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Yossef Bodansky

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Yossef Bodansky
Born(1954-05-01)May 1, 1954
Israel[1]
DiedDecember 5, 2021(2021-12-05)(aged 67)
Maryland,United States
Occupation(s)Director of theCongressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare(1988–2004), Director of Research of theInternational Strategic Studies Association,Senior Editor for theDefense and Foreign Affairs

Yossef Bodansky(May 1, 1954 – December 5, 2021) was anIsraeli-Americanpolitical scientistwho served as Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of theUS House of Representativesfrom 1988 to 2004.[2]He was also Director of Research of theInternational Strategic Studies Associationand has been a visiting scholar atJohns Hopkins University'sPaul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies(SAIS). In the 1980s, he served as a senior consultant for theDepartment of Defenseand theDepartment of State.[2]

Bodansky was a senior editor for theDefense and Foreign Affairsgroup of publications and a contributor to theInternational Military and Defense Encyclopediaand was on the Advisory Council ofThe Intelligence Summit.[citation needed]Bodansky's numerous articles have been published inGlobal Affairs,Jane's Defence Weekly,Defense and Foreign Affairs:Strategic Policyand other periodicals.[2]

Bodansky was a Director of Global Panel America (Global Panel Foundation),[3]and a director of the relatedPrague Society,anon-governmental organizationwhich grew out of the dissident movement, with the aim of tracking down former members of the Communist-era of Secret Police.[4]

Congressional Task Force[edit]

The work of the Congressional Task Force (which had been established in 1981[5]) involved staff producing what they described as "ground truth" by "repeated visits to the areas they were studying and [developing] face-to-face relationships with their sources" and actively participated in supporting them. According to a compilation of Task Force reports published in 2007, "Task Force staff members went intoAfghanistanand rode with themujahideenas they fought against the Soviets. They helped the fighters secure the weapons and humanitarian aid they needed and evacuate the seriously wounded. "[6]The Task Force also contributed to related legislation, including authoring "key parts of theDiplomatic Security and Anti-Terrorism Act"(1986), allowing theFBIto investigate outside the US.[5]Task Force reports did not generally divulge sourcing in public reports, and fully referenced versions of their reports were released only to the Task Force chairmen, and not even to other committee members.[7]

Criticisms of scholarship and Task Force affair[edit]

Bodansky's scholarship and expertise was seriously questioned on occasions, but most notably during and after the Task Force engagement withBosnian Warand resulting written report.[8][9][10][11]

Also, scholars and authors such as Norman Cigar, Michael Sells, Brad K. Blitz, describe his perspective asanti-Islamicand/or anti-Muslim and extreme.[12][13][11]
Gabriele Marranci,ananthropologistworking onreligionwith a specialization inMuslimsocieties and current Director of theStudy of Contemporary Muslim Livesresearch hub atMacquarie University,identified Bodansky as part of the "anti-Muslim chimera", and that through their work and influence such anti-Muslim perspectives have found a way to the receptive ears of academic and political establishment.[14]

His books lack documentation and footnotes.[8][9][12]

Task Force report on Bosnia controversy[edit]

Bodansky used his position as a Director of Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare as a springboard for claims, included in task force report, in which he co-wrote, at the time ofBosnian WarandBosnian Genocideperpetrated against Bosnian Muslims, that Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegović and his government were allegedly creating an Islamic republic in Europe as part of an international Islamist conspiracy; that Bosnian Muslim forces were killing their own people and foreigners in an attempt to blame the Serbs and provoke international response against Serb forces, provide an excuse for alleged Muslim atrocities; assertions which lead to controversy over the intentions and scholarship of the report co-authors, namely Task Force Chief of Staff Vaughn S. Forrest and Director Yossef Bodansky himself.
As a result four of the task force's congressional members resigned, namely task force co-chairDana Rohrabacher(R-CA), representativesJames Sensenbrenner, Jr.(R-WI),Olympia Snowe(R-WA) andChristopher Cox(R-CA), with Rohrabacher's legislative assistant for foreign affairs, Peter Behrends, summarizing: "It was the scholarship of the piece that was the problem. It just wasn't credible scholarship. We asked and we were never shown any documentation."[9]
Representative Christopher Cox explained that the purpose of any Republican task forces is to exert "some measure of influence" over Democrat controlled committees in congress, but instead of Republican congressmen influence over their Democratic colleagues, this task force staff attempted to influence Republican congressmen.[9]

