Skip to content

Israel Quotes by Peter Bergen

99 Israel quotes by Peter Bergen

All Israel quotes Peter Bergen’s page

A small U.S. Special Forces team highlights how a modest presence can train local armies. The quotes explain that militant groups are symptoms of deeper regional problems, not the root cause. They also stress the need to understand the origins of terrorism to address the Middle East’s lasting challenges.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

Before 9/11, al-Qaeda was an organization of global reach.

Image

The American incarceration of Sheikh Rahman was a hot-button issue for al Qaeda for many years.

Image

Assad owes his continuation in power to the intervention of Russia in 2015 to prop up his regime.

Image

Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS during his attack, the worst terror attack on American soil since 9/11.

Image

In late May 2016, an ISIS spokesman called for attacks in the West during the month of Ramadan.

Image

At one point people in al Qaeda were actually drawing monthly paychecks when they were based in Sudan.

Image

Syria is attracting a lot more Westerners than the Iraq War ever did because it's the perfect Sunni jihad.

Image

For many terrorists, carrying out an attack allowed them to become the heroes of their own story.

Image

Bin Laden was intelligent, well-informed, and low key. The people around him treated him with great deference, calling him 'sheikh,' a term…

Image

Al-Qaeda, which means 'the base' in English, lost its base and training camps in Afghanistan, while its leaders were on the run,…

Image

Western Mosul is the historic heart of one of the oldest cities in the world. Its narrow streets and alleyways are impassable…

Image

Some might say that that while al Qaeda the organization may be basically dead, its ideology continues to thrive and to inspire…

Image

Bin Laden had come to the delusional conclusion that the United States was as weak as the Soviet Union had once been.

Image

If the Arab Spring was a large nail in the coffin of al-Qaeda's ideology, the death of bin Laden was an equally…

Image

What did U.S. officials have to lose by saying that bin Laden was being protected by the Pakistanis, if it were true?

Image

Abedi appears to be one of the many thousands of Western Muslims who have embraced militant Islam, often as a way of…

Image

For many, embracing the ideology of Osama bin Laden or ISIS allowed them to become the heroes of their own story as…

Image

It's much harder to detect a lone wolf than it is somebody who's associated with a larger organization who's having planning meetings…

Image

If you don't understand what al Qaeda was trying to do on 9/11, if you don't have a sense of who Osama…

Image

It is in American and Afghan interests for the U.S. to stay in Afghanistan so it doesn't turn into Iraq circa 2014,…

Image

As Michael Scheuer, who ran the C.I.A.'s bin Laden unit until 1999, has pointed out, if bin Laden believed in Christmas, the…

Image

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad belongs to the small Alawite sect and is therefore considered a heretic by many Sunnis; al-Assad runs a…

Image

The fact is, working stiffs with few opportunities and scant education are generally too busy getting by to engage in revolutionary projects…

Image

Bin Laden was 200 miles away from the area where all of these drone strikes were taking out his key leaders in…

Image

“So the insurgency was born in a perfect storm of American errors--not establishing order; not providing the semblance of any government; confirming…

Image

Apostasy is a grave crime in Islam and punishable by death in the eyes of members of al Qaeda.

Image

Ground operations are inherently very risky in Yemen. The two previous JSOC raids in Yemen were both in 2014.

Image

Bin Laden studied economics and public administration before he turned to a life of jihad.

Image

ISIS is even at war with its most natural ally, al Qaeda in Syria.

Image

I was the only outsider to visit the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived before the Pakistani military demolished it.

Image

Sheikh Rahman had a doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence from al-Azhar University in Cairo, the Harvard of Islamic thought. He also had a…

Image

Certain Gulf Arabs support proxy jihadist Sunni groups such as al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, while Iran supports Shia militant forces such…

Image

And in the end, bin Laden died in a squalid suburban compound surrounded by his wives and children and far from the…

Image

The centerpiece of the Bush administration's case for going to war in Iraq was Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the…

Image

Islam is, to be sure, a big tent, and the one and a half billion Muslims in the world run the gamut…

Image

It is hard to imagine two more final endings to the 'war on terror' than the popular revolts against the authoritarian regimes…

Image

When Abu Zubaydah was shown a series of photos of al Qaeda members by Soufan, he identified one of them as the…

Image

Without U.S. forces in the country, there is a strong possibility Afghanistan could host a reinvigorated Taliban allied to a reinvigorated al…

Image

In the past, Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, of which SEAL Team 6 is a key component, has only launched ground…

Image

The special reverence that al Qaeda had for Sheikh Rahman was underlined by a two-hour propaganda videotape that the group's media division…

Image

Other authors on Israel

More by Peter Bergen

So Pakistan is a country that I'm very fond of and have spent a lot of time, but it is a country where conspiracy…

The Trump administration launched the cruise missile strikes in Syria, an act of war, without a U.N. resolution or Congressional authorization.

The deep problems that afflict the Middle East are not easy to fix, but they must be dealt with if we are not to…

The dirty little secret of the intelligence world is that much of what you really need to know isn't exactly a secret anyway.

Abedi appears to be one of the many thousands of Western Muslims who have embraced militant Islam, often as a way of trying to…

Trump has claimed he knows more about ISIS than America's leading generals. Clearly, this is also total nonsense; he doesn't seem to have done…

If you don't understand what al Qaeda was trying to do on 9/11, if you don't have a sense of who Osama bin Laden…

As early as 1993, members of bin Laden's group had been planning an attack on the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.

The reality is that Trump's focus on immigrants is to misconceive of the terrorist problem that exists in the United States.

ISIS despises the Russian government for its support of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and so it's no surprise that ISIS began targeting Russia…

The Sunni militants that make up ISIS are not the underlying problem in Syria and Iraq, but rather they are a symptom of other…

Keeping a relatively small, predominantly U.S. Special Forces presence in Afghanistan to continue to train the Afghan army past December 2016 is a wise…

One of the themes of 'The Longest War,' my book, which came out before the Arab spring happened, was how al-Qaida and bin Laden…

Because 9/11 was carried out by 19 foreign-born Arab hijackers, many assume that all terrorists who attack the West are foreigners.

I was the only outsider to visit the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived before the Pakistani military demolished it.