[Oregon's Senator Ron Wyden commonly uses the "terrorism" card to avoid talking about tough issues, especially when it relates to Israel's behavior and he does it for the reasons Woodward describes below: to forestall consideration of the
political motivation for acts of violence. . . .]
On September 11, 2001, George Bush changed the way Americans look at
the world and the success with which he accomplished this feat is
evident in the fact that his perspective largely remains unchallenged —
even among many of his most outspoken critics. Bush’s simplistic
for-us-or-against-us formula was transparently emotive yet utterly
effective.
For almost a decade, Americans have been told to look at the world
through the lens of “terrorism” and while differences of opinion exist
about whether the lens has too wide or narrow an angle or about the
extent to which it brings things into focus, those of us who say the
lens is so deeply flawed that it should be scrapped, remain in a
minority.
The Obama administration may now refrain from using the term itself,
preferring instead “violent extremists,” but the change is merely
cosmetic (as are so many other “changes” in the seamless continuity
between the Bush- and post-Bush eras).
A couple of days ago Philip Weiss drew attention to the fact that when
former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni described her parents as
“freedom fighters,” Deborah Solomon, her interviewer in the New York
Times, echoed Livni’s sentiment by saying that the fight for Israel’s
independence took place in “a more romantic era.”
As Weiss notes, Livni’s parents belonged to the Irgun, the Zionist
group which blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946,
killing 91 and injuring 46.
The first public account of what had happened that day was accidentally released in advance of the bombing.
In By Blood and Fire, Thurston Clark writes:
“Jewish terrorists have just blown up the King David Hotel!” This
short message was received by the London Bureau of United Press
International (UPI) shortly after noon, Palestine time. It was signed
by a UPI stringer in Palestine who was also a secret member of the
Irgun. The stringer had learned about Operation Chick but did not know
it had been postponed for an hour. Hoping to scoop his colleagues, he
had filed a report minutes before 11.00. A British censor had routinely
stamped his cable without reading it.
The UPI London Bureau chief thought the message too terse. There
were not enough details. He decided against putting it on the agency’s
wire for radio and press until receiving further confirmation that the
hotel had been destroyed.
Despite the efforts of Irgun leaders to restrict knowledge of the
target and timing of Operation Chick, there were numerous other leaks.
Leaders in both the Haganah and Stern Gang knew about the operation.
Friends warned friends. The King David had an extraordinary number of
last-minute room cancellations. In the Secretariat [the King David's
south wing that housed the headquarters of the British government in
Palestine], more than the usual number of Jewish typists and clerks
called in sick.
The next day the British prime minister, Clement Attlee referred to the
bombing as an “insane act of terrorism” while a few days later the US
president, Harry Truman, wrote “the inhuman crime committed… calls for
the strongest action against terrorism…”
That was 64 years ago. From the sheltered perch of the New York Times,
that’s apparently far enough back in history that it can now be
referred to as a “romantic era.”
It’s hardly surprising then that many observers with an interest in
justice for Palestinians take offense at the New York Times’ complicity
in papering over the reality of Jewish terrorism. Yet here’s the irony:
the effort to promote an unbiased use of the term “terrorism” simply
plays into the hands of the Israelis.
The word has only one purpose: to forestall consideration of the
political motivation for acts of violence. Invoke the word with the
utmost gravity and then you can use your moral indignation and outrage
to smother intelligent analysis. Terrorists do what they do because
they are in the terrorism business — it’s in their blood.
So, when Tzipi Livni calls her parents freedom fighters, I have no
problem with that — she is alluding to what they believed they were
fighting for rather than the methods they employed. Moreover, by
calling people who planted bombs and blew up civilians in the pursuit
of their political goals, “freedom fighters,” Livni makes it clear that
she understands that “terrorism” is a subjective term employed for an
effect.
When Ehud Barak a few years ago acknowledged that had he been raised a
Palestinian he too would have joined one of the so-called terrorist
organizations, he was not describing an extraordinary epiphany he had
gone through in recognizing the plight of the Palestinians. He was
merely being candid about parallels between groups such as the Irgun
and Hamas — parallels that many Israelis see but less often voice.
The big issue is not whether the methods employed by Zionist groups
such as the Irgun could be justified but whether the political goals
these groups were fighting for were legitimate. Zionism would not have
acquired more legitimacy if it had simply found non-violent means
through which it could accomplish its goal of driving much of the
non-Jewish population out of Palestine.
We live in an era in which “terrorism” — as a phenomenon to be opposed
— has become the primary bulwark through which Zionism defends itself
from scrutiny. Keep on playing the terrorist-naming game and the
Zionists win.