Bias and Serbian lobby connections[edit]

Professor of comparative religions atHaverford Collegeand author,Michael Sells,reviewed connections between Bodansky, Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, and the Belgrade lobby groups created at the time, such asSerbian Unity Congress.[11]

Norman Cigar, author, contributor, current Research Fellow at theMarine Corps University,Quantico,VA, recent retiree from position of Director of Regional Studies and the Minerva Research Chair, outlined Bodansky's professional record and advisory engagements with the lawmakers, in his letter to Rep.Jim Saxtonas one of principle "hostility to Islam and Muslims everywhere, who are seen to be part of a unified international conspiracy and a threat to everyone else, and he seems to feel that Serb nationalists share that outlook." Like Sells, Cigar also noted that Bodansky was in close relation withMilošević'sSerbian lobby group, Serbian Unity Congress, where he was featured speaker at the group's fund raiser event in Detroit in 1996. In this context Bodansky has written on the former Yugoslavia and interpreted subsequent wars as Muslim unified international conspiracy, which Bosnians were allegedly part of, to expand into Europe. Bodansky also hyped a "mujahedin" threat by claiming that "up to 20,000" mujahedin were in Bosnia, overestimating their number by more than 10 to 1, according to US government. Cigar points that Bodansky's views "are extreme and not shared by mainstream anlaysts", regardless of some Senator's staffer, to whom Cigar spoke back in 1996, carried the Bodansky Task Force report around. In an interview withBelgradebased media on 14 May 1998, Bodansky exerted view in which he blamed Arabs, who allegedly exploited Tito's 1960s and 1970s pro-Arab policy, for Yugoslavia and Christian Serbs demise, in which Bosnian Muslims hid their agenda of "long-prepared operation for an Islamic jihad against the Christians" behind the multiethnic facade.[12]

Similarly to both Sells and Cigar, Brad K. Blitz in his article,"Serbia's War Lobby: Diaspora Groups and Western Elites",which has been included in compilation-book,"This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia",edited by Thomas Cushman, Professor of Sociology atWellesley CollegeinMassachusettsand the founder and editor of theJournal of Human RightsandStjepan G. Meštrović,Professor of Sociology atTexas A & M University,analyzes Serbia's diaspora and lobby groups activities during the war in Bosnia, and its connection to political and intellectual elites in western governments and public. He described London and New Delhi based journal,"Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy",as repeatedly including "articles that apologized for the Serbian leadership's role in the Balkan conflict". Blitz identifies Yossef Bodansky as journal's most prominent writer and one of its editors, whose articles "reflect a strong anti-Islamic bias" in their discussion of the Balkans.[15]

Criticism of Defence & Foreign Affairs[edit]

On Bodansky's engagement with the London-based Defence & Foreign Affairs, where he published regularly in role of Contributing Editor, Norman Cigar points on outlet's significant pro-Serbian bias, noting how it "routinely carries material that is often indistinguishable from that distributed by official sources inBelgrade".[12][13]

Criticism of Chechen Jihad[edit]

His published works"Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda's Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror"and"The High Cost of Peace: How Washington's Middle East Policy Left America Vulnerable to Terrorism"also do not contain any footnotes and documentation. For this reason it is difficult to separate facts from fiction, rumor and opinion in his works. For example, inChechen Jihadhe states that the November 12th, 2001 crash ofAmerican Airlines Flight 587inNew Yorkwas caused by a "Canadian terrorist". No authoritative citation for this claim is given.[8]

Criticism of Secret History of the Iraq War[edit]

Steve Gilbertreviewing Bodansky's bookSecret History of the Iraq Warcalled it "suspiciously like conspiracy theory", with too "many of his alleged secrets", and as book lacking any footnotes, readers could dismiss it as an "imaginative mixture of fact, rumor, and fiction".[16]

Publications[edit]

