Terrorism is described by the most prominent international organizations, including the United Nations, as “a method of coercion that utilizes or threatens to utilize violence in order to spread fear and thereby attain political or ideological goals.” Of course, if we genuinely adopted this definition, we would see clearly which state has been leading the world in this practice and how it has constantly manipulated its citizens and instilled in them a twisted perception of what “the terrorists” look like: mostly brown men, possibly bearded and likely residing in that region of the world which is customarily referred to as the Middle East.
Now, the last of these features certainly checks out in the case of Israel Katz, Israel’s so-called minister of Defense. He recently put out a video statement addressed to “the residents of Gaza,” in which he made his final “warning” to them. “If all Israeli hostages are not released and Hamas is not kicked out of Gaza,” Katz urged, “Israel will act with force you have not known before.” Failure to return the hostages and kick Hamas out of Gaza would mean that the residents of Gaza would “bear the full cost.” In other words, Katz was threatening the civilian population with “utilizing violence in order to spread fear and thereby attain political or ideological goals.” Of course, this was not deemed terrorism in the mainstream – how could it be?
That Katz did not bring up Amalek (enemies of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible) or any religious symbol in that particular statement was perhaps surprising, given the usual rhetoric of his government. In fact, that rhetoric has really been a fundamental aspect of modern Zionism, albeit not publicly exposed at this scale until relatively recently. Ten years ago, it would have been shocking enough to accuse Israel of the crime of apartheid, let alone terrorism. Ten years ago, it was Daesh serving as the go-to reference for public condemnation of terrorism. For example, CNN had published a report explaining “what Daesh really wanted.” Crucially, it emphasized that “prophecy is critical to Daesh, which accepts the word of the Prophet and the hadith, or sayings, attributed to him literally and without question.” The focus was on how prophecy provided Daesh with “the glue of theological certainty.” This was radical extremism, and its method was correctly identified as terrorism.
Although not a resident of the Middle East nor a bearded brown man himself, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is effectively the leader of the opposition in the U.S., has long embraced a similar worldview, as it turns out. In a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in 2018, he summarized “the view of Palestinians” as follows: “Well, the Europeans treated the Jews badly, culminating in the Holocaust, and they gave them our land as compensation.” If he had stopped there, it would have been a fairly accurate characterization of reality, of course, but he continued: “Of course, we say it’s our land, the Torah says it, but they don’t believe in the Torah, so that’s the reason there is not peace.” It appears as though “the glue of theological certainty” was the reason why, in Schumer’s worldview, the people in America “must stand strong with Israel through thick and thin” even as it routinely carried out unspeakable atrocities in Palestine. Note that this is the same Schumer whom U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly derided as “a Palestinian,” presumably for his insufficient hawkishness.
In view of these considerations, perhaps we can dispense with the naivete that the term “terrorism” has ever meant anything for “the masters of mankind.” As George Orwell pointed out, “political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” In the political language of the empire, the term “terrorism” is reserved for the actions of “subhumans” whose lives and livelihoods are simply a matter of statistics at most. A fighter jet is never a weapon of terror – its capacity to terrorize is, apparently, far weaker than that of a slingshot.
