Isaac and Ishmael (special out-of-continuity episode)
The White House is locked down during a terrorism warning. The senior staff members give an impromptu town-hall meeting for a class of visiting students, while Leo confronts a staffer who may be connected to terrorists but who later reminds Leo that he was there when white supremacists tried to kill Charlie and shot Bartlet.
The episode covers a wide range of issues, including:
- Isaac and Ishmael (Jewish and Muslim interpretations of a shared family history)
- Some reasons cited by al-Qaeda for its attacks on the United States
- Other issues raised, directly or indirectly, by this episode
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Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac (last updated August 5, 2002) (back to top)
Whatever their differences today, Jews, Arabs, and Christians all look back to one man, Abraham, and to his sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Abraham was the first to accept a monolithic conception of God and endured long years waiting for his God to fulfill his promise for sons that would dominate the land. His wife Sarah sent him to father a child by her Egyptian maid, Hagar; this son was Ishmael, the ancestor of the Arab people. Thirteen years later, at the age of 100, Abraham finally fathered a child by his wife; this son was Isaac, whose son Jacob would become the father of the Jewish people.
These half-brothers, Isaac and Ishmael, had little if any contact with each other as children or young adults, their separation a result of rivalry between their mothers. Nevertheless, after years of apparent separation, they re-united to bury their father Abraham in the cave of Machpelah, what is now known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
These facts are basically agreed upon by the Bible and the Koran. However, one major point of contention lies in which son Abraham came close to sacrificing. The Bible clearly states that Abraham was ordered to sacrifice Isaac at a time long after Ishamel and his mother had been driven away. The Koran does not specifically name Ishamel as the son to be sacrificed but holds that the testing occurred before the birth of Isaac, which necessarily implies Ishmael. The distinction matters in terms of whether Isaac alone received the Lord's blessing after the test or whether he shared it with his half-brother Ishmael.
The Bible's version clearly states that the Lord ordered Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering on a mountaintop, the final command after long decades in which Abraham followed the Lord's commands to travel in hopes of the Lord fulfilling His promises that Abraham's progeny would inherit the land. Abraham then took Isaac to the mountain, bound him, and took up the cleaver to sacrifice his son.
At that point, God's messenger stopped Abraham and told him to offer a ram instead. The messenger then told Abraham that God now declared that because Abraham had been willing to sacrifice Isaac, "I will greatly bless you and will greatly multiply your seed, as the stars in the heavens and as the sand on the shores of the sea, and your seed shall take hold of its enemies' gate. And all the nations of the earth will be blessed through your seed because you have listened to my voice." Unlike the prior statements by the Lord, this fifth version of God's promise to Abraham would not be considered a contract under modern American jurisprudence but a gift to be rendered in lieu of Abraham's already completed act.
The Bible's version of the story clearly occurs years after Ishamel and his mother Hagar had already been driven away by Abraham's wife Sarah. The story reflects the Lord's recognition of Isaac as Abraham's only son (arguably because Isaac was Abraham's only legitimate child at the time), but it also arguably demonstrates Abraham's continued affection for Ishamel in the way that the Lord redundantly orders Abraham to sacrifice "your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac." Some have translated this litany as reflecting Abraham's protests that he had more than one son whom he loved, forcing the Lord to respond with more specificity each time.
On the other hand, according to the Koran's version of the story, the testing of Abraham occurs before Isaac was born and thus involves Abraham's only son at the time, who, legitimate or not, could only be Ishmael. In this version, two men receive God's blessing after Abraham passes the test; one is definitely Isaac, but the other is presumably Ishmael. The half-brothers share the Lord's blessing in this version, which reads as follows in the Koran's suras 37:100 to 37:113:
| | (And he prayed:) 'O Lord, grant me a righteous son.' So We gave him the good news of a clement son. When he was old enough to go about with him, he said: 'O my son, I dreamt that I was sacrificing you. Consider, what you think?' He replied: 'Father, do as you are commanded. If God pleases you will find me firm.'
When they submitted to the will of God, and (Abraham) laid (his son) down prostrate on his temple, We called out: 'O Abraham, You have fulfilled your dream.' Thus do We reward the good. - That was indeed a trying test. So We ransomed him for a great sacrifice, And left (his hallowed memory) for posterity.
Peace be on Abraham. That is how We reward those who do good. He is truly among Our faithful creatures. So We gave him the good news of Isaac, apostle, who is among the righteous. And We blessed him and Isaac. Among their descendants are some who do good, but some who wrong themselves.(emphasis added) |
Family History according to Genesis
In any case, the rest of the history of the family of Abraham is less subject to disagreement, at the very least because the Koran does not go into it. As told in the Book of Genesis, Abraham's story begins when he was 75 years old and still called Abram. The Lord told Abram to leave his homeland and that, in turn, the Lord would "make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing." Abram thus took his wife Sarai, as well as their goods and slaves, and sojourned for most of his remaining years, enduring many tests of his commitment to and faith in his Lord. Abram's nephew Lot traveled with them for a time but then settled in Sodom.
The Lord made two more sets of promises to Abram over the following decade. First, the Lord told Abram to walk the land he was given and that Abram's progeny would be as many as the dust of the earth. Years later, the Lord gave a more detailed account of Abram's progeny's future and the land that was given.
| | "Know well that your seed shall be strangers in a land not theirs and they shall be enslaved and afflicted four hundred years. But upon the nation for whom they slave I will bring judgment, and afterward they shall come forth with great substance … To your seed I have given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the Kenite and the Kenizite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite." |
Childless, frustrated, Sarai finally sent her Egyptian maid, Hagar, to her husband, and Hagar conceived a child. Abram then allowed Sarai to harass Hagar, and Hagar fled into the wild. God's messenger, an angel, then found Hagar by a spring of water, the well called Beer-lahai-roi, between Kadesh and Bered, and told her that to return to Sarai and endure her harassment. "Look, you have conceived and will bear a son and you will call him Ishmael, for the Lord has heeded your suffering. And he will be a wild ass of a man - his hand against all, the hand of all against him, he will encamp in despite all of his kin." Hagar returned to Abram and Sarai, and gave birth to Ishamel; Abram was 86 years old at the time.
