By Maryanne Koussa
The Middle East, shrouded in myths that fail to truly grasp its cultural complexity, is a product of the post-colonial world and is plagued with superficial assumptions about its conceptualization as an unstable and violent region. Nathan Thrall, in The Only Language They Understand, and Mohamed-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, in A Theory of ISIS, attempt to create a cohesive narrative about the Israel-Palestine conflict and about the Islamic State, respectively. By presenting the historical and political background that the West tends to generalize, especially in its broader approach to terrorism—which overlooks the differences in groups’ strategies and goals—the West has developed a “counter-terrorism” policy tactic that proves to be ineffective.
With prolonged violence during a 25-year peace process between Israel and Palestine after forced settlements by the US in 1993 Oslo Accords, Thrall attempts to explain the only way for either side to reach concessions is through the use of force. As a collection of essays, with the first one being the bulk of his argument and written specifically for this book, they gradually build on the original argument by providing additional details that break the common narrative that prolonging conflict is due to poor timing, artificial deadlines, or extremist agendas. Instead, he emphasizes the current status quo cannot be changed unless either side is forced to make concessions, especially because neither side has the incentive to do so, as the costs of peace escalate the threat of violence. Thrall’s definition of force, which is any pressure that threatens advancements towards peace—including violence, sanctions, protests, etc.—is integral to his argument. The remaining essays give examples of key junctures that demonstrate concessions made under coercion, including the unproductive American-supported peace processes.
In Syria and Iraq, Mohamedou focuses his argument on removing the preconceptions the West holds about the Islamic State as irrational, anti-western, and religious. To break the myths of ISIS, Mohamedou traces the group’s genealogy and temporality, or evolution and time period, by using historical and political perspectives to fight against predictionist journalism and the Western narrative. He argues that although ISIS started as a continuation of al-Qaeda, the social degeneration and collapse al-Qaeda experienced during the 2003 War in Iraq and the rise of the Syrian Civil War are vital historical events that outline the origins of the Islamic State and posit them as a global phenomenon. Mohamedou continues his argument by centralizing the temporality of the post-colonialism, post-modernity, and post-globalization era that led ISIS to form its own identity away from al-Qaeda. ISIS’s new persona is of an entity that survives through its media usage and extends its borders transnationally. By comparing the Islamic State to al-Qaeda, Mohamedou defies the narrative of the West by instilling that their political violence is rooted in modernity, globalization, and colonialism, rather than the common narrative of religion.
In a post-colonial world where the West has trouble ceasing authoritarian control through interventionist politics over near eastern countries, these books seek to add multiple dimensions to the superficial definitions often placed on these conflicts, particularly to terrorism. When read in tandem, their dual warnings about the Western narrative are especially potent in drawing questions about the actual nature of both the Islamic State and of Hamas. While these groups hold different ideologies and strategies, they are coined under the same term to condense the “other” into a group of religious, irrational, violent actors. As violent political Islamist groups, both Hamas and ISIS are categorized as terrorists; however, this overlooks the different framing and typologies that make ISIS unique and Hamas widely generalized. Thrall illustrates that the conflict between Israel and Palestine was not always a one-on-one battle, but instead, an internal Palestinian conflict between Fatah and Hamas, groups with varying political goals that are often confused or equated to one another. In his fourth essay, “Our Man in Palestine,” Thrall highlights the conflict between these two groups, focusing on Hamas’ violence as a challenge to Israeli power—and only against Israel, regardless of the international coalition that has cemented itself within this conflict. Hamas’ political project is an independent Palestine and the dismantlement of the Israeli state in an active armed-resistance against Zionism. Only after understanding Mohamedou does this distinction become increasingly important. Continuing to portray Fatah and the Palestinian Liberation Organization as terrorists is another product of generalizations in the West. Although Fatah began as a guerilla movement for Palestinian rights to self-determination, it’s a main proponent for a two-state solution and peace talks, which is overlooked in the portrayal of Palestine as insinuators of violence and radicals against an Israeli state.
The difference between groups like ISIS and Hamas lies in their ideologies. Therefore, creating a superficial image under the guise of terrorism is a failure to understand the broader implications behind the transformed contemporary political violence argued for by Mohamedou. The advancement of ISIS is beyond its al-Qaeda origins—building an identity as a state building project against the original ambitions of its mother organization, and establishing a caliphate to undermine colonially-established borders. In its transformation to a transnational entity, ISIS established a global war; by contrast, Hamas is based primarily in the Gaza Strip. Beyond this basic typology, Hamas is not a post-modernist group as Mohamedou explains ISIS to be. People are not killing in the name of Hamas outside of their region as people do for ISIS. Most importantly, the groups’ reasons for committing violence are different: ISIS holds viceroy thoughts about violence and retribution against the West after the horrors of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, while Hamas challenges Israel and Zionism in Palestine. Hamas does not commit violence for the sake of violence, representing the era of terrorism before al-Qaeda, when group goals were localized. Both books require analysts to view these groups as rational actors to better understand this phenomenon, and to not just overlook them as evil and eradicable.
Instead, these books draw on colonialist history to draw a more potent image of the world’s current problem: The West. Categorizing all of these different groups as terrorists and formulating a response of “counter-terrorism” is just the beginning of the list of Western flaws that the combined works of Thrall and Mohamedou illuminate. Failing to differentiate between violent political Islamist groups and jihadists is what perpetuates the fear that Western civilians have against other religions and cultures. It creates the assumption that groups have similar motives and goals, leading to continued Western use of violence and similar security responses against groups with very unrelated final objectives. The emanation of post-colonial violence cannot be summed up as easily as “terrorism”.
Maryanne Koussa is the Editor-in-Chief of the SIR Online Journal of International Relations. She is a senior studying Modern Middle Eastern Studies and International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania.
Works Cited
Mohamedou, Mohammad-Mahmoud. A Theory of ISIS: Political Violence and the Global Order. Pluto Press, 2018.
Thrall, Nathan. Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine. Picador, 2018.