The 1984 conference fused Israeli, neocon, and Orientalist voices into a terrorism ideology

Evidence

This changed at the second International Conference on Terrorism, held in 1984 in Washington, DC. During his opening remarks, Benjamin Netanyahu stated that “modern terrorism has its roots in two movements that have assumed international prominence in the second half of the twentieth century, communist totalitarianism and Islamic (and Arab) radicalism.” By this stage, Iran had come to be a thorn in Israel’s side with its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Arab radicalism was bracketed while Islamism took center stage. In short, state actors—particularly the Soviet Union and Iran—were seen as giving life to international terrorism. The PLO was not omitted; its “terrorist mini-state in Lebanon” was presented as “a training center and launching group for what had become a kind of terrorist international.” Presenters at the conference included neocons such as Moynihan, Kirkpatrick, and Krauthammer, as well as Israeli leaders such as Yitzhak Rabin and US politicians such as former Secretary of State George Shultz. A new addition to this conference was a session on “Terrorism and the Islamic World,” which included the Orientalists Bernard Lewis, Elie Kedourie, and Panyotidis Vatikiotis. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 443

Categorization

• XREF: Corroborates Aziz’s claim of post-9/11 Islamophobia as manufactured imperial policy; this passage pushes authorship back to 1984 and implicates Israeli state interests. — connects to: Postwar modernization theory and the Israel partnership produced the Arab terrorist race — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 103; Orientalist scholars supplied the transhistorical ‘Islamic terrorism’ narrative at the 1984 conference — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 444; Israeli-organized conferences shaped the racialized terrorism narrative (+3 more)
• QUESTION: The conference’s sponsorship and funding origins warrant chasing — who organized and paid for it?

Broader Connections

• Orientalist scholars supplied the transhistorical ‘Islamic terrorism’ narrative at the 1984 conference #exemplifies (0.90) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 444
• Israeli-organized conferences shaped the racialized terrorism narrative #expands (0.88)
• The War on Terror recycled pre-existing Orientalist academic discourse into state violence #expands (0.78) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 267
• Neoconservatives and Israel pushed Islamism as the post-Soviet enemy #expands (0.75)