for.” Unfortunately, not long after ending one-armed movement, Mozambique is facing yet another insurgency in the northern province of Cabo Delgado. However, […]
Tunisian ban on the niqab in public institutions: Attack on freedom of expression or necessary security measure?
On July 5, Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chaed declared an official ban on the use of the niqab in the country’s public institutions. The ban came about in the aftermath of a double suicide bombing in the capital, Tunis. One of the attacks, which took place on June 27, AlJazeera reported that a witness saw […]
The World’s Largest Security State Has Created its Own Security Problem
Violence In Western China The capital of the Chinese province of Xinjiang, Urumqi, looks like many Chinese cities. The horizon is full of construction machinery creating new factories, high-rises, and office buildings. More striking is that the streets of the developed sector are largely populated with ethnic Han Chinese. The Chinese government has incentivized Han Chinese to move […]
Wanted: Young, White, and Angry
My friend was killed by a neo-nazi. It’s a strange thing to type out, but it’s true. Even stranger, though, are the details: killed by a former classmate of ours. He picked my friend up in his car, drove to a local park, and then stabbed him. This is a boy who was once my […]
The “Golden Door” of American Opportunity: Why Are We Shutting It?
How terminating the American Visa Lottery would detriment both the US economy and deserving immigrants. George Washington wrote on December 2nd, 1783 that “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation […]
Terrorism in Context: the Stigmatization of Islam in France
With growing religious tensions in France regarding Islamism and the threat of terrorism, the stigmatization of Islam is a significant concern for the stability of France. Central to this discussion is the rising rate of Muslim conversions in France. Maia de la Baume’s article “More in France Are Turning to Islam, Challenging a Nation’s Idea […]
The War on Terror’s New Domestic Front
The Government Wages War on Racial Justice, Environmental, and Anti-Fascist Activists “I think especially in light of the advent of Antifa, if you look at what’s going on there, you know, you have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also”. In other words, Anti-Fascist protesters are “some pretty bad dudes” while amongst neo-Nazis […]
No Longer a Gold “BRICS”?
“China and India could really go to war,” I said to myself when rolling down the comment area of a Chinese news site. “Group Fight between Indian and Chinese Troops, Indians Thought They Won!” the title of the article provocatively claimed, referring to the conflict between Chinese and Indian troops, in which both sides threw […]
A Drone Before Noon
Humankind has always wished to take to the skies. The innovations of Abbas ibn Firnas and the Wright Brothers have captured the imaginations of millions, as their contributions to flight technologies gave us a chance to soar through the clouds. Today, this technology is used to transport millions around the globe, allowing passage from New […]
Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act: The Bad and the Ugly
Advocates of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act protest President Obama’s veto outside the White House. Stephanie DeSimone was pregnant when her husband, Navy Commander Patrick Dunn was killed at the Pentagon in the September 11 attacks in 2001. 15 years later, in 2016, DeSimone filed a lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. […]
France’s Burkini War: Conflating Islam and Terrorism
On July 28, the French Riviera town of Cannes implemented a new law that would quickly become a trend: they banned the wearing of the “burkini”, a full-body covering swimsuit that allows conservative Muslim women to cover up while at the beach. A number of coastal French towns soon followed suit, leading to incidents such […]
Turkey’s Role in the Syrian Crisis
Turkey’s assistance to the Islamic State goes beyond providing open borders for ISIS militants. By the end of 2015, Turkey is expected to host as many as nearly two million Syrian refugees. The country opened its doors to create a ‘safe haven’ for those fleeing persecution, many of whom ended up moving to cities on […]
The Grim Reaper
In 2000, an unarmed, unmanned CIA surveillance aircraft overflew Tarnak Farm in Afghanistan, taking video of the sprawling agricultural complex and a tall man dressed in a white robe. The figure in the tape, which was leaked in 2004, was believed to be Osama bin Laden. Tarnak Farm was not attacked in part because it […]
The Deal of the Decade
Many thought this day would never come. In an interesting turn of events, negotiations between the United States and Iran over a developing nuclear deal are currently underway. Secretary of State John Kerry has led negotiations with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif over a deal in which sanctions on Iran would be lifted on […]
A Story of Sisyphus – Islamophobia
The start of 2015 has been wrought with extremism: from the Charlie Hebdo attacks to an increasingly violent ISIS, Islam has began the year with an increasingly detrimental reputation for terrorism and chaos. However, in light of the recent tragedy in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where a Caucasian man murdered three Muslim university students, important questions […]
China’s Growing Role in the Afghanistan Peace Process
Following decades of cautious foreign policy, China is now taking a significant role in helping to secure peace in neighboring Afghanistan. China’s interest in Afghanistan is both economic and political: Afghanistan has abundant untapped natural resources, and China wants a stable Afghan government after U.S. and NATO forces leave. China is also growing more confident […]
Snapchat Terrorism: Liberty and Security in Britain
When two gunmen stormed the central Paris office of Charlie Hebdo in early January, and slaughtered the magazine’s most prominent cartoonists, Europe stood still in shock. Across the English Channel and a mere 2 hour 15 minute journey away by train, policemen poured into sensitive sites across London, visibly increasing their presence in the British […]
American Sniper: Opposing Scopes
From The Hurt Locker to Zero Dark Thirty, military combat films have become increasingly controversial in the media. But has political correctness gone too far or can these films divorce politics from art? Staff writers Adora Svitak and Jordan Ash offer contesting views of the Oscar-nominated movie American Sniper.
Paris, Baga, and Peshawar
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] World leaders gather at the unity rally in Paris, France on January 11th to show solidarity for survivors of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. On January 9th, African militant group Boko Haram carried out a violent attack in the northeastern Nigerian town of Baga, killing an estimated 2,000 people and causing the mass flight of […]
Not Another Hashtag: Social Media’s Failure to Fight #BokoHaram
The power of social media can only extend so far. While our tweets, Facebook statuses, and tumblr posts may be effective at generating publicity, their effectiveness at actually catalyzing change is questionable. A recent example of social media’s failure to catalyze tangible change is the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign that dominated twitter this past […]
Art of Intervention: The ISIS Threat to China
China’s foreign policy has traditionally revolved around a belief of non-intervention. Their so-called Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence was codified in 1953 and later added to the Preamble of the Chinese Constitution. China’s primary objective is stability, and from their perspective, the surest way to destabilize a region is by intervening militarily. However, despite its […]
The Mercurial Case of Misuari
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2013 print edition, which can be found here. The Bangsamoro region of the Southern Philippines has seen a great deal of turmoil over the past few decades as Muslims fight for greater autonomy and independence. The Southern Philippines has seen houses burn and cities terrorized in a decades-long […]
Tragedies after Tragedy: Ignorance and Blame in the Boston Marathon
Undoubtedly, an act of terrorism is an abominable action. But even as things calm down – suspects caught, victims recovering – a new type of tragedy sets it: American ignorance. Though the Boston bombings left three dead and over two hundred injured, Americans have no right to blame an entire religion or another region of […]