The trouble with terror: The apologetics of terrorism - A refutation

Terrorism and Political Violence

Volumn 18, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 465-483

  Meisels, Tamar ^a  

^a TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY   (Israel)

Author keywords

Assassination; Civilians; Combatants; Guerrilla; Israel; Terror; Terrorism

Indexed keywords

EID: 33745852264     PISSN: 09546553     EISSN: 15561836     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09546550600752030     Document Type: Article

References (121)

1. For the idea that morally valid views are plural, and that one of the reasons for this may be attributing, different weight to various conflicting moral values, see Isaiah Berlin, "The Pursuit of the Ideal," in Henry Harly, ed., The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas (London: Fontana Press, 1990), 1-19, 12, 14, 17.
2. Most notably: Ted Honderich, After the Terror (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002).
3. E.g., Ted Honderich, After the Terror ibid., who, in general, sneers at strict definitions and precise philosophical analysis, e.g., p. 94,
4. as does Jacques Derrida, who attempts to "deconstruct" the concept of terrorism in Giovanna Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgan Habermas and Jacques Derrida (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2003), 85-172, esp. 109, 152-3, 161.
5. Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics (London: Penguin, 1976), 75-6, Book 1-VII.
6. Jeremy Waldron, "Terrorism and the Uses of Terror," The Journal of Ethics 8 (2004): 5-35.
7. George Fletcher, "The Problem of Defining Terrorism," delivered at a conference on "Terrorism-Philosophical Perspectives," at Tel-Aviv University (organized by the department of Political Science and the Minerva Center for Human Rights, Tel-Aviv University's Law Faculty), March 2004.
8. C. A. J. (Tony) Coady, "Defining Terrorism," in Igor Primoratz, ed., Terrorism: The Philosophical Issues (London: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2004), 3-14, 4.
9. Fletcher, 2 (see note 5 above).
10. Igor Primoratz, ed., Terrorism: The Philosophical Issues (London: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2004), xi.
11. B. T. Wilkins, Terrorism and Collective Responsibility (London: Routledge, 1992), 2.
12. George Fletcher, Romantics at War: Glory and Guilt in the Age of Terrorism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2002), 2.
13. Honderich, 91-97 (see note 2 above).
14. Honderich, 97.
15. Ibid.
16. Honderich, 97.
17. Honderich, 95.
18. Honderich, 103. Noam Chomsky repeatedly makes similar points concerning the inconsistent and self-serving use of the term "terrorism" on the part of the U.S., which he regards as a terrorist state. See, e.g., Noam Chomsky, 9-11 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001), esp. 23, 40-54, 57, 73-4, 90-1.
19. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 197.
20. Honderich "Terrorism Defined," After the Terror (see note 2 above), 97-99.
21. Honderich, 103.
22. Paul Berman argues persuasively that in both these cases death is in fact the primary goal. Berman, Terror and Liberalism (New York: Norton, 2003), see esp. 132-133.
23. Honderich, 103.
24. Honderich, 98-9.
25. Honderich, 99.
26. Honderich, 97-99.
27. Note, in contrast, the overall thesis of Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (see note 20 above), which involves the suggestion that real world political or social change are not always the object of political violence.
28. Honderich, 99.
29. Honderich, 151.
30. Honderich, 100.
31. Honderich, 115.
32. Noam Chomsky, 9-11 (see note 16 above), 23, 40, 76, 84.
33. Honderich, 118.
34. Gerald Cohen, "Casting the First Stone: Who Can Blame the Terrorists?," (unpublished article) 2003, 4.
35. Honderich, 115-120, esp. 115, 118.
36. Honderich, 150-151.
37. Derrida in Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror (see note 3 above), 102-107, 152.
38. Derrida in Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror Ibid., 103, emphasis added.
39. Philosophy in a Time of Terror (see note 3 above), 102-3.
40. Derrida in Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 105, 110, 153.
41. Derrida in Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 102.
42. Derrida in Philosophy in a Time of Terror, Ibid., 107, 152.
43. Derrida in Philosophy in a Time of Terror, Ibid., 107-108.
44. Cf. Honderich, 73-88, 97-99, 103.
45. Derrida in Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 108.
46. Derrida, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, ibid., 127, 161.
47. Derrida, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, ibid., 113.
48. Derrida, 104, 152.
49. Ibid., 106-107.
50. Ibid., 107, emphasis added.
51. See Benjamin Netanyahu. ed., Terrorism: How the West Can Win (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986), 203.
52. Cf. Honderich, 98-99.
53. Honderich, 98.
54. Walzer (see note 17 above), 176.
55. Walzer, 183.
56. Walzer, 182.
57. Walzer, 179.
58. Ibid., 179-180.
59. Walzer, 180.
60. For a similar characterization of guerrilla warfare as opposed to terrorism, see Paul Gilbert, New Terror, New Wars (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003), 96-7.
61. Walzer, 182-3.
62. Walzer, 181.
63. Berman (109, 201) does not distinguish clearly between Hizbollah attacks and terrorism against civilians, nor does Benjamin Netanyahu, Fighting Terrorism (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 67-68.
64. Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 56.
65. Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 56. Ibid.
66. Habermas in Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 33.
67. Walzer, 198.
68. Walzer, 199.
69. Ibid.
70. For these examples in particular see Berman, Terror and Liberalism, 32.
71. For these two examples, as well as others, see Walzer, 198-203.
