Seeds of Hate: How America's Flawed Middle East Policy Ignited the jihad

by Lawrence Pintak

In the aftermath of 9/11, America has been haunted by one question: why do they hate us?

This book answers that question, tracing the roots of the crisis back to American's involvement in the Middle East, and in particular Lebanon. Journalist Lawrence Pintak was a correspondent for CBS in Beirut in the 1980s, where he witnessed the birth of the current 'terror'. In Seeds of Hate, he explores how America's flawed policy in the Lebanon transformed Muslim perceptions of the US - from impartial peacekeeper to hated enemy of the Lebanese Muslims.

Pintak explores the links between those who carried out the terror war in Lebanon and the current wave of terror, examining the role played by key figures behind the Beirut bombings. He considers how the template for shaping would-be terrorists is being replicated from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia and speaks with victims of the earlier wave of terror.

384 pages, Paperback

First published October 20, 2003

About the author

Lawrence Pintak has spent his life grounded in facts while fascinated by the ethereal. An award-winning former CBS News Middle East correspondent with a PhD in Islamic Studies, Pintak has been a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism for three decades and is an avid student of the perennial truths at the core of the world’s religions.
The author of seven books at the intersection of religion, media, and policy, his reporting and analysis on religion and international affairs has been published by The New York Times, Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, and many of the world’s leading media organizations. He also wrote about Buddhism and Eastern traditions for Shambhala Sun/Lion’s Roar, Buddhadharma, Beliefnet.com and others before 9/11 drew his focus back to the Middle East. Pintak’s 2019 book, America & Islam, was a finalist for the Religion News Association award for Religion Reporting Excellence. A second edition, including the Gaza war, will be released in October.
Pintak served as founding dean of The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University , dean of the Graduate School of Media and Communications at The Aga Khan University in East Africa, director of the Arab world’s leading media training center in the years leading up to the Arab Spring, and helped establish Pakistan’s Centre for Excellence in Journalism. He was named a Fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2017 for “extraordinary service to the profession of journalism” around the world.