Earlier this week, Our Bad Media claimed to find multiple examples of Fareed Zakaria plagiarizing in his extensive body of work. Zakaria, of course, defended himself. But the newest allegations from the anonymous writers only known as @blippoblappo and @crushingbort may give him pause: they found many more instances of plagiarism in his bestselling book, as well as in magazines where he reprinted excerpts from his books.
According to their analysis, three passages from Zakaria’s 2011 book The Post-American World 2.0, were lifted nearly verbatim, chopped up, tweaked, re-arranged, and left un-cited ” in an apparent attempt to avoid detection.” Those same paragraphs ended up in columns published in Newsweek and Foreign Affairs.
As one example, here’s a passage from a column authored by London School of Economics professor Fawaz A. Gerges and printed in the Christian Science Monitor in 2007, relevant passages bolded:
And last month, one of bin Laden’s most prominent Saudi mentors, the preacher and scholar Salman al-Odah, wrote an open letter reproaching him for “fostering a culture of suicide bombings that has caused bloodshed and suffering and brought ruin to entire Muslim communities and families.” Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda was dealt another shattering blow from within when one of its top theorists, Abdul-Aziz el-Sherif, renounced its extremes, including the killing of civilians and the choosing of targets based on religion and nationality. In the past few months, Mr. El-Sherif – a longtime associate of Zawahiri, who crafted what became known as Al Qaeda’s guide to jihad – called on militants to desist from terrorism and authored a dissenting rebuttal against his former cohorts. In early October, Abdulaziz al-Ashaikh, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, issued a fatwa prohibiting Saudis from engaging in jihad abroad and accused both bin Laden and Arab regimes of “transforming our youth into walking bombs to accomplish their own political and military aims.”
And here’s Zakaria’s slap-chopped version from The Post-American World 2.0, p. 14-15, which did not cite Gerges:
In 2007 one of bin Laden’s most prominent Saudi mentors, the preacher and scholar Salman al-Odah, wrote an open letter criticizing him for “fostering a culture of suicide bombings that has caused bloodshed and suffering, and brought ruin to entire Muslim communities and families.” That same year Abdulaziz al ash-Sheikh, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, issued a fatwa prohibiting Saudis from engaging in jihad abroad and accused both bin Laden and Arab regimes of “transforming our youth into walking bombs to accomplish their own political and military aims.” One of Al Qaeda’s own top theorists, Abdul-Aziz el-Sherif, renounced its extremism, including the killing of civilians and the choosing of targets based on religion and nationality. Sherif—a longtime associate of Zawahiri who crafted what became known as Al Qaeda’s guide to jihad—has called on militants to desist from terrorism, and authored a rebuttal of his former cohorts.
The anonymous writers also blasted Zakaria’s indifference to their initial reports, and issued a scathing condemnation of celebrity journalists: “Despite the pooh-poohing of Buzzfeed and digital media last month over Benny Johnson, what we’ve seen from more traditional sources this week is that you can apparently reach a point where ethics are no longer necessary as long as you’re bringing in ratings or a prestigious byline.”
[Our Bad Media]
[Image via screenshot]
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