Thirteen years later, the Lord returned to Abram and restated His covenant with Abram for the fourth time. First, Abram would be the father to a multitude of nations, and "kings shall come forth from you." Second, Abram would henceforth be known as Abraham and Sarai would be Sarah, signifying the change in their roles. Third, the Lord would give unto Abraham and his progeny "the land in which you sojourn, the whole land of Canaan, as an everlasting holding." In return, Abraham and every male progeny afterwards must be circumcised as a sign of the covenant.
Abraham, skeptical and bitter, laughed, saying "To a hundred-year-old will a child be born, will ninety-year-old Sarah give birth? Would that Ishmael might live in Your favor!" The Lord replied, "Yet Sarah your wife is to bear you a son and you shall call his name Isaac and I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant, for his seed after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Look, I will bless him and make him fruitful and will multiply him most abundantly, twelve chieftains he shall beget, and I will make him a great nation." Respecting the new covenant, Abraham, Ishmael, and his slaves were circumcised.
Over the next year, Abraham went on several journeys. He went with the Lord in human form to Sodom and Gomorrah, and he settled in Gerar, again using the ruse that Sarah was in fact his sister and not his wife, a trick designed to prevent any from killing Abraham in hopes of marrying Sarah. Finally, with Abraham 100 years old and Sarah 90, Sarah gave birth to Isaac.
Rivalry between the two mothers quickly played a part. Sarah told Abraham to drive out Hagar and Ishmael, "for the slavegirl's son shall not inherit with my son, with Isaac." Abraham was reluctant to do so, "for the thing seemed evil in Abraham's eyes," but God told him that all would work well for Hagar and Ishmael. "Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her voice, for through Isaac shall your seed be acclaimed. But the slavegirl's son, too, I will make a nation, for he is your seed."
Hagar then fled and, on the verge of death from thirst, she set Ishmael out of her sight and began crying, waiting for her son to die. The Lord's messenger then came for a second time to Hagar and told her to "rise, lift up the lad and hold him by the hand, for a great nation will I make him." Hagar then looked up and saw a well of water, and gave some to her son to drink. "And God was with the lad, and he grew up and dwelled in the wilderness, and he became a seasoned bowman. And he dwelled in the wilderness of Paran and his mother took him a wife from the land of Egypt."
Years went by, and then, according to Genesis, came the Lord's final testing of Abraham. As noted above, the Koran placed the testing earlier, before Isaac was born.
In any case, Abraham and his sons all followed their own paths over the next few decades. Ishmael lived 137 years and had 12 sons who became the founders of the Ishmaelite tribes, the Arabs. Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob; his wife Rebekah was told while pregnant that "Two nations - in your womb, two peoples from your loins shall issue. People over people shall prevail, the elder, the younger's slave." Jacob later bought Esau's birthright, and later received his father's blessing under the guise of being Esau. Jacob would be the father of the Jews, and Esau the father of the Edomites, Israel's neighbors.
Abraham himself took a second wife, Keturah, and through her he fathered the seminomadic peoples of the trans-Jordan region and the Arabian peninsula. She bore him six children, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. Abraham died at the age of 175 years.
Driven apart by the rivalry between their mothers, Isaac and Ishmael, who barely knew each other even as half-brothers, reunited and possibly met for what appears to be the first and only time when they buried their father in the Machpelah caves. Genesis does not record them ever meeting again.
Sources: Quotes from Genesis are from Robert Alter's translation (W.W. Norton & Co., 1996). Passages from the Koran are from Ahmed Ali's translation (Princeton University Press, 1993). The Christian Witness to the Koran includes an essay comparing the Bible's and Koran's recountings of the story of Abraham's final testing and is on-line here.
al-Qaeda (last updated September 25, 2001) (back to top)
Founded by Osama Bin Laden around 1990 to bring together Arabs who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion and were trained by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency, al-Qaeda has been described by the U.S. Department of State as a terrorist organization whose goal is to "establish the Muslim state" throughout the world, overthrow Western-oriented governments in Muslim countries, and drive the United States and other Western powers from the Arabian peninsula.
The organization was headquartered in the Sudan from the early 1990s until about 1996 but maintained offices in various parts of the world. In 1996, the organization relocated to Afghanistan. The group has a command and control structure including a majlis al shura (or consultation council) which discusses and approves major undertakings. It also has a military committee which considers and approves "military" operations.
In 1999, the State Department estimated that al-Qaeda (sometimes spelled al-Qa'ida) may have several hundred to several thousand members. The group is financed largely by Bin Laden, who is said to have inherited $300 million as the son of a billionaire Saudi family.
al-Qaeda conducted the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, that resulted in the deaths of at least 301 people. The group has also been linked to the deaths of U.S. military personnel serving in Somalia in October 1993 (an incident described in Mark Bowden's book Black Hawk Down) and several attempted terrorist operations, including the failed assassination of the Pope when visiting Manila in 1994, bombings of the United States and Israeli embassies in Asian countries in 1994, the mid-air bombing of a dozen U.S. international flights in 1995, and a plan to kill President Clinton in 1995.
The group's name translates as the "base" or the "root." It has also been known as the Islamic Army, the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, the Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places, the Osama Bin Laden Network, the Osama Bin Laden Organization, Islamic Salvation Foundation, The Group for the Preservation of the Holy Sites.
On November 4, 1998, Bin Laden was indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with the African embassy bombings on charges of murdering U.S. nationals outside the United States, conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals outside the United States, and attacks on a federal facility resulting to death. He was added to the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list on June 7, 1999, and the United States offered a reward of up to five million dollars for information leading to his arrest and conviction.
Osama Bin Laden
Leader of al-Qa'ida
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Muhammad Atef
Alleged second-in-command of al-Qa'ida, reportedly killed in the fall of 2001
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Sources: Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Designations by the Secretary of the State, released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism on October 9, 1999, available via the State Department's website here. Terrorism in the United States 1999, by the FBI's Counterterrorism Threat Assessment and Warning Unit, available here. The June 1999 indictment in United States v. Bin Laden et al., filed in regards to the African embassy bombings, available on-line through the FBI's web site here. Photos taken from the FBI's fugitive reports on Osama Bin Laden and Muhammad Atef, available here.
Saudi Arabia (last updated May 1, 2002) (back to top)
Saudi Arabia, which is both the birthplace of Islam as well as the world's leading oil producer, is a crucial player in the Middle East. Due to the presence of oil, the United States has had very close ties to the Saudi regime since 1945 and especially since the Gulf War of 1990-91, but the relationship has become more strained in recent years as people outside of the elite Saudi circles oppose the U.S. presence in the Middle East.