72. In contrast, see Honderich, 99. Note the different manner in which they are invoked by the two authors.
73. As Paul Gilbert puts it: "Assassination is, however, far from the worst offence against the prohibition on attacking civilians that we witness in new wars." Paul Gilbert, New Terror, New Wars (see note 56 above), 94.
74. The distinction between political assassination and indiscriminate terrorism is over-looked by many of the contributors to Benjamin Netanyahu, ed. Terrorism: How the West Can Win (see note 48 above), (e.g., 10, 17, 44, 48, 56, 103, 199.
75. Walzer, 200. Pages 198 and 199 describe how at least some assassins took special measures in order to avoid civilian casualties.
76. See also Paul Berman, 32, who makes the same moral point about the Russian anarchists.
77. Walzer, 200.
78. Walzer, 199-200.
79. Walzer, 200-201.
80. This is Walzer's guess, 200-201.
81. Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism, 32.
82. Walzer, 198-9.
83. Berman, 32.
84. Berman, 33-34.
85. Honderich, 99 - his final definition of "terrorism or political violence." Derrida in Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 127, 161.
86. Walzer, 197.
87. Can one terrorize without killing? This may be logically possible, but it remains highly theoretical and largely irrelevant. Killing itself appears to be an essential inherent component of modern "terrorism" as we know it. Arguing against the Doctrine of Double Effect (which is not the issue here), Francis Kamm suggests that "the big moral obstacle to terror-killing is justifying the killing rather than justifying the production of terror per se. To support this claim, imagine that we find out that non-combatants on the unjust side, whom we could not permissibly harm in any other way, will experience terror leading to the country's surrender, if we bomb some trees. (They are irrational.) If we bomb the trees, moral objections to terror bombing should not then exist, I believe, even though we intend to terrorize these people as a means to end the war. Alternatively, suppose the people are rational. We manage to convey that we are using a new terrifying weapon to destroy the trees. We do this because we know the people will see this as a threat to use the weapon on them and, hence, be terrorized. We either actually have no such weapon or no intention of using it on people. Could such a threat for purposes of terrorizing be permissible in order to stop a war? I believe it could be." F. M. Kamm, "Failure of Just War Theory: Terror, Harm and Justice." Ethics 114, no. 4 (July 2004), 650, 663.
88. Netanyahu, Fighting Terrorism, xxi.
89. Netanyahu, Terrorism: How The West Can Win, 9.
90. Netanyahu, Fighting Terrorism, xxi.
91. Walzer, 203.
92. Netanyahu, Fighting Terrorism, 8.
93. Walzer, 203.
94. Berman, 34. Later Berman describes a similar transition stage for Palestinian terrorism against Israel in which fastidiousness receded into the past and was replaced by blind killing. Berman attributes this transition to the rise of the Islamist Hamas organization which fits conveniently with his admittedly brilliant analysis of Islamic terrorism. Nontheless, on this point there is room for doubting whether Palestinian terrorism ever exhibited any noteworthy degree of fastidiousness, e.g., of the type that characterized early Russian revolutionaries. Even Berman's own account of this terrorism places a serious shadow on the characterization of its early exhibits as fastidious in any way shape or form. See Berman, Terror and Liberalism, 111.
95. Berman, 32.
96. Berman, 35.
97. Berman, 35-6.
98. Cf. Karma Nabulsi, Traditions of War: Occupation, Resistance, and the Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999),
99. Chap. 1: The Laws of War 1874-1949, pp. 4-18.
100. Robert A. Pape, "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," APSR 97, no. 3 (August 2003): 350. See also 347-349.
101. APSR Ibid., 350.
102. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Translated and Analyzed by H. J. Paton (New York: Harper Torchbooks/The Academy Library, Harper & Row, 1964), 88.
103. Honderich, 151.
104. Walzer, 204.
105. Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 56.
106. Gilbert, 97.
107. Gilbert, ibid.
108. Berman, 132-3.
109. Honderich, 151.
110. An additional oddity in attempting to justify Palestinian terrorism on the grounds that it rightfully aims to "liberate" Palestinians from Israeli domination, concerns the fact that Arab terrorism against Jews in Palestine began in the 1920s, and was notoriously supported by the Nazi's in the 1930s, long before Jewish sovereignty was established over any of the land. The PLO and Fatah organizations, dedicated to the "liberation of Palestine" by terrorist means, were established in 1964 and 1965 respectively, several years before Israel conquered the so called "occupied territories" from Jordan in 1967.
111. Netanyahu, Fighting Terrorism, 9.
112. Netanyahu, Terrorism: How the West Can Win, 204.
113. For an illuminating discussion of the World War II terror bombings, see Walzer, Terrorism: How the West Can Win, ibid., Chap. 7 on pp. 109-106, Chap 16 on pp. 255-268.
114. See: Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Translated and Analyzed by H. J. Paton (New York: Harper Torchbooks/The Academy Library, Harper & Row Publishers, 1964), 96.
115. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 9th Ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), Chap III, section 29, p. 179.
116. Berman, 98.
117. See Honderich, e.g., 103.
118. Honderich, throughout, specifically on pp. 73-88, 97-99, 103.
119. Many of these classic distinctions are also called into question in connection with terrorism by Jacques Derrida in Giovanna Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2003), e.g., 108.
120. Honderich, 46-51, 62, 69-73, 81, 90. See, esp. p. 70,
121. where Honderich appears to reduce Rawls's liberalism as it appears in A Theory of Justice to no more than "a philosophical celebration of America."