Episode 34: My life in Al-Qaeda, a conversation with Aimen Dean

Episode 34: My life in Al-Qaeda, a conversation with Aimen Dean

Aimen Dean was once a fervent young jihadi fighter, a passionate believer in radical Sunni Islam who had memorized the Quran by 12 and was fighting in the Bosnian jihad by 16.


Haviv talked to Aimen about the religious and psychological journey of a young jihadi, his experiences in the wars in Bosnia and Chechnya, his recruitment by Bin Laden himself in the mountains of Afghanistan, and his sudden and powerful disillusionment, both political and religious, that led him to become an MI6 spy in Al Qaeda's ranks.


They talked about present-day Islam, the "deradicalization" that Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa underwent in recent years, possible better futures for Gaza and whether Israeli-Palestinian peace was still possible. We also talked about why he thinks it's time to end Western experiments in reforming Middle Eastern governance and fall back on what he sees as the most natural and inclusive form of government for the region: The paternalistic monarchy.


This episode was sponsored by David and Karen Divine, who asked to dedicate it to someone we lost on October 7. This episode, we remember Abed Rahman Ziyadne, 26 of Rahat, part of Israel's Bedouin Arab community, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists on the Zikim beach, north of Gaza, on October 7, 2023, along with his girlfriend, Yulia Chaban.


Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.


If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.


Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Jaksot(93)

Episode 56: The industrial revolution of prehistoric Israel, with Tom Levy

Episode 56: The industrial revolution of prehistoric Israel, with Tom Levy

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Episode 54: Can Israel be both Sparta and Athens? With Dan Schueftan

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Episode 53: Telling the Jewish story to the Arab world, with Elhanan Miller

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Rabbi Elhanan Miller has half a million online followers, and almost all of them are Arabs. They tune in to his "People of the Book" project on YouTube and other platforms to learn in Arabic about Jew...

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Episode 52: Why do people hate Jews, with Dara Horn

Episode 52: Why do people hate Jews, with Dara Horn

Dr. Dara Horn, award-winning novelist and scholar of Yiddish and Hebrew literature, joins the podcast to help us dig deep into the Jewish bookshelf, the whirlwind of antisemitism in which so many Jews...

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Episode 51: Antisemitism and the Black experience

Episode 51: Antisemitism and the Black experience

Coleman Hughes is an American writer, host of the podcast Conversations with Coleman, a visiting professor at the University of Austin, and the author of The End of Race Politics.He joins the podcast ...

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Episode 50: Hostage Deal - A new day for Gaza, a bad day for Hamas

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On October 8, President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had agreed to his peace and hostage release deal. Israel's tormented hostages will soon be home.The agreement delivers almost every...

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Episode 49: Finding hope in the tunnel of Hamas, with Eli Sharabi

Episode 49: Finding hope in the tunnel of Hamas, with Eli Sharabi

On October 7, 2023, Eli Sharabi's home was surrounded by Hamas terrorists. As he was dragged into Gaza, he shouted to his wife Leanna and two daughters Noiya and Yahel that "no matter what they do to ...

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