Books
  • Target America: Terrorism in the U.S.(1993, Shapolsky Publishers Inc.).
  • Crisis in Korea(1994, Shapolsky Publishers Inc.).
  • Terror: The Inside Story of The Terrorist Conspiracy in America(1994, Shapolsky Publishers Inc.).
  • Offensive in the Balkans: The Potential for a Wider War as a Result of Foreign Intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina(1995, International Media Corp./ISSA). (Online version)
  • Some Call It Peace: Waiting for War In the Balkans(1996, International Media Corp./ISSA). (Online version)
  • Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America(1999, 2001, Random House).
  • Islamic Anti-Semitism as a Political Instrument(1999, 2000, ACPR Publications and Tammuz Publishers).
  • The High Cost of Peace: How Washington's Middle East Policy Left America Vulnerable to Terrorism(2002, Random House).
  • The Secret History of the Iraq War(2004, HarperCollins).
  • Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda's Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror(2007, HarperCollins).
Articles and commentary

References[edit]

  1. ^Salon,1 November 2001,Who is Osama bin Laden?
  2. ^abcHarperCollins,Yossef Bodansky,accessed 6 September 2013
  3. ^"Board of Directors—Global Panel".Archived fromthe originalon 2013-08-15.Retrieved18 June2016.
  4. ^"Mission of Prague Society".Archived fromthe originalon 2015-09-19.Retrieved2015-08-19.
  5. ^abRichard J. Leitner, Peter M. Leitner (editors),Unheeded Warnings: The Lost Reports of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare Volume 1: Islamic Terrorism and the West[permanent dead link],Washington: Crossbow Books 2007.ISBN978-0-9792236-6-2,p18
  6. ^Richard J. Leitner, Peter M. Leitner (editors),Unheeded Warnings: The Lost Reports of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare Volume 1: Islamic Terrorism and the West[permanent dead link],Washington: Crossbow Books 2007.ISBN978-0-9792236-6-2,p20
  7. ^Richard J. Leitner, Peter M. Leitner (editors),Unheeded Warnings: The Lost Reports of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare Volume 1: Islamic Terrorism and the West[permanent dead link],Washington: Crossbow Books 2007.ISBN978-0-9792236-6-2,p21
  8. ^abcWilliams, Brian Glyn (2015).Inferno in Chechnya: The Russian-Chechen Wars, the Al Qaeda Myth, and the Boston Marathon Bombings.University Press of New England. p. 277.ISBN9781611688016.Retrieved4 July2019.This preposterous accusation was made, along with many others, in Yossef Bodansky's footnote-free flight of fantasy titled Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda's Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror.
  9. ^abcd"Republican Task Force Faces Backlash on Bosnia Report".WRMEA.Washington Report.Retrieved4 July2019.
  10. ^Dr. Michael Saba (7 August 2004)."Sept. 11 Report and Knowledgeable Ignorance".Arab News.Retrieved4 July2019.
  11. ^abcMichael Sells(14 June 1999)."The GOP Right, the Belgrade Lobby, and the Neo-Confederacy".Roger Lippman's Balkan Witness.balkanwitness.glypx.Retrieved4 July2019.
  12. ^abcdNorman Cigar (23 April 1999)."LISTSERV 16.5 – JUSTWATCH-L Archives".listserv.buffalo.edu.Retrieved4 July2019.
  13. ^abCushman, Thomas; Mestrovic, Stjepan (1996).This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia.NYU Press. p.235.ISBN9780814715352.Retrieved4 July2019.Bodansky.
  14. ^Marranci, Gabriele (2006).Jihad Beyond Islam.Berg. p. 148.ISBN9781845201586.Retrieved4 July2019.
  15. ^Cushman, Thomas; Mestrovic, Stjepan (1996). ""Serbia's War Lobby: Diaspora Groups and Western Elites" by Brad K. Blitz ".This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia.NYU Press. pp.187-243.ISBN9780814715352.Retrieved4 July2019.This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia.
  16. ^Steve Gilbert(1 September 2004)."Review: The Secret History of the Iraq War".MLToday.Retrieved4 July2019.

External links[edit]

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