'Terrorism' 1 as a strategy for liberation "The initial Arab public response to Hamas’s acts of terror set a secular and moderate tone. Hamas’s October 7 actions conflated the boundaries between legitimate resistance to the Israeli occupation and siege of the Palestinian territories, which categorically does not include targeting civilians, and crimes of terrorism. In response, Arab governments ( https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/138158 ) , civil society organizations ( https://twitter.com/alhaq_org/status/1711308161351631073 ) , several media outlets ( https://english.alarabiya.net/views/2023/10/13/Two-wrongs-don-t-make-a-right-Israel-must-spare-Palestinian-civilians ) , and some influential social media accounts ( https://www.memri.org/reports/social-media-arab-intellectuals-condemn-hamas-widescale-attack-israel-saying-it-serves-irans ) were quick to condemn the violence and call for the protection of life on both sides." Amr Hamzawy. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 11-1-2023. https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/11/01/pay-attention-to-arab-public-response-to-israel-hamas-war-pub-90893 (Links in the original.)
When Hamas launches an attack that kills @1200 Israelis it's 'terrorism'. When Israelis kill @34,000 Gazans, mainly civilians, a large portion women and children, it’s ‘collateral damage’. I worked in the garment industry @ the turn of this century. The company's salesman was an outspoken Zionist. He brought in a two-paneled cartoon. On the left was an armed IDF soldier crouched in front of a baby in a stroller, protecting it; on the other side was a similar stroller with a child in it. Crouched, hiding, behind it was a stereotypical caricature of an Arab with an AK-47. He said, "Now, what do you think of that." Not a question. I replied, "Where are the tanks." Also not a question. Away from the current conflict between the people living in Gaza and the murderous invaders of the IDF; away from choosing and defending the ‘talking points’ of this or that side; away even from an examination of the historical usage of 'terrorism' (e.g. the use of counter-'terror' by the Mau Mau (see below) in response to British terror; and the use of counter-'terror' by the Algerian freedom fighters of the FLN ( https://groups.io/Documents/_blank ) in response to the terror campaigns waged by the OAS ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_arm%C3%A9e_secr%C3%A8te ) ). Away from the 'terror'' aided victories of the Viet Minh ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People's_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War ) (against the terrors inflicted by the Japanese ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes ) and the French ( https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/indochina-1st-indochina-war/ ) as well as that of the Diem regime ( https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/01/archives/an-earlier-bloodbath.html ) and of the US ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre ) ). And way from that of the mujahidin, at first against the Soviets and then against the Americans ( https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/who-responsible-taliban ) ) where the invaders were slunk out, sent home from Afghanistan, with their tails between their legs, The kamikaze of Taliban suicide bombers helped to drive the US out of Afghanistan. ( https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN18198862/ ) Away away from all such, the question of 'terror's usage as a strategy for liberation is a phenomenon in and of itself and could be examined out of and away from the context of this or that particularity. Here it is to be asserted that something of a global political principle can be extracted from the particulars of an individual non-political social case. Such a proposal can be quickly summed as “When there is no path of resistance save 'terrorism' then such is justified." The murdered Panther, Bunchy Carter, said "Do something. Do something if you just spit ( https://www.facebook.com/wedroptruthbombs/photos/a.1994280894118743/2777739465772878/?type=3 )." 'Terrorism' is the oppressed's big Hawk-too-ee. "(Bethwell) Ogot dismissed (Caroline) Elkins as an uncritical imbiber of Mau Mau propaganda...he argued, she had glossed over the litany of Mau Mau atrocities: '...decapitation and general mutilation of civilians, torture before murder, bodies bound up in sacks and dropped in wells, burning the victims alive, gouging out of eyes, splitting open the stomachs of pregnant women.'" “Uncovering the brutal truth about the British empire.” Marc Parry. The Guardian. Being a "Long Read" overview of "Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya" by Caroline Elkins ( https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=%22Britain's+Gulag%3A+The+Brutal+End+of+Empire+in+Kenya%22+by+Caroline+Elkins ) https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/18/uncovering-truth-british-empire-caroline-elkins-mau-mau ) How could such things possibly be defended? Wars cannot be won by such acts of 'terrorism'. The oppressor's vastly superior military cannot be defeated that way, but his will to continue to inflict real terror upon the oppressed can be sapped by the latter's ability to impose its own 'terror'. 