In late February 2002, Crown Price Abdullah began to float a proposal in which he would recognize Israel and normalize relations with the country if Israel withdrew from occupied territories to its pre-1967 borders and if it reached a peace agreement with the Palestinians. President George W. Bush and Crown Price Abdullah met in April 2002 to discuss ways to bring some resolution to the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Effectively working under a security-for-oil agreement, the United States and Saudi Arabia have been allies since the 1940s. Saudi Arabia has been an oil power since World War II and now brings in about $70 billion a year from oil exports, which go largely to Asia; the United States itself gets more oil from Saudi Arabia than from any other country. With that oil money, Saudi Arabia has bough billions in military equipment from the United States and is by far the biggest consumer of United States military equipment. (for more on U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, go here)
Moreover, the United States has stationed military forces in Saudi Arabia since the Gulf War, a presence that has become very controversial due to having United States troops so close to Mecca, the holy place all Muslims are obligated to visit once in their lives if possible. There were about 600,000 allied forces in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, and about 5,000 troops and thousands of military contractors have been there since (troops are also in nearby Kuwait and Qatar). Religious leaders criticized King Fahd in 1992 for allowing United States troops on Saudi land, and Osama Bin Laden has said in interviews that one of his main goals is to drive the United States out of Saudi Arabia.
Two bombing incidents targeted the American presence in Saudi Arabia. The first was on November 13, 1995 at a US-operated Saudi National Guard training center in the capital city of Riyadh, in which 8 people were killed and 60 wounded (5 of the 8 killed and half the casualties were Americans). The second was at the U.S. military residence in Dhahran, called the Khobar Towers, on June 25, 1996; 19 American servicemen were killed in this incident and 100 seriously injured. The two incidents are believed to be unrelated; the first was allegedly caused by four Sunni Saudi nationals, and the second allegedly by Shi'ite Saudi extremists supported by members of Iran's government.
Saudi Arabia has been a monarchy since King Abd Al-Aziz Al Saud unified the nomadic tribes in the area in the 1930s. King Fahd has ruled the country since 1982, though his son, Crown Prince Abdullah, has effectively led the country since Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995. The government is based on a conservative form of Islam and has declared the Koran to be its constitution, but has faced opposition from fundamentalists who want a more conservative regime in power. The country has no political parties or elected representative institutions.
The country's human rights record is poor, according to the U.S. State Department and international organizations. The U.S. State Department's 2001 report on Saudi Arabia criticized it for denying citizens basic rights such as free speech and changing their government, and criticized abuses by the country's security forces. The Committee to Prevent Vice and Promote Virtue, whose agents are known as the Mutawwa'in, or religious police, monitors public behavior and have intimidated and abused citizens and foreigners of both sexes for offenses such as not following a strict dress code.
Women in particular have very limited rights in Saudi Arabia; they are not treated as equal members of society, are not allowed to drive, and are segregated in terms of education and their use of public facilities. Women are expected to wear an abaya, a black garment that covers the entire body, and to cover her head and hair. Women make up 5 percent of the work force and own about 20 percent of the businesses, but cannot represent themselves in financial transactions and have their testimony in a Shari'a court count half that of a man's.
For more information on arms sales, go here. For more information on the Middle East, go here.
Sources: The State Department's country background report is on-line here. Its human rights report on Saudi Arabia is on-line here.
Arms Sales to the Middle East (last updated April 7, 2002) (back to top)
The United States sells arms to many countries in the Middle East, but Saudi Arabia is by far the biggest customer of U.S. arms both in the region and in the world. From FY 1991 to 2000, Saudi Arabia bought about $30 billion worth of military arms, including aircraft, defense weaponry such as Patriot and Hawk missiles, and armored vehicles. Egypt and Israel were a distant second and third, purchasing about $10 and 8 billion worth of arms each over that same period.
Sources: The Department of Defense's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Facts Book 2000, is on-line here and a summary is on-line here.
Iraq : Embargo, Sanctions, and Oil for Food (last updated February 16, 2002) (back to top)
Perhaps the most controversial measure imposed by the international community on Iraq is the set of economic sanctions in place since August 1990, when the Security Council acted in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Critics blame the sanctions for causing a humanitarian crisis in Iraq, noting especially the high level of infant mortality. Others say that Saddam Hussein has used the sanctions for propaganda, blaming them for his failures to allocate the country's resources better.
The World Health Organization has reported that the death rate for children has tripled since 1990, and a 1997 UNICEF report indicated that more than a quarter of children under age 5 are malnourished. According to UNICEF's annual report on the state of children, the 2000 infant mortality rate in Iraq is 130 deaths before age 5 for every 1,000 live births, or about 13 percent. This rate is about twice that of other Middle Eastern countries, on par with countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and is the 34th highest in the world (the United States, by contrast, has a rate of 8 deaths per 1,000, ranked 159 among state rates).
Many have debated the cause of such conditions, either blaming the sanctions directly or accusing Iraq's government of allowing these conditions due to mismanagement and for propaganda purposes. Notably, in October 1998, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Chief UN Relief Co-ordinator for Iraq, Denis Halliday, resigned in protest at the impact of sanctions on the Iraqi population.
In any case, economic sanctions have been moderated somewhat in recent years by the United Nations' Oil for Food program, which has been operating since December 1996 and has been renewed every six months. Shortly after the Gulf War, the UN proposed measures that would have enabled Iraq to sell limited quantities of its oil in order to fund humanitarian efforts. Iraq has more than 112 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the second largest supply in the world behind Saudi Arabia.
Iraq refused such measures in the early 1990s but finally agreed in 1995 to participate. The first oil was exported in December 1996 and the first food imported under the program arrived in March 1997. By December 2001, Iraq had exported 2.9 billion barrels of oil, worth about $12.6 billion. Revenue mostly goes to humanitarian efforts in Iraq, with some going to international compensation efforts and, since December 2000, to fund the United Nations' weapons monitoring program.
Still, because the distribution of this revenue is controlled by the United Nations, and not by Iraq itself, and with higher oil prices creating more incentives for sidestepping the overall embargo, smuggling has been increasing. According to estimates, averaged about 50,000 barrels of oil were illegally exported a day in 1998 and about 100,000 barrels a day by February 2000. This amount brings in millions of dollars a month, but still accounts for less than five percent of overall Iraqi oil exports.
