Conceptualizing the "Arab Threat" The History and Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism 1967-1974

There is a great deal of scholarship dedicated to the study of terrorism and U.S. counterterrorism, especially in the years following the 9/11 events. Many of the historical works since 9/11 examine the development of U.S. counterterrorism in the Middle East, however, most works are dedicated to the evolution of U.S. counterterrorism since the 1980s, with the proliferation of political Islam. Additionally, historical scholarship on this topic is often teleological and traces the development of all previous terrorist attacks towards the dramatic 9/11 attacks. In almost all recent works, one learns that terrorism does in fact have a history, however, it seems that history has little to do with the United States until after the attacks of 9/11. This thesis argues that that is not in fact true, and that terrorism has a complex history that has much to do with the United States three decades prior to 9/11. The Nixon administration, along with a small number of radical Arab-Palestinians, transformed and re-conceptualized the threat of terrorism as both international, and directly connected to individuals of Arab descent. Whereas the terms “guerrilla” and “terrorist,” before the emergence of Arab-Palestinian international terrorism, were and could be applied to various groups who perpetrated politically motivated attacks (e.g. airline hijackings, bombings, and hostage taking), the international terrorist threat became conceptualized, almost exclusively, as inherently Arab. This has much to do with the Cold War policy agendas and the geopolitical interests of the Nixon administration. By examining the evolution of the American conceptualization of the international terrorist, through a Cold War lens and its actual connection to the Middle East, this thesis shows that the Nixon administration, due to foreign and domestic interest, magnified a small threat and institutionalized the perception of the “Arab-terrorist” in American society.