|
I agree that "terrorism" as a term is little more than a marker for propaganda. It would also be a mistake to forget that it has been coded to mean "Arab" or "Muslim". The Oklahoma City bombers are generally known as just that, not "terrorists". Not swarthy enough I guess. That we associate Arabs with terrorism in this way has been Israel's greatest victory.
Despite the link to propaganda, I still think there is some value in using the term to describe what regular armies regularly do. Aerial bombing of civilians was once an outrage, one that moved Picasso to paint "Guernica". A few short years later, in WWII, even the "good guys" were obliterating whole cities from high above. The aim of much of the bombing campaign against Japan was to "demoralise" the civilian population. This sort of terrorism has ong since become part of America's military repertoire.
Even Americans have been victims of this sort of terrorism, and by this I don't mean the POWs in Hiroshima or Dresden. During the Cold War, the entire world lived under the constant threat of nuclear obliteration. The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction was nothing if not terrorist.
While we're at it, the IDF's targetting of civilians is really no different than their enemy's targetting of civilians. How is one "terrorist" and one not? Of course, in this case, Israel has struck against civilians in response to attacks on soldiers.
|