The US-led Maritime Interdiction Force, created in 1990, monitors ships in the Persian Gulf to prevent oil smuggling. As of a State Department briefing in February 2000, the MIF has queried more than 28,000 vessels by radio, boarded more than 12,000, and diverted 700 for violating UN sanctions during its ten-year existence. Still, Vice Admiral Charles Moore, commander of the international force and commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet, said in April 2000 that the MIF stops only three to five percent of smugglers.
Under United Nations Security Council Resolution 665, ships smuggling Iraqi oil can be diverted to a Gulf port to have its oil unloaded and sold, with the proceeds going to the United Nations. Crews are usually repatriated home with no penalties. Because the main penalty is confiscation of the vessels, vessels are not of high quality and pose a high risk for oil spills.
Sources: UNICEF's annual report on the state of the world's children is available on-line here; the report on under-five mortality rankings is on-line here. State Department reports on illegal oil smuggling, such as James Foley's February 3, 2000 briefing, available on-line here. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration December 1999 report on Iraq, available on-line here. Statement of General Tommy R. Franks, commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, before Senate Armed Services Committee, September 19, 2000.
Israel-Palestinians: Overview of the conflict and the peace process (last updated April 14, 2002) (back to top)
For more than 50 years, the state of Israel has existed in uneasy tension with its Arab neighbors and with the Palestinians who originally occupied some of the same territory. This tension has erupted into wars such as the Six Days War of 1967 and into violent uprisings (aka intifadas) within Israeli-controlled territories such as the one that began in September 2000 and continues into 2002. In March 2002, after months of increasing numbers of Israeli and Palestinian deaths, the Israeli government declared Yasir Arafat an enemy and sent military forces to his Ramallah headquarters and to launch an extended operation in occupied territories.
On the international front, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia began in February 2002 to float a proposal in which he would recognize Israel and normalize relations with the country if Israel withdrew from occupied territories to its pre-1967 borders and if it reached a peace agreement with the Palestinians. President George W. Bush publicly praised Saudi Arabia's proposal on February 26, and Syria endorsed it as well on March 5, but Israel's response was cooler (though it had made a similar offer in 1967 after its victories in the Six Day War). A meeting amongst Arab nations occurred in late March but achieved little since Arafat did not attend for fear that Israel would not allow him to return to the West Bank.
Some Significant Issues between Israel and the Palestinians
Beyond religious differences and historical enmities, some pressing political and economic issues dividing Israel and the Palestinians include:
- Terrorist actions by groups such as Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) and the Islamic Jihad. Since December 2001, Israel has sharply criticized Yasir Arafat for not doing more to stop terrorist actions by such groups, charging that he lacks either the power or the will to do so and thus has become irrelevant to the peace process. On April 13, 2002, after two weeks under siege by Israeli military forces, Yasir Arafat issued a statement condemning terrorist acts against civilians and specifically condemning a suicide attack that had occurred the day before; Secretary of State Colin Powell said he would not meet with Arafat until he made such a statement and then said Arafat's statement met his requirements. As part of its biannual review of foreign terrorist organizations, the United States recognized in October 2001 six terrorist organizations that directly oppose Israel's involvement in Palestine, as opposed to Islamic separatist organizations such as al-Qaeda.
- Control of occupied territories. Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization agreed in 1993 to begin a transition process in which Palestinians would gradually be given self-government over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, two areas which Israel has occupied since its military successes in the Six Days War of 1967. This two-track process was broadened by the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement. However, each side has accused the other of not living up to the conditions set forth in the agreements, and progress has stalled.
- Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Israelis have created many settlements in the occupied territories, thus provoking Palestinians in such areas and complicating the resolution of who controls the land. As of August 2000, there were an estimated 231 settlements and civilian land-use sites in the West Bank, 42 in the Golan Heights, 25 in the Gaza Strip, and 29 in East Jerusalem. Israel says it has stopped creating new settlements, but is simply allowing currently-existing settlements to grow naturally. The United States has consistently opposed Israel's settlement policy since the Carter administration, and has criticized growth patterns that seem to cover new territory while existing territory goes relatively unused.
- Control of Jerusalem. With both Israel and the Palestinians seeking to have Jerusalem as their capital, the status of this city has been constantly deferred from political negotiations. It was deliberately not resolved in the historic September 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement and was to be negotiated in future rounds.
- Poor economic conditions and massive unemployment in the occupied territories. Israel is a technologically advanced market economy, which had in 2000 an estimated gross domestic product of $110.2 billion, GDP per capita of $18,900, and a GDP growth rate of 5.9 percent, as reported in the CIA World Factbook. Israel's unemployment rate was about 9 percent in 2000.
By contrast, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have relatively undeveloped economies with only some small industry. Both areas saw declining economies and rising unemployment from 1992 to 1996 as a result of Israeli border closure policies that responded to security incidents but also disrupted market relationships. Both areas then began to recover when Israel used such policies less frequently from 1997 to 2000. Recovery has at best stalled since the uprisings beginning in late 2000 and continuing into 2002. Estimates for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 2000 showed a GDP of $3.1 billion and $1.11 billion respectively, GDPs per capita each less than one-tenth that of Israel, and a combined unemployment rate of 40 percent.
The Peace Process
The 1990s started off with the promise of successful - though difficult - negotiations towards the peaceful transfer of authority over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from Israel occupation to Palestinian self-government. In the wake of the Gulf War, Israel met with Palestinian and other Arab leaders in the Madrid Conference and began talks. After a round of talks in Oslo, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) signed a joint Declaration of Principles on September 13, 1993. That declaration called for a five-year transition period in which Israel would gradually withdraw its troops from major Palestinian centers and Palestinians would gradually govern themselves.
Several divisive issues, such as the status of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in areas such as the West Bank and the Gaza strip, were officially set aside for a second stage of negotiations to begin no later than 1996.
Since 1993, negotiations have moved on two separate tracks, one towards Palestinian self-government as an interim step, and another towards a permanent adjustment. The interim track culminated with the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat signed on September 28, 1995. This agreement was implemented in stages over the next few years.
However, other issues continued to go unresolved. First, the status of Jerusalem, which both Israel and the Palestinians want for their capital city, was left for future negotiations. Second, though Israel stopped creating entirely new settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it continued to support the growth of existing settlements; this policy, which the United States has opposed continuously at least since the Carter administration, has been a particularly severe grievance to the Palestinians. On the other hand, Israel has complained that the Palestinians have been slow to implement their obligations under the Interim Agreement, including policing their own radicals.