'Terror' wreaked upon that former that comes to amount to " unacceptable damage ( https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/05679327408448334 ) ". The following is a most certainly banal example but the situation just above is like a 6ft 3in bully who fcks with you everyday. When you stomp down on his toe, or knee him in his balls, he cries "Foul". He may continue right then and there to kick your ass but he'll think twice about fckn with you the next day. Unacceptable damage. Something very similar happened to me in Mobile when I was in the 9th grade. By that time my 4 brothers and 2 sisters were in LA. The familial force that had protected me left with them. There was a junior, Bobby Joe Jenkins, who would fck with me every day with that "Freshman” bullsht. I bought a knife with the money I made from the Fri night bingo games taking tickets. When he came up to me, I pulled it out opening it as I did so. A girl cousin, who was a senior, walked past me and in a hushed whisper hissed, "Put the knife away" and went on. When I saw her coming I thought she was gonna tell the asshole to leave me alone. But she, part of our 'better' (wealthier) relatives, was more concerned about someone seeing the knife thus embarrassing her. I never forgave her for that though she really had no choice. She was raised by parents every bit the same. You've seen them. You know them. Folks who pray louder above all congregants yet leave out of church bypassing an unfortunate's outstretched hand while either casting an aspersive glance or, worse, not seeing him at all. Her reaction and her parentage are very much akin to the Arab recriminations of the 7th of Hamas. They had no choice but to follow in lock step behind the head roosters in their middle-eastern hen house--their Saudi 'big brother', and his shadowy Uncle--when this was exactly the time to call the Zionists out on the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank (to a large extent waged by settlers (armed Israeli civilians)); to demand back the long-term seizure of the Golan; to cease the all-but daily military incursions into Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran; and, above all, to immediately begin to recompense the destruction, the horrors, of the open air prison camp that is the Gaza. As an aside, Why is no one calling for the Israeli's to 100% recompense the horrors of the devastations wreaked? Not just the physical plant destroyed but the lives wrecked. In all probability, Bobby Joe might have been slashed and then proceeded to beat the 35lbs of weight difference out of me. But he would have been marked for the rest of his life and every time he caught glimpse of that scar he'da been reminded of me. He never bothered me again. Such is the power of the powerless, the ability to mete out a response capable of dispensing, measure for measure, unacceptable damage. 2 With total subjugation, the power of the oppressor over the oppressed is absolute. And it is its very unlimited nature that is its limit. The freedom-fighters motto could be "We know what you can do to us but you have no idea what we will be able to do to you" for the oppressed can learn and learn quickly the ways of the conqueror's terror; for his 'terror' is the instillation of the same fear into the own-shadow of the overlord such that he can't tell whether the shade following him is that of his own or that of the last thing his eyes won't ever see. "...lost in all the focus on terrorism, is that the episodic terrorism employed by the slave is used in rebellion against the constant terrorism enforced by the slaveholders’ violence. It is the element of rebellion against oppression that is the vital factor." 3 The psychopath wreaks havoc and commits terror for its own sake. His actions and his motivation are the same. The occupier wreaks havoc and commits terror for the sake of establishing and maintaining dominance over the other for his own benefit. The freedom fighter, when necessitated, commits 'terror' for the sake of a goal, liberation from domination. Faced with an asymmetry of martial abilities, he has no option, no other choice. With no apologies to Thatcher...TINA. 1 Here, terror and terrorism are counterposed to 'terror' and 'terrorism' (with quotes). The former are acts of a colonial power seeking to maintain domination of the subjugated's political arena and economies. The latters, are acts of war aimed at the dissolution of the colonial rule. 2(James) Clerk Maxwell, when he entered the Academy, was somewhat rustic and somewhat eccentric. Boys called him ‘Dafty,’ and used to try to make fun of him. On one occasion I remember he turned with tremendous vigour, with a kind of demonic force, on his tormentors. I think he was let alone after that, and gradually won the respect even of the most thoughtless of his schoolfellows." https://www.famousscientists.org/james-clerk-maxwell/ 3Private email from a comrade, 2-1-24. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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