What constitutes terrorism?

"A person who uses or favours violent and intimidating methods of coercing a government or community" — that is how the Concise Oxford Dictionary (eight edition, page 1261) defines "terrorist."

by pv vivekanand

THE debate over what constitutes terrorism and who could be called a terrorist started several decades ago. Today, we find that debate much more intense as the US has declared a war on terrorism as represented in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
An overwhelming majority of the world population agree without hesitation that the attacks were indeed an act of terrorism and the perpetrators of the heinous assaults should be punished. There is no ambiguity whatsover on that count. There should never be a repetition of such attacks anywhere in the world, and the international community is ready to what needs to be done to ensure that. There should be no ifs and buts about it.
That does not absolve the US of the responsibility and obligation to prove to the international community that the persons and parties it accuses of masterminding and carrying out the attack were indeed the culprits.
Military adventures could result in human catastrophes beyond the control of the international community, and such actions without publicly established substantiation of charges would spark off a confrontation that would not be limited to the immediate region or its people.
The words of caution and warning that the leaders of the Middle East have offered to US President George Bush were precisely aimed at averting a human catastrophe and pre-empt an unpredictable and unknown chain of events that bode nothing but a world disaster if it the US were to launch military strikes against Afghanistan at this point in time. There is every possibility that US military action against Afghanistan would be followed by similar action against Iraq, where the Bush administration is itching to go and oust Saddam Hussein in order to serve American and Israeli interests. More on Iraq later.
Equally important is the frustration and indignation that the people in the Middle East feel over the unfairness and injustice in American policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict and the blind eye that Washington keeps towards Israel's state-sponsored terrorism directed against the people of Palestine.
As many of us still recall with a sense of shock and grief the vivid television scenes of a passenger plane slamming into the majestic World Trade Center tower, we cannot but be reminded of the Israeli fighter-bombers and helicopters swooping down to bomb Palestinian population centres in the West Bank and Gaza. And then we wonder: Weren't those Israeli attacks an act of terrorism?
The basic facts in the Israeli-Palestinian equation are clear and they leave little room to question the reality that Israel is practising state terrorism; it has the military power to do so and has the backing it needs to enjoy immunity from international punishment.
A simplified overview of the situation might help crystalise the situation: Israel, which occupies the territory that was earmarked for a Palestinian state under a United Nations Security Council resolution in 1948, is refusing to return the land to the Palestinians for the creation of an independent state there.
It insists on continued domination of the land, arguing that its security is under threat from the same people under its occupation. And it uses "violent and intimidating methods of coercing" the Palestinian community, to put it mildly. That definitely constitutes terrorism by any definition.
Isn't that enough reason for the international community to set up a strong alliance against Israeli terrorism? Or does the definition of "terrorism" changes when it comes a party accused of practising it is friendly to the US?
Let us say that is definitely not the case. After all, it is not possible that the US, whose very founding principles are respect for freedom, dignity, liberty and human rights, consider a state such as Israel its ally and extend it almost unlimited support and protection against international action.
So there has to be something wrong in our thinking since Israel has to be perfectly right and justified in its actions and postures, and, if anything, the Palestinians are terrorists posing a threat to the very existence of Israel. Otherwise, it would not have been a friend of the United States. Quite a logical assumption.
By extension, it also implies that the Palestinians are occupying Israeli territory and ruling the Israelis with military might. They have every Israeli at their mercy and take potshots at them as fish in a glass bowl. They have kicked out millions of Israelis from Israeli land and refuses to permit their return.
They are refusing to accept that the land they occupy as occupied territory and apply the international laws and conventions that govern the control of foreign territory seized by military force.
They are occupying the most referred shrine of the Israelis and are threatening to build a mosque there. They have sealed off all entry and exit points to the occupied Israeli territories and have forced the Israelis to depend on the Palestinian economy for existence.
They are using their fighter jets and heavy weapons against the defenceless Israelis cowering in their refugee camps. They are singling out for systematic assassination leaders of the Jewish resistance movement against occupation.
Every Palestinian who lives in the Palestinian settlements built in the occupied Jewish land carries a gun to "protect" himself from the "terrorist" Jews, but feels free to use it at any Israeli in the name of "self-defence."
Oh, what was that? Isn't that the picture? Hmmm.... Strange, though. One would believe that this indeed is the reality in the occupied territories, given the stand of the world's sole superpower and beacon of hope for mankind's aspirations to live in dignity, self-respect, freedom, liberty and self-determination.
Today, Washington has declared that any country which does not join the US camp in its war against terrorism will be considered as an enemy and punished. Of course, one does not need much imagination to judge the extent of the US anger against any country which is seen as harbouring terrorists and offering them material help.
The questions that beg for an answer are many:
How would Washington want the world to see the apparent US endorsement of Israel's state-sponsored terrorism by not only offering it an international umbrella of protection but also supplying it the guns, planes, helicopters, tanks and hi-tech spying and suverillance equipment against Palestinian civilians?
How could Washington explain it is neutral in the Middle East when 38 of the 73 vetos it used in the UN Security Council were to block condemnation of Israel?
(Indeed, the last veto came in March 2001 against sending a UN observer force to protect Palestinian civilians).
The Arab World has consistently demanded that the UN take the lead in discussing and adopting an international definition of terrorism, but the demand was never seriously taken up.
The Arab demand hit its peak in the early 80s, when the US started describing the Afghans fighting the Soviet occupation of their country as "freedom fighters" and "resistance groups" but stubbornly refused to apply the same to the Palestinians resisting the Israeli occupation of their land.
Today, the US uses the term "terrorist" to describe the Palestinians fighting for their rights, using the rights granted to them under international laws and conventions (it is not relevant here that Israel has refused to accept those laws and conventions as applicable to the Palestinian territories it occupies).
The pointed American resistance to the Arab efforts to convene an international debate on "terrorism" could be nothing but the result of the realisation that its protege and "strategic partner" in the Middle East would be the first to be indicted.
Will that posture change in the aftermath of the ongoing international uproar and the mounting Arab demands that the "war against terorism" should make no exception to the state-sponsored terrorism practised by Israel?