{"id":19916,"date":"2015-11-17T17:08:04","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T22:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/?p=19916"},"modified":"2021-02-04T09:38:39","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T14:38:39","slug":"stern-in-politico-the-isis-paradox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/2015\/11\/17\/stern-in-politico-the-isis-paradox\/","title":{"rendered":"Stern in the Media: The ISIS Paradox"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Stern,<\/a><\/p>\n

Jessica Stern,<\/a> Research Professor at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University,<\/a> said that fighting ISIS had paradoxically contributed to its appeal.<\/p>\n

Stern made the argument in a Nov. 17 Op-Ed in\u00a0Politico<\/em> entitled “The ISIS Paradox.”<\/a><\/p>\n

From the text of the Op-Ed:<\/p>\n

The French strikes on Islamic State positions following the Paris attacks point up the peculiar dual nature of this protean Salafi jihadist organization, whose ruthlessness, ability to capture and hold territory, significant financial resources, and strategic acumen make it a threat unlike any other the West has faced in the contemporary era.<\/p>\n

The problem is that, as the Paris killings and the French counterattack indicate, the Islamic State is partly a totalitarian state and partly a transnational terrorist organization. As a state it can be attacked and defeated, at least temporarily. And yet, paradoxically, the more we in the West attack the state, the more its appeal as a terrorist organization will grow among those who see the West as an enemy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read the entire Op-Ed here.<\/a>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

On Nov. 18, Stern also wrote an article for\u00a0PBS Newshour\u00a0<\/em>entitled “Why the Islamic State Hates France.”<\/a><\/p>\n

From the text of the article:<\/p>\n

It is hard to understand the purpose of the Islamic State\u2019s attack in France without understanding that it is both a totalitarian proto-state that controls territory, as well as a global terrorist organization. The Islamic State has both short-term goals, to run the state, and longer-term goals, which include provoking anti-Muslim sentiment and goading the West into a final battle in Syria. The Paris attack would seem to further only the latter.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read the entire article here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Stern\u2019s main focus is on perpetrators of violence and the possible connections between trauma and terror. She has written on terrorist groups across religions and ideologies, among them neo-Nazis, Islamists, anarchists, and white supremacists. She has also written about counter-radicalization programs for both neo-Nazi and Islamist terrorists. Learn more about her here.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Jessica Stern said that fighting ISIS had paradoxically contributed to its appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2094,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8410],"tags":[8802,8859,8625,8448,9059,8459,9101,8864,9058,1171],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19916"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19916"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19945,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19916\/revisions\/19945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}