Day 1 - Lectures at Tel Aviv University
As I mentioned, Internet access has been rather infrequent, but I am trying my best to figure out how I can update the blog as often as possible.
The fellowship has been great so far. The hotel we are staying in is about 100 yards from the Mediterranean and a beautiful beach, so I got up early this morning for a walk on the beach and some bodysurfing with some of the other fellows. I will move on though, since the topic of this blog is about terrorism and democracy and not about the beach.
We are in our second day of classes at Tel Aviv University, and the days are pretty long. We have 4 lecture sessions of an hour and a half each between 9 am and 6 pm with half our breaks between the sessions. As expected, the period after lunch is the toughest.
Yesterday, we heard from 3 speakers. During the 2 sessions in the morning Israeli Col. Yoni Fighel (Ret.) spoke to us about the Islamic movement in Israel with particular attention paid the to the current situation in Lebanon, and he concluded with a lecture concerning the importance of defining terrorism. As you may or may not know, there is no internationally (or even widely) accepted definition of terrorism, so this makes it very hard to gain support in combating terrorist groups because what one country considers terrorism might not be the same as another country.
The unlucky speaker after lunch was Dr. Ely Karmon, and he spoke to us about the current state of terrorism in the world. His talk focused on the relationship between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah and the budding relationship between these three and Hamas and on al-Qaida.
Finally, Dr. Shmuel Bar, a former Israeli intelligence officer, spoke to us about the Islamic conflict with the West and focused on the religious roots of Jihad.
All in all, the lectures were interesting and thought provoking. If you have particular questions about the different lectures, please post a question and I will try to answer it. If there is something particularly thought-provoking, I will comment on that in a more in depth fashion.
Finally, I will try to post some pictures next time. I hope all is well.
The fellowship has been great so far. The hotel we are staying in is about 100 yards from the Mediterranean and a beautiful beach, so I got up early this morning for a walk on the beach and some bodysurfing with some of the other fellows. I will move on though, since the topic of this blog is about terrorism and democracy and not about the beach.
We are in our second day of classes at Tel Aviv University, and the days are pretty long. We have 4 lecture sessions of an hour and a half each between 9 am and 6 pm with half our breaks between the sessions. As expected, the period after lunch is the toughest.
Yesterday, we heard from 3 speakers. During the 2 sessions in the morning Israeli Col. Yoni Fighel (Ret.) spoke to us about the Islamic movement in Israel with particular attention paid the to the current situation in Lebanon, and he concluded with a lecture concerning the importance of defining terrorism. As you may or may not know, there is no internationally (or even widely) accepted definition of terrorism, so this makes it very hard to gain support in combating terrorist groups because what one country considers terrorism might not be the same as another country.
The unlucky speaker after lunch was Dr. Ely Karmon, and he spoke to us about the current state of terrorism in the world. His talk focused on the relationship between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah and the budding relationship between these three and Hamas and on al-Qaida.
Finally, Dr. Shmuel Bar, a former Israeli intelligence officer, spoke to us about the Islamic conflict with the West and focused on the religious roots of Jihad.
All in all, the lectures were interesting and thought provoking. If you have particular questions about the different lectures, please post a question and I will try to answer it. If there is something particularly thought-provoking, I will comment on that in a more in depth fashion.
Finally, I will try to post some pictures next time. I hope all is well.
posted by Patrick at 3:36 AM
2 Comments:
Tell me about the religious roots of the Jihad?? My students ask me about this. I love you!
I'm also interested in the relationship between Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. Are they united on any beliefs? Or are common enemies making them friends?
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