Lulua
11-12-2001, 13:10
. ALL KINDS OF TERRORISTS, BUT ONLY ONE SOLUTION
[By Uri Avnery, Nov. 3, 2001]
================================================== ====================
Osama bin Laden is undoubtedly a terrorist. Killing 4800 civilians at
the World Trade Center was a terrorist outrage. But the United States
would have declared war on bin Laden even if he had been satisfied with
killing American soldiers in Saudi Arabia, or blowing up oil
installations across the Middle East. It is not the methods of bin Laden
that have caused this war, but his aim: to get rid of the United States
and its satellites, the Arab kings and presidents, throughout the Middle
East.
In order to pursue its war, the United States has set up a world-wide
coalition. Everyone joining it has been issued an American permit to
call his enemies "terrorists": Putin in Chechnya, China in its Muslim
regions, India in Kashmir, Sharon in the occupied territories -- all are
now fighting against "terrorists." Everyone has their bin Laden.
Many years ago I coined a definition I am quite proud of: "The
difference between freedom-fighters and terrorists is that the
freedom-fighters are on my side and the terrorists are on the other
side." I am glad that this definition has been adopted by my biggers and
betters.
Since the New York atrocity, it has become fashionable to talk about
"terrorism," As a result, it has lost all precise meaning. "Terror"
means extreme fear. The root of the word is the Latin "terrere" -- to
frighten or be frightened. The modern term was first used to describe
the regime of terror (terreur) instituted by the Jacobins, one of the
factions of the French Revolution, to destroy their opponents by
beheading them with the guillotine during the years 1793-4. In the end,
their leader, Robespierre, suffered the same fate.
Since then, the term has acquired a more general use. Terrorism is a
method of attaining political goals by frightening the civilian
population. It does not apply to the frightening of soldiers. The
Japanese who attacked the American fleet in Pearl Harbor were not
terrorists. Neither were the Jews who attacked the soldiers of the
British occupation regime in Palestine.
Clausewitz said that war is "the continuation of politics by other
means." That is true for terrorism, too. Terrorism is always an
instrument for the attainment of political aims. Since these may be
rightist or leftist, revolutionary or reactionary, religious or
secularist, the term "international terrorism" is nonsense. Each
terrorist body has its own specific agenda.
There is hardly a liberation movement that has not used terrorism.
Algerian women put bombs in the cafes of the French settlers (some of
them were caught and horribly tortured by French parachutists). Nelson
Mandela spent 28 years in prison because he refused to order his
followers to abstain from terrorism. The Maccabees were terrorists who
went around killing Hellenized Jews. So were the Irgun fighters who in
1938 put bombs in the Arab markets of Jaffa and Haifa in retaliation for
Arab attacks. Shlomo Ben-Josef committed a terrorist act when he shot at
an Arab bus (I joined the Irgun when he was hanged by the British).
Generally, terrorism is the weapon of the weak. A Palestinian
"terrorist" recently said: "Give me tanks and airplanes, and I shall
stop sending suicide-bombers into Israel." But big powers, too, can use
terror. Dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima was a terrorist act,
designed to frighten the Japanese population into demanding that their
government surrender. So was the Nazi blitz on London and the British
bombing of Dresden. Churchill and Hitler were as different as day and
night, but they used the same method.
Israel has used this method from the day of its inception. In the early
1950s the Israeli Defense Force committed "retaliation raids" designed
to frighten the villagers beyond the border in order to induce them to
put pressure on the Jordanian and Egyptian governments to prevent the
infiltration of Palestinians into Israel. During the War of Attrition in
the late 1960s, Moshe Dayan terrorized half a million inhabitants of the
Egyptian towns along the Suez Canal into fleeing, so as to put pressure
on the Egyptian president to stop attacking Israeli strongholds along
the Canal. In the 1996 "grapes of wrath" operation, Prime Minister
Shimon Peres terrorized half a million inhabitants of South Lebanon by
aerial bombardment into fleeing north, in order to pressurize the Beirut
government into stopping the Shi'ite guerrillas from attacking the
Israeli occupation force and its mercenaries. It is the same method that
is used in the army when a commander punishes all the soldiers in a
company, so that they will turn against the one who made him angry.
The trouble is, terrorism does not work in conflicts between nations.
Generally, it is counter-productive. The Taliban have not turned bin
Laden over, but have become more extreme in their opposition to America.
The IDF blockade against Palestinian villages, which this week denied
them water and food, does not isolate the "terrorists"; on the contrary,
it turns them into national heroes. The devastation caused by the
Russians in Chechnya did not break -- indeed, it strengthened -- the
opposing guerilla forces. Since terrorism is always
a political instrument, the right way to combat it is always political.
Solve the problem that breeds terrorism and you get rid of the
terrorism. Solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem and the other
flash-points in the Middle East, and you get rid of al-Qaida. It will
wilt like a flower deprived of water.