Israel and the Palestinians began negotiating these issues in May 1996 and periodically since then, but without much success. One difficulty has been the frequent turnover in power between the Labor Party and the Likud Party. The Labor Party led by Yitzhak Rabin won national elections in 1992, Likud under Binyamin Netanyahu won in May 1996, and Labor took power again with Ehud Barak in 1999. Barak himself was replaced by Ariel Sharon in February 2001. Labor is generally more secular and favors giving land for peace to the Palestinians; Likud is more religious and conservative, and has greater concerns about security.
The Current Intifada Began in September 2000
In September 2000, a new wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence broke out with an intifada that seems to have set back the entire peace process. Events began with the September 28, 2000 visit of Israeli Parliament member Ariel Sharon (now the country's prime minister) to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Palestinians protested the visit the next day, and Israeli police reacted with violence to disperse the demonstrations, killing four and injuring hundreds. Violence then continued and escalated through the end of 2000 and into 2001, resulting in hundreds of deaths on both sides, though mostly Palestinians. Amnesty International has reported at least 300 Palestinians were killed in the first three months of the intifada and that more than 570 Palestinians and more than 150 Israelis (including 150 Palestinian and 30 Israeli children) were killed during its first year.
The Sharm el-Sheikh Fact Finding Committee, organized by the United States and chaired by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, later reported in April 2001 that there was no evidence that Sharon's visit had been anything more than "an internal political act," or that the Palestinians had any deliberate plan to incite violence. On the other hand, the committee found, the violence resulted because "each side assumed the worst about the other and acted accordingly."
The Committee had plenty of criticism for both sides. It criticized Israel's use of military force, noting that Israel needed to differentiate better between terrorism and protests, and noting that two-thirds of the alleged "attacks" by Palestinians against Israelis did not involve firearms or explosives. The Committee also criticizes Israel's settlement policy for instigating Palestinian ire. At the same time, the Committee found that the PLO needed to make more efforts to enforce a complete stop of violence and prevent anti-Israeli terrorism.
Tensions and the death toll on both Israeli and Palestinian sides increased over the course of 2001, and the Israel government began taking steps directly against Yasir Arafat. In December 2001, the Israeli government publicly called Arafat an enemy and said he had become irrelevant due to his inability to stop the actions of groups such as Hamas. In March 2002, the Israeli government moved to contain Arafat within his Ramallah headquarters or to force his exile, and began extensive military operations in the occupied territories.
Some Historical Background and Context
Territory that has been dominated by different empires for centuries, the land now known as Israel was previously known as Palestine and was controlled by the Ottoman Empire from the 1600s to the 20th century. Britain then controlled the land as a mandate from 1917 to 1948, at which time the state of Israel was created out of a United Nations partition plan supported by the United States.
From 1948 into the 1970s, Israel fought several wars with its Arab neighbors. However, Israel's decisive military victory in the 1967 war (known as the Six Days War) and its success in repelling a 1973 attack by Egypt and Syria -- as well as the 1979 Camp David accords that brought peace between Israel and Egypt - have moved the conflict more or less from the military arena to the political. Instead, direct conflict has moved largely to terrorist attacks and internal fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Israel began establishing or renewing diplomatic relations with Arab states after the 1993 agreement with the Palestinians, and signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994.
Israel has historically received strong support from the United States, beginning first with the United States' support for the very creation of a Jewish state in 1948. It bought about $8 billion worth of military equipment from the United States from FY 1991 to 2000, though Saudi Arabia and Egypt both bought more equipment over the same period. For more on arms sales, go here.
For a timeline and for more on developments in Israel and the Palestinians, go here.
Sources: Report of the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact Finding Committee, April 30, 2001. The United States Department of State maintains a section on the Middle East, available here. The United States Embassy in Israel has collected historical documents (available here) and an ongoing collection of developments (available here). Ahron Bergman and Jihan El-Tahri, Israel and the Arabs: an eyewitness account of war and peace in the Middle East (TV Books 2000). The State Department has a country background report on-line via its website here. Economic information on Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as well as Israeli settlement estimates come from the CIA World Factbook 2001, on-line here. Amnesty International's report on the first year of the intifada is on-line here.
Muslims in the United States (last updated October 2001) (back to top)
Muslims make up about 0.5 to 1 percent of the American population, though the precise number is not known because federal law bars the U.S. Census from asking about the religious identity of the American population. Accordingly, any religious profile has to be calculated and estimated from other sources, such as academics, institutions, and other groups.
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York has conducted two surveys of religious identification, first in 1990 and again in 2001, both based on random digit-dialed telephone calls (113,723 persons questioned in 1990, 50,281 in 2001). Here are some highlights from these National Surveys of Religious Identification:
- Christians comprised 86 percent of the population in 1990, and 77 percent in 2001. In 2001, Catholics made up 24.5 percent of the population (50.8 million), Baptists 16.3 percent (33.8 million), Protestants with no denomination specified 2.2 percent (4.6 million), and Methodists 6.8 percent (14.2 million).
- Non-Christians comprised 3.3 percent of the population in 1990 and 3.7 percent in 2001. In 2001, Jewish adherents comprised 1.3 percent of the population (2.8 million), Muslims 0.5 percent (about 1.1 million), and Buddhists 0.5 percent (1.1 million).
- Adults who do not subscribe to any religious identification comprised 8 percent of the population in 1990 and 14 percent in 2001.
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, several researchers, including the NRSI, have tried to estimate the Muslim population in the United States. For example, the CUNY researchers involved in the NSRI found a total national figure of 2.2 million adult Muslims, and just under 3 million total Muslims, after adjusting their own figures for possible sampling errors.
Tom Smith, a survey researcher commissioned by the American Jewish Committee, reported in October 2001 that estimates of the Muslim population varied widely from less than 4 million to more than 7 million, were rarely based on credible scientific methodology, and were undergoing inflation in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The best figures, he reported, put the adult Muslim population in 2000 at 0.67 percent of the population (1.4 million) and the total Muslim population at 1.886 million.
Sources: Barry A. Kosmin, Egon Mayer, and Ariela Keysar, American Religious Identification Survey 2001, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Barry A. Kosmin, Egon Mayer, and Ariela Keysar, Profile of the US Muslim Population, ARIS Report No. 2 (October 2001), available on-line here. Tom W. Smith, Estimating the Muslim Population in the United States, The American Jewish Committee. Other religion resources are available at Adherents.com.
