Monday, April 07, 2008

The Bodansky File

While researching my recent post on Edelman, I came across a Moroccan-American Center for Policy (MACP) press release from January 11, 2008, titled Western Sahara Negotiations Continue Despite Polisario War Threats.

The following paragraph in that release caught my attention:

In a recent analysis, Youssef Bodansky, former Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), noted that the greatest threat to stability in the Maghreb and Western Mediterranean was what he described as “the rejuvenation of the terrorism campaign” of the Polisario Front. The escalation by the Polisario comes in the midst of the latest United Nations effort to finally resolve the Western Sahara conflict.

Now this Youssef Bodansky is an Israeli-born political scientist and terrorism expert with ten mostly-terrorism-related books under his belt, a ton of articles in big publications to his credit, vast work experience throughout the US Government, and a reputation for having foreseen and predicted many of the terror incidents of the last few years, including 9/11. See Wikipedia for specifics.

With a resume like this one can hardly be faulted for thinking that maybe this guy knows a thing or two about terrorism and that he might be on to something when he makes such a damning statement about the Polisario. But having already been burned once by assuming the same thing about another pro-Israel terrorism expert, Claude Moniquet, I thought I’d dig a little further and try to find the “recent analysis” where the quote about “the rejuvenation of the [Polisario’s] terrorism campaign” came from. I scoured the internet and have come up empty. So a few days ago I shot off e-mails to both MACP and Mr. Bodansky for clarification and so far have heard nothing.

The reason all this is of interest to me is that most of the scholars I am aware of specializing in and writing on the Polisario (see Shelley, Zunes, Mundy, and even Jensen) clearly see the Polisario and the terrorism question in quite a different light. They are very consistently impressed by the Polisario’s refusal, even in the face of rather ugly state terrorism practiced by Morocco, to resort to terrorism. So I am forced to wonder, first of all, what past “terrorism campaign” Mr. Bodansky is referring to as being ripe for “rejuvenation.” Some have tried to construe a handful of Polisario attacks on fishing boats entering the war zone in the ‘70s and 80’s as terroristic activity, but few find this convincing. Secondly, I wonder what leads Mr. Bodansky to think that the Polisario is on the verge of changing their MO and adopting terrorism.

While trying to figure out where Mr. Bodansky is coming from on the Western Sahara issue, I happened to run across some interesting associations of his. He it turns out is on the Executive Commitee of a group called Global Panel America along with none other than Marc S. Ellenbogen, and who should appear on their Advisory Board but Hon. Hassan Abouyoub, Chief Foreign Policy Advisor to King Mohamed VI of Morocco. In a similar vein, Mr. Bodansky is also a Director of the Prague Society for International Cooperation of which Mr. Ellenbogen is President and Mr. Abouyoub a frequent guest. Both these groups appear to be behind-the-scenes networking organizations with very fancy members. Mr. Ellenbogen, in case you are not one of my regular readers, has written some of the most factually compromised material in recent memory on the Western Sahara and got his very own post on my blog last year.

Another interesting coincidence is that Mr. Bodansky is a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University, home of Professor I. William Zartman who also has interesting ideas about the Western Sahara and merited his own post. But Johns Hopkins is a big diverse place and I have no idea whether the two even know each other, so I will refrain from pursuing this angle.

Anyway, I reserve judgment on what all this means until I get a copy of Mr. Bodansky’s “recent analysis” that MACP promises will enlighten us all about Polisario terrorism.

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