No one has yet devised another method.
[By Uri Avnery, Nov. 3, 2001]
================================================== ====================
Osama bin Laden is undoubtedly a terrorist. Killing 4800 civilians at
the World Trade Center was a terrorist outrage. But the United States
would have declared war on bin Laden even if he had been satisfied with
killing American soldiers in Saudi Arabia, or blowing up oil
installations across the Middle East. It is not the methods of bin Laden
that have caused this war, but his aim: to get rid of the United States
and its satellites, the Arab kings and presidents, throughout the Middle
East.
In order to pursue its war, the United States has set up a world-wide
coalition. Everyone joining it has been issued an American permit to
call his enemies "terrorists": Putin in Chechnya, China in its Muslim
regions, India in Kashmir, Sharon in the occupied territories -- all are
now fighting against "terrorists." Everyone has their bin Laden.
Many years ago I coined a definition I am quite proud of: "The
difference between freedom-fighters and terrorists is that the
freedom-fighters are on my side and the terrorists are on the other
side." I am glad that this definition has been adopted by my biggers and
betters.
Since the New York atrocity, it has become fashionable to talk about
"terrorism," As a result, it has lost all precise meaning. "Terror"
means extreme fear. The root of the word is the Latin "terrere" -- to
frighten or be frightened. The modern term was first used to describe
the regime of terror (terreur) instituted by the Jacobins, one of the
factions of the French Revolution, to destroy their opponents by
beheading them with the guillotine during the years 1793-4. In the end,
their leader, Robespierre, suffered the same fate.
Since then, the term has acquired a more general use. Terrorism is a
method of attaining political goals by frightening the civilian
population. It does not apply to the frightening of soldiers. The
Japanese who attacked the American fleet in Pearl Harbor were not
terrorists. Neither were the Jews who attacked the soldiers of the
British occupation regime in Palestine.
Clausewitz said that war is "the continuation of politics by other
means." That is true for terrorism, too. Terrorism is always an
instrument for the attainment of political aims. Since these may be
rightist or leftist, revolutionary or reactionary, religious or
secularist, the term "international terrorism" is nonsense. Each
terrorist body has its own specific agenda.
There is hardly a liberation movement that has not used terrorism.
Algerian women put bombs in the cafes of the French settlers (some of
them were caught and horribly tortured by French parachutists). Nelson
Mandela spent 28 years in prison because he refused to order his
followers to abstain from terrorism. The Maccabees were terrorists who
went around killing Hellenized Jews. So were the Irgun fighters who in
1938 put bombs in the Arab markets of Jaffa and Haifa in retaliation for
Arab attacks. Shlomo Ben-Josef committed a terrorist act when he shot at
an Arab bus (I joined the Irgun when he was hanged by the British).
Generally, terrorism is the weapon of the weak. A Palestinian
"terrorist" recently said: "Give me tanks and airplanes, and I shall
stop sending suicide-bombers into Israel." But big powers, too, can use
terror. Dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima was a terrorist act,
designed to frighten the Japanese population into demanding that their
government surrender. So was the Nazi blitz on London and the British
bombing of Dresden. Churchill and Hitler were as different as day and
night, but they used the same method.
Israel has used this method from the day of its inception. In the early
1950s the Israeli Defense Force committed "retaliation raids" designed
to frighten the villagers beyond the border in order to induce them to
put pressure on the Jordanian and Egyptian governments to prevent the
infiltration of Palestinians into Israel. During the War of Attrition in
the late 1960s, Moshe Dayan terrorized half a million inhabitants of the
Egyptian towns along the Suez Canal into fleeing, so as to put pressure
on the Egyptian president to stop attacking Israeli strongholds along
the Canal. In the 1996 "grapes of wrath" operation, Prime Minister
Shimon Peres terrorized half a million inhabitants of South Lebanon by
aerial bombardment into fleeing north, in order to pressurize the Beirut
government into stopping the Shi'ite guerrillas from attacking the
Israeli occupation force and its mercenaries. It is the same method that
is used in the army when a commander punishes all the soldiers in a
company, so that they will turn against the one who made him angry.
The trouble is, terrorism does not work in conflicts between nations.
Generally, it is counter-productive. The Taliban have not turned bin
Laden over, but have become more extreme in their opposition to America.
The IDF blockade against Palestinian villages, which this week denied
them water and food, does not isolate the "terrorists"; on the contrary,
it turns them into national heroes. The devastation caused by the
Russians in Chechnya did not break -- indeed, it strengthened -- the
opposing guerilla forces. Since terrorism is always
a political instrument, the right way to combat it is always political.
Solve the problem that breeds terrorism and you get rid of the
terrorism. Solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem and the other
flash-points in the Middle East, and you get rid of al-Qaida. It will
wilt like a flower deprived of water.
No one has yet devised another method.