INS's "Special Interest" Detainees (last updated August 4, 2002) (back to top)
More than 1,180 people were detained -- i.e., arrested and jailed -- in sweeps by the federal government following the September 11, 2001 attacks. According to government papers, 751 people were detained on immigration violations, 128 people were detained on federal criminal charges, and an undisclosed number -- possibly in the hundreds -- were detained as material witnesses. As of mid-June 2002, at least 148 were still in custody.
The United States government does have broad powers to determine who may enter the United States and who may be removed from its borders, and it detains and removes thousands of individual aliens each year, especially after reforms in 1996 expanded the categories of people who could be so removed. Nevertheless, some have challenged the methods by which the federal government, in particular the Immigration and Naturalization Service, has detained and removed those aliens detained in the wake of September 11.
In particular, some have sought the disclosure of more information about those aliens detained and have also challenged rules that bar the public from deportation hearings. These challenges are proceeding on different fronts.
Information about Detainees
Since September 11, the federal government has provided only some information about those detained as a result of the post-attack investigations. The Department of Justice indicated on November 8, 2001 that 1,182 people had been detained but soon thereafter announced that it would no longer provide the number of those detained. The exact number of those detained was not known as of early August 2002.
According to government papers filed in June, of the 751 detained on immigration violations, 74 were still in custody as of June 13, 2002, and 677 had been released (including at least 130 Pakistanis who were deported; most of whom were subsequently convicted back in Pakistan). Of the 128 detained on federal criminal charges, 73 were still in custody as of June 11, 2002, though only one (Zaccarias Moussaoui) had been charged in connection with the September 11 attacks.
Advocates who sought the disclosure of more information about detainees under the Freedom of Information Act won a major victory on August 2, 2002, when Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler in the D.C. District Court ruled that the federal government must disclose the identities of most individuals detained during the course of the government's post-September 11 investigation as well as the identities of any lawyers representing them. The only detainees whose identities need not be disclosed pursuant to Kessler's order are those material witnesses whose identities are sealed by court order, and those detainees who wish to remain anonymous.
In making her ruling, Kessler rejected the government's efforts to justify non-disclosure. For example, the government argued that disclosure of detainees' identities would deter witness cooperation because terrorist groups would intimidate or cut off contact with the detainees. Given that 10 months had passed since September 11, Kessler wrote, "it is implausible that terrorist groups would not have figured out whether their members have been detained." Kessler also rejected the government's "mosaic theory," in which it argued that no information should be disclosed because al-Qaeda could then use such information to reverse-engineer the government's investigation and thwart subsequent efforts; Kessler said this theory had no legal support and would encompass too much.
At the same time, Kessler did rule that the federal government justifiably withheld information as to when and where detainees were arrested, detained, and/or released. Such information is not historically accessible under the First Amendment, and such information "may be used to map the progress of the Government's law enforcement investigation, and place at risk the detention facilities as well as the physical safety of the detainees and employees."
Kessler gave the federal government 15 days to disclose the identities of those covered by her order and to submit papers justifying why some individuals' identities should not be disclosed.
Prior to Judge Kessler's decision, the federal government had sought to reserve the power of such disclosure solely for itself, with the INS publishing a rule on April 17, 2002 that prohibited state and local officials from disclosing information. The rule came about shortly after a New Jersey state court ordered state officials running the detention center at which some detainees are being kept to release that information according to state disclosure laws. The INS then issued a rule barring state officials from doing so, and the rule was upheld by a state appellate court on June 12, 2002.
According to press reports, as a result of such rules, some detainees are being deported without their family's knowledge. For example, the New York Times has reported that Ali Yaghi, a Jordanian detainee who had applied for residency, was deported to Jordan on June 24, 2002 after spending nine months in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on an immigration charge. Yaghi's wife and three children were reportedly not told of the deportation beforehand and believed Yaghi to have been detained by Jordan's own security services upon his return.
Closure of Proceedings
Although INS proceedings are generally open to the public, a September 21, 2001 directive by Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy barred the press as well as detainees' family members from deportation hearings involving "special interest" cases. However, this directive has been limited by federal courts in New Jersey and in Michigan, which ordered the government in April and May 2002 to open such proceedings to the public. The Michigan ruling came on April 3, 2002 in the case of detainee Rabih Haddad, a native of Lebanon who has lived off-and-on in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife and four children since 1988, most recently on a now-expired tourist visa. The New Jersey ruling came on May 29, 2002 in a general matter brought primarily by the local media.
In making the Michigan ruling, Federal District Judge Nancy Edmonds noted that while Congress has in the past closed exclusion hearings (whether an alien may enter the United States), it had never beforehand closed deportation hearings (whether an alien within the country may remain). She said that this distinction remains even though both hearings are now called removal hearings under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 USC 1229a).
General Powers
Aliens can be detained and removed from the United States for a variety of reasons, such as being a convicted criminal. Under the USA Patriot Act, enacted into law about a month after the September 11 attacks, aliens must be detained if the Attorney General certifies that he has reasonable grounds to believe they are involved in terrorist activity or are helping to undermine anti-terrorist activity. Such aliens are to be placed in removal proceedings or charged with a criminal offense within a week (seven days) of being detained, but may be detained longer if the alien's release would threaten national security or community safety.
Before September 11, the INS had to issue a notice with grounds of removal within 24 hours of detaining an alien. This period was extended indefinitely in the wake of September 11, but is now presumably superseded by the USA Patriot Act's provisions. Once charges are filed, anyone accused of being deportable or inadmissible on terrorism grounds is subject to mandatory detention. But ordinary immigration charges do still permit release from custody.
Sources: Judge Gladys Kessler's August 2, 2002 opinion in Center for National Security Services v. United States Department of Justice is on-line at the D.C. District Court's website, on-line here. Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft, 195 F.Supp.2d 937 (E.D. Mich. 2002). North Jersey Media Group v Ashcroft (D. N.J. 2002). American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey v. County of Hudson (New Jersey Appellate Division, 2002), on-line here. Susan Sachs, U.S. deports most of those arrested in sweeps after 9/11, New York Times, July 11, 2002. The American Civil Liberties Union has also written about the manner in which the "special interest" detainees are being processed, such as a June 21 letter regarding the INS rule prohibiting non-federal officials from disclosing information, on-line here, and testimony in October 2001, on-line here. A July 15, 2002 report to Congress on the Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA Patriot Act, which touches on the detainees' issue, is on-line here.
