Matthew Levitt

Last updated

Matthew Levitt is an American political scientist.

He serves as the Fromer-Wexler Fellow and director of the Jeanette and Eli Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an adjunct professor in Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies (CSS). From 2005 to early 2007 he was a deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that capacity, he served both as a senior official within the department's terrorism and financial intelligence branch and as deputy chief of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. From 2001 to 2005, Levitt served the Institute as founding director of its Terrorism Research Program (now renamed as above), which was established in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Previously, he provided tactical and strategic analytical support for counter-terrorism operations at the FBI, focusing on fundraising and logistical support networks for Middle Eastern terrorist groups. During his FBI service, Levitt participated as a team member in a number of crisis situations, including the terrorist threat surrounding the turn of the millennium and the September 11 attacks. [1]

Contents

Levitt has also lectured on international terrorism on behalf of the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security, consulted for various U.S. government agencies and private industry, and testified before the Senate and House on matters relating to international terrorism. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the international advisory board for both the Institute for Counter-terrorism in Israel and the International Centre for Political Violence & Terrorism Research in Singapore, and a CTC fellow with the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point). He serves on the advisory board of Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance (CSIF) and formerly served on the academic advisory board for the Emirati Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR). Levitt was a graduate research fellow at Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation and previously taught at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. [1]

Levitt received his B.A. from Yeshiva University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He attended high school at the Maimonides School.[ citation needed ]

Levitt has written extensively on terrorism, countering violent extremism, illicit finance and sanctions, the Middle East, and Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, with articles appearing in peer-reviewed journals, policy magazines, and the press, including the Wall Street Journal , Washington Post , Foreign Affairs , Foreign Policy , and numerous other publications. He is also a frequent guest on the national and international media, and the author of several books and monographs.

Levitt was a key prosecution witness in the 2007 trial of the Palestinian-American charity, the Holy Land Foundation. [2]

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hamas</span> Palestinian political and military organization

Hamas, an acronym of its official name, Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist political and military movement governing the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hezbollah</span> Lebanese political party and militant group

Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led since 1992 by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. Its armed strength is assessed to be equivalent to that of a medium-sized army.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terrorism</span> Use of fear to further a political or ideological cause

Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants. There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it. Different definitions of terrorism emphasize its randomness, its aim to instill fear, and its broader impact beyond its immediate victims.

Religious terrorism is a type of religious violence where terrorism is used as a strategy to achieve certain religious goals or which are influenced by religious beliefs and/or identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aaron Mannes</span>

Aaron Mannes is an American expert on evaluation of terrorist risk. He has been director of research at the Middle East Media Research Institute and a researcher at the Information and Network Dynamics Laboratory and the Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics at the University of Maryland. In 2004 he published Profiles in Terror: A Guide to Middle East Terrorist Organizations.

Ian Steven Lustick is an American political scientist and specialist on the modern history and politics of the Middle East. He currently holds the Bess W. Heyman Chair in the department of Political Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

ProfessorRohan Gunaratna is a threat specialist of the global security environment. Professor Gunaratna has over 30 years of academic, policy, and operational experience in national and international security. He is Professor of Security Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technology University, Singapore.

Mia M. Bloom is a Canadian academic, author, and Professor of Communication at Georgia State University. She was formerly an associate Professor of International Studies at the Pennsylvania State University in University Park and a fellow at the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Penn State.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul R. Pillar</span>

Paul R. Pillar is an academic and 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), serving from 1977 to 2005. He is now a non-resident senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies, as well as a nonresident senior fellow in the Brookings Institution's Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence. He was a visiting professor at Georgetown University from 2005 to 2012. He is a contributor to The National Interest.

Terrorism financing is the provision of funds or providing financial support to individual terrorists or non-state actors.

Evan F. Kohlmann is an American terrorism consultant who has worked for the FBI and other governmental organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Riedel</span> American academic

Bruce O. Riedel is an American expert on U.S. security, South Asia, and counter-terrorism. He is currently a senior fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He also serves as a senior adviser at Albright Stonebridge Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Hoffman</span> American counterterrorism analyst and foreign policy expert

Bruce R. Hoffman is an American political analyst. He specializes in the study of terrorism, counter-terrorism, insurgency, and counter-insurgency. Hoffman serves as the Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security on the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a professor at the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University. In addition, he is the Professor Emeritus and Honorary Professor of Terrorism Studies at the University of St Andrews, and is the George H. Gilmore Senior Fellow at the U.S. Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliography of Afghanistan</span>

This is a list of books in the English language which deal with Afghanistan and its geography, history, inhabitants, culture, biota, etc.

The State of Israel has been accused of engaging in state-sponsored terrorism, as well as committing acts of state terrorism on a daily basis in the Palestinian territories. Countries that have condemned Israel's role as a perpetrator of state-sponsored terrorism or state terrorism include Bolivia, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert G. Rabil</span>

Dr. Robert G. Rabil is Professor of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University. He holds a master's degree in Government from Harvard University, a PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University, and an honorary PhD in humanities from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His area of studies and expertise include Political Islam, Salafism, Transnational and Revivalist Movements, Terrorism, US-Arab Relations, Arab-Israeli Conflict, US-Muslim Relations, and Contemporary Middle East Politics.

Dov Waxman is an author, academic and commentator. He is the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Professor of Israel Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the director of the UCLA Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Waxman is an internationally recognized expert on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Jewish–Arab relations in Israel, Israeli politics and foreign policy, Israel–United States relations, American Jewry’s relationship with Israel, Jewish politics, and contemporary Antisemitism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ido Levy (author)</span> American counter-terrorism expert (born 1996)

Ido Eliyahu Levy is an American counter-terrorism expert and military analyst. Levy is an Associate Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he authored the book "Soldiers of End-Times", a comprehensive analysis of the Islamic State's conventional warfare capabilities, published in December 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher P. Costa</span> U.S. intelligence officer

Christopher P. Costa is a retired US Army intelligence officer with 34 years of service, culminating in his role as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council, White House. He is now the executive director of the International Spy Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hezbollah–Iran relations</span> Bilateral relations and Iranian support for Hezbollah

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a key patron of the Lebanese Shia Islamist militant group and political party Hezbollah.

References

  1. 1 2 "Matthew Levitt". Experts. Washington Institute. Retrieved 2024-05-29.
  2. Peled, Miko (2018) Injustice. The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five. Just World Books. ISBN   978-1-68257-085-2. pp.117-121
  3. Matthew Levitt (2013). Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God. Hurst Publishers. ISBN   978-1-84904-333-5. Reviews:
  4. Matthew Levitt (1 October 2008). Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad. Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-300-12901-4. Reviews:
  5. Matthew Levitt (2002). Targeting Terror: U.S. Policy Toward Middle Eastern State Sponsors and Terrorist Organizations, Post-September 11 . Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ISBN   978-0-944029-81-7. Review:
    • Rita Katz, Middle East Quarterly,
  6. Matthew Levitt (28 August 2008). Negotiating Under Fire: Preserving Peace Talks in the Face of Terror Attacks. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN   978-0-7425-6566-1. Review: