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.

Avsnitt(104)

Episode 35: Solving hunger in Gaza with Prof. Yannay Spitzer

Episode 35: Solving hunger in Gaza with Prof. Yannay Spitzer

Professor Yannay Spitzer is an economic historian who has studied food and hunger. His efforts over the past month to get real reliable data on hunger out of Gaza and publicize it to Israelis, data th...

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Episode 33: Thoughts for Tisha B’Av - We live in history

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Our Patreon subscribers asked for a dvar Torah, a short homily, on the Jewish fast day of Tisha B'Av, which commemorates many of the great tragedies of Jewish history, including and especially the des...

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Episode 32: Hunger and the Gaza war

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Episode 31: The century-old harbinger of October 7, a conversation with Yardena Schwartz

Episode 31: The century-old harbinger of October 7, a conversation with Yardena Schwartz

Welcome to a special episode of Ask Haviv Anything. This episode was a live conversation with author Yardena Schwartz taped last week at Martha's Vineyard and hosted by Chabad on the Vineyard.Please n...

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Episode 30: How the Middle East broke, a conversation with Hussein Aboubakr Mansour

Episode 30: How the Middle East broke, a conversation with Hussein Aboubakr Mansour

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour was born and raised in Egypt before fleeing to the United States and dedicating his life to understanding how the Arab world came to be defined by state failure, religious ext...

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Episode 29: After the Druze massacre, can Israel make peace with Joulani? A conversation with Druze activist Rania Fadel Dean

Episode 29: After the Druze massacre, can Israel make peace with Joulani? A conversation with Druze activist Rania Fadel Dean

The clashes in Sweida in southern Syria this week focused world attention on the plight of the Druze and questions about the nature of the new Syrian government. Videos and claims of atrocities drove ...

17 Juli 202555min

Episode 28: The Gaza Paradox

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As hostage talks seem stalled and the war grinds on into its 22nd month, doubts about Netanyahu’s strategy and intentions have become ubiquitous.Netanyahu has given many reasons to distrust him, inclu...

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