Intelligence Failures and Reforms (last updated June 6, 2002) (back to top)
The Bush administration began in late May and early June 2002 to propose and to actually implement major changes to how federal law-enforcement is structured and operates. The Department of Justice has already loosened restrictions on domestic investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has proposed shifting resources to counterterrorism efforts and hiring more specialized agents, and President George W. Bush has proposed creating a new Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security to consolidate intelligence efforts now spread over as many as 100 agencies.
These changes and efforts come as reports emerge of the missed signs and potential intelligence failures that could have warned of the September 11 attacks. For example, FBI agent Coleen Rowley in Minneapolis has written and has testified before Congress that her superiors hampered investigative efforts in the summer of 2001 into Zaccarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker (for more information on Moussaoui, go here). FBI superiors also reportedly rejected a July 2001 proposal by another agent, Kenneth J. Williams, to investigate American flight schools for Middle Eastern men training there. Furthermore, the FBI and CIA reportedly did not actively share information on the men who hijacked the flights involved in the September 11 attacks.
On June 6, 2002, just as Congressional hearings began examining such intelligence failures, President Bush announced in a major public address that he would seek the creation of a new Cabinet-level agency that would consolidate and coordinate intelligence-gathering efforts. This agency would focus on coordinating the government's analysis of and response to terrorist threats. It would also encompass border security (thus encompassing the Coast Guard and the border functions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service), infrastructure protection, emergency preparedness and response, and bioterrorism countermeasures.
Both the FBI and the Department of Justice have proposed and even implemented other changes. In late May 2002, federal law-enforcement officials admitted that signals had been missed and announced major organizational changes and revised policies.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III announced on May 29, 2002 several major organizational changes to the FBI. First, the FBI would refocus its priorities so that protecting the United States from terrorist attack and foreign intelligence operations would take the highest priority. In terms of staff, he proposed increasing the number of agents dedicated to counterterrorism efforts by hiring new agents and by shifting 518 agents away from drugs, white-collar crime and violent crime efforts, with the vast majority coming from drug efforts (400 agents from anti-narcotics efforts, with 59 each from the other two areas). Mueller has also testified that he wants to accelerate a move within the FBI away from generalists to emphasize specialized experts. Other changes were announced in November 2001.
In terms of investigatory capabilities, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced on May 30, 2002 new guidelines that loosen prior restrictions on domestic intelligence gathering. Under these guidelines, which are already in effect, federal agents are now allowed to visit any place and attend any event that is open to the public, though they are not allowed to retain any information unless it relates to criminal or terrorist activity and they are still bound by the Constitution and federal law. Agents can also now use on-line resources to the same degree as the public and can conduct wiretapping operations with less supervision than before (for more on wiretapping, go here).
According to Ashcroft, these revised guidelines emphasize the FBI's mission of preventing terrorism, reduce "unnecessary procedural red tape," and allow the FBI to "draw proactively on all lawful sources of information." The FBI "cannot meet its paramount responsibility to prevent acts of terrorism if FBI agents are required, as they were in the past, to blind themselves to information that everyone else is free to see," he said on May 30.
Nonetheless, the revisions have already been criticized by many, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to Represent F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wisconsin). In a May 30 press release, the ACLU said the new guidelines reward the FBI's failure by restoring powers that were abused during the civil-rights era, when the FBI spied on activists such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In many ways, the Department of Justice has seen its powers expand in several ways since September 11. The USA Patriot Act, which was signed into law in October 2001, authorized new law-enforcement tools such as stronger powers to prevent money laundering and to detain non-citizens based on lower standards than citizens. In October, the Justice Department also published a regulation that authorizes prison officials to monitor communications between detainees and their lawyers without a court order.
Mueller took office on September 4, 2001, just a week before the September 11 attacks. His predecessor was Louis Freeh, who served from 1993 to June 2001.
Sources: President Bush's June 6, 2002 address is on-line here, and information on the proposed Department of Homeland Security is on-line here. Information on the FBI's reorganization effort is on-line here. The new DOJ guidelines released on May 30, 2002 are available on-line via the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Policy, on-line here, and Attorney General John Ashcroft's May 30 speech announcing them is on-line here. The ACLU's May 30 press release criticizing the new FBI guidelines is on-line here. Don Van Natta Jr. and David Johnston, Wary of risk, slow to adapt, F.B.I. stumbles in terror war, New York Times, June 2, 2002.
Wiretapping (last updated June 9, 2002) (back to top)
The vast majority of wiretapping and communications-intercepting operations target people allegedly involved in narcotics-related crimes. In 2001, 78 percent of the court orders authorizing intercept operations involved narcotics-related crimes as the most serious offense, a dramatic increase in both number and share since the early 1990s.
After narcotics, intercept operations targeted gambling and racketeering crimes. Only a small handful (less than 5 percent) of the orders in 2001 involved homicide or assault crimes.
Except in emergency situations, federal and state law-enforcement must get prior approval from a judge before conducting a wiretap operation. Under federal law, a judge may authorize an order if he or she determines there is probable cause for believing that:
- The target of a wiretap operation committed or is about to commit a crime,
- Communications concerning that crime will be obtained as a result of a wiretap, and
- "Normal investigative procedures have been tried and have failed or reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be dangerous."
In May 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft revised the Department of Justice's operational guidelines to make wiretapping more readily available as an investigative tool. The new guidelines do not change the legal requirements for getting authorization to conduct a wiretapping operation, but reduce the internal DOJ approvals previously required before applying to a court. Accordingly, agents can seek court approval more quickly and with less oversight from superiors.
In announcing these revised guidelines, Ashcroft said that they would help law-enforcement combat terrorism more efficiently and effectively. The American Civil Liberties Union, among others, criticized this argument because the revised guidelines effect operations beyond terrorism and because wiretaps are used primarily in non-terrorism situations.
If granted, a court order authorizing a wiretap operation lasts no more than 30 days, though orders can be extended. After the expiration of the order and any extensions, recordings must be presented to the judge and within 90 days, the judge must provide notice to the targeted parties about the court order and whether communications were intercepted. If the targeted parties make a motion, a judge may in his discretion provide parts of the intercepted communications "as the judge determines to be in the interest of justice."
