WASHINGTON, 19 June 2004 — “Richard Perle Accuses Sy Hersh of Being a Terrorist”; “Saudi Arabia Blasts CFR Terrorist Funding Task Force Report”; “Concern for Public Safety Heeds Arrest of Somali in Alleged Terrorist Plot” — these are all newspaper headlines heralding the concepts of “terror” and “terrorism”. But just what do those terms mean and how have they been developed. And do we now fear the terms themselves as much as the acts that gave rise to our fears?
Last week we discussed the “War on Terrorism” and focused on the term “war” in that phrase. As loosely defined as the word “war” is in regards to the “War on Terrorism”, the term “terrorism” has an even less clear definition. Daily one can hear spokesman in the Bush administration as well as leading members of both the Democratic and Republican parties invoking concern about the “War on Terrorism”. Yet the US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Subcommittee on Terrorism stated, “The subcommittee has found that practically every agency in the United States government with a counterterrorism mission uses a different definition of terrorism. Without a standard definition, terrorism might be treated no differently than other crimes”.
So how do we fight the “War on Terrorism” when we can’t even agree on what the terms mean? One might use the classic argument, “Even if you can’t define terrorism, you know it when you see it”. But should that interpretation allow us to start real wars and arrest individuals and hold them without trials?
Interestingly, the standard American definition of terrorism is a shift from the original meaning of the word. The Oxford English Dictionary defines terrorism as “government by intimidation”. Presently, it usually refers to intimidation of governments.
The first recorded use of the terms “terrorist” and “terrorism” was in reference to the “Reign of Terror” by the French government in 1795. However the term “terrorist” was not used in an anti-government sense until 1866 (pertaining to Ireland) and 1883 (pertaining to Russia).
In 1981, the United Nations was being pressed by the Reagan administration to take a stronger stand against terrorism. The US vice president at that time, George Bush stated, “The UN must be heard and heard loudly in its condemnation of terrorism.” Bush had been the chief US delegate to the United Nations in 1972 when the Nixon administration launched a campaign for the adoption of an international treaty against the spread of terrorism beyond immediate areas of conflict.
That initiative followed a terrorist attack during Munich Summer Olympic Games that claimed 17 lives including 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team and 5 Palestinian commandos.
The General Assembly that year came up with an Ad Hoc Committee on International Terrorism but that committee was phased out in six years as the delegates could never agree on a common definition of “terrorism”. One would constantly hear then, and still hears today the phrase, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”.
In 1934, the predecessor to the United Nations, the League of Nations tried to deal with the same issue. Following the 1934 assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia in Marseilles, France, a convention “for the prevention and punishment of terrorism.” was adopted by the league. However, it took years for significant numbers of the league’s members to sign it. The league treaty defined terrorism as “criminal acts directed against a state and intended to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons, or a group of persons of the general public.
So where did the current emphasis on “terrorism” and the “War on Terrorism” receive its impetus?
Let’s go back to the 1972 Olympics and the fallout from the death of the 11 Israeli Olympic team members. Shortly after that incident, we begin to see the terms “terrorist” and “terrorism” appearing more frequently in the media. You also found commentators and academics being referred to as “terrorism experts”. And many of these experts were either Israelis or pro-Israeli partisans. The real watershed in the “terrorism business” came after the June 1976 Israeli commando raid to free hostages in Entebbe, Uganda. The raid was led by Jonathan Netanyahu, the brother of former Israeli prime minister and Likud party leader, Benyamin Netanhayu. Jonathan Netanyahu died in that raid and his brother has never forgotten him.
Benjamin Netanyahu founded the Jonathan Institute, named after his deceased brother, which focused on terrorism and the war on terrorism. In 1986, through the Jonathan Institute and after series of conferences focusing on terrorism, Netanyahu published a book titled, “Terrorism: How the West Can Win”. The book also generated a Time Magazine special issue which focused on terrorism. In that book and in the Time Magazine article, Netanyahu equated terrorism with Marxism and “radical Islam”. He gave the distinction to the PLO as being the “godfather “ of terrorism and attempted to point out the ties between the PLO and Marxism.
He stated that this coalition was against all democracies and said that terrorism could only be stopped through “getting tough” and not through any form of diplomacy or, by inference, dealing with the causes.
Let’s return to last week’s comment from the college professor who said, “Whoever defines the situation controls it”. Netanyahu and his Israeli and pro-Israeli friends have been controlling the Western response to “terrorism’” for a long time.
One only finds references in the Arab and Islamic press and conservative American columnist, Pat Buchanan mentioning that no fewer that three Israeli prime ministers have been accused of terrorism: Menachem Begin whose Irgun blew up the King David Hotel and carried out the massacre of Palestinian villagers in Deir Yassin in April of 1948; Yitzhak Shamir, head of the Stern gang that murdered Edward Lord Moyne in Cairo in 1944 and assassinated UN mediator Count Bernadotte in Jerusalem in 1948; and current Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, as head of Force 101, who is accused of massacring scores of Palestinian villagers at Qibya in 1953 in a reprisal raid for the murder of an Israeli mother and her children.
Friends of Israel have strong control of what goes into the Western media and what Wertern politicians say and do regarding “terrorism”. Has terrorism now become acts of violence against only those we disapprove of?
Maybe the terms “terrorism” and the “War on Terrorism” now conjure as much anxiety and fear by the public as the acts themselves. And let us not forget the words of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he said, “ The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.
— Dr. Michael Saba is the author of “The Armageddon Network” and is an international relations consultant.