In 2001, the most active federal intercept operation was in the Central District of California, where a 27-day investigation of copyright infringement resulted in average of 660 interceptions a day. As for state operations, the most active was 43-day narcotics investigation in Lubbock County, Texas, in which 338 intercepts a day. Wiretaps were used in 2001 primarily in the Central District of California, the Northern District of Illinois (which includes Chicago), and the Western District of Texas.
As of early 2002, seven states do not authorize state law-enforcement to use wiretaps. These states are Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, South Carolina, and Vermont.
If a wiretapping or intercept operation commences without a warrant, it could violate the Fourth Amendment. Under the 1967 case of Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, the government violates the Fourth Amendment whenever it transgresses a citizen's substantive manifestation of a privacy interest and when the privacy interest is one legitimately accepted by society.
The government does not need a warrant when it listens to a two-party conversation with the consent of one of the parties. It also does not need a warrant to get a list of the telephone numbers you call, as you voluntarily convey that information yourself to the telephone company and thus do not necessarily expect to keep those numbers private.
Sources: The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts makes annual reports on the wiretaps authorized by the federal and state courts, and the reports are available on-line here; the graph is based on information in Tables 3 and 7 of the 2001 report. Federal law concerning wiretap and intercept operations is codified in Chapter 119 of Title 18 of the US Code, which is available via Findlaw.com here. The Attorney General's new guidelines for the "lawful, warrantless monitoring of verbal communications" is available via the DOJ's Office of Legal Policy, on-line here. Attorney General John Ashcroft's May 30 speech announcing them is on-line here. The ACLU's May 30 press release criticizing the new FBI guidelines is on-line here. Stephen A. Saltzburg and Daniel J. Capra, American Criminal Procedure (West Publishing, 5th edition, 1996).
Terrorism Warnings (last updated August 17, 2002) (back to top)
Between September 11 and the end of 2001, the Bush administration issued three general warnings of further, imminent, yet unspecified attacks on the United States. These warnings were said to be based on credible but not specific information, and were criticized by some as too vague to be useful and as contributing to an already intense climate of fear and tension.
The time and circumstances of the warnings were:
- October 11, 2001. Attorney General John Ashcroft first instructed federal law enforcement to be on "the highest level of alert" immediately after President George W. Bush in early October, and the FBI then reported on Oct. 11 that terrorist attacks on the United States and United States interests were likely "over the next several days."
- October 29, 2001. Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III then announced on Oct. 29 that "there may be additional terrorist attacks within the United States and against United States interests over the next week. The administration views this information as credible, but unfortunately it does not contain specific information as to the type of attack or specific targets."
Gov. Ridge defended this second warning the next day. "It's a difficult and fine line that we walk, but I think America understands, and hopefully, appreciates that when there's that kind of information available to us, we just share it with America, as incomplete as it might be," he said, adding that "if everybody has a heightened sense of alert, we send a signal not only to America, but those who would terrorize us, those who are trying to disrupt our way of life, that we are on guard as a country."
- December 3, 2001. Gov. Ridge announced the third warning of attack on Dec. 3, reporting again that law-enforcement had seen an increased amount of terrorist activity but that the information did not point to any specific target or outline any specific attack. "However, the analysts who review this information believe the quantity and level of threats are above the norm and have reached a threshold where we should once again place the public on general alert."
To improve communications between the federal government and state and local law-enforcement agencies, Gov. Ridge later unveiled a new advisory system that would classify the risk of terrorist attack by color. Red would indicate the most severe risk, yellow an elevated level of risk, and green the lowest.
In announcing the system on March 12, 2002, Ridge said that the nation "currently stands in the yellow condition, in elevated risk. Chances are we will not be able to lower the condition to green until … the terror networks of global reach have been defeated and dismantled. And we are far from being able to predict that day."
Sources: The State Department's chronology of September through December 2001 concerning the September 11 attacks and the United States' response is on-line here. The Oct. 29 warning is on-line here, and Gov. Ridge's defense of that warning is on-line here. The December 3 warning is on-line here. The White House announcement of the Homeland Security Advisory System is on-line here, and Gov. Ridge's introductory remarks are on-line here.
Major Terrorist Acts against the United States or involving United States citizens (last updated 9/25/01) (back to top)
- April 18, 1983: Bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, 63 killed. Linked to the Islamic separatist group Hizballah.
- October 23, 1983: Bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, 241 marines killed. Linked to the Islamic separatist group Hizballah.
- September 20, 1984: Bombing of the U.S. embassy annex in Beirut, Lebanon, 14 killed. Linked to the Islamic separatist group Hizballah.
- December 21, 1988: Bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, 259 passengers and crew killed, including 217 Americans. Two Libyans went on trial in the Netherlands in 2000; Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was found guilty and the other found not guilty.
- February 26, 1993: World Trade Center bombing: $500 million in damages, six killed, more than a thousand injured. This incident was organized by Ramzi Yousef, who is linked to Muslims who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, but was not the doing of any formal terrorist organization with an identifiable organizational structure, known base of operation, or well-established means of fundraising.
- April 1993: Unsuccessful attempt by Iraqi Intelligence Service to assassinate former President George Bush during a visit to Kuwait. President Bill Clinton authorizes retaliatory cruise missile strikes against IIS headquarters in Baghdad.
- Summer 1995: FBI arrests members of a plot to attack various landmarks in New York City, organized by Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman, the head of an Egyptian-based terrorist organization who also has links to Muslims who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan.
- April 19, 1995: Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, 168 killed, hundreds injured. Conducted by Timothy McVeigh (for more information, click here).
- April 3, 1996: Theodore Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, is detained by federal agents after sending package bombs for nearly two decades, killing 3 and wounding 23.
- August 7, 1998: Bombing of two US embassies in the East African cities of Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, at least 301 killed, more than 5,000 injured. Organized by al-Qaeda, the terrorist group led by Osama Bin Laden.
- October 12, 2000: Attack on USS Cole in Yemeni port of Aden, 17 sailors killed. Organized by al-Qaeda, the terrorist group led by Osama Bin Laden.
- September 11, 2001: Attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, resulting in the deaths of thousands. Allegedly organized by al-Qaeda, the terrorist group led by Osama Bin Laden.
Sources: Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Designations by the Secretary of the State, released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism on October 9, 1999, available via the State Department's website online here. Terrorism in the United States 1999, by the FBI's Counterterrorism Threat Assessment and Warning Unit, available here.
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