[...]... which may become wars In discussions of terrorism, it is a serious mistake to suppose that all terrorism is alike Terrorism has different forms, as does war In the United States, the Right has been asserting that to hold anything else than that all terrorism is the same is to undermine the “moral clarity” needed to pursue the war on terrorism Further, U.S neoconservatives, Christian fundamentalists, and. .. than unrealistic and misleading It sets the stage for those who aim to eradicate terrorism to be humiliated when they fail and to be thus provoked into even more unjustified violence Of course, there is no good terrorism All terrorism is awful, just as all war is awful, and it is outrageous that human beings have not yet managed to avoid, head off, control, and put an end to war and terrorism Nonetheless,... “acts of terrorism. ” But perhaps we should find a definition of terrorism that does not ask us to What many discussions of terrorism try, of course, to do is to come up with a definition such that what they do is terrorism and unjustified, whereas what we and our friends do is not terrorism but justified selfdefense Building the targeting of civilians into the definition is often used to accomplish this since... before Israelis live in fear and Palestinians live in misery.”31 He concludes that “in the long run, encouraging economic and political development is the single most effective counter-terrorist approach.”32 Claiming that all terrorism is the same and necessarily evil and that the so-called war on terrorism must stamp it out once and for all or that all responses to terrorism should be the same is worse... terrorism (and of violence to suppress it) as a topic to subject to moral analysis and critique Political scientists have sought to understand and explain the causes of terrorism and to assess effective countermeasures Psychologists have tried to understand the personal component of individual terrorists’ violent acts In political debates and media discussions, in contrast, all too often the assumption is. .. justified My intent is to compare war and terrorism and to show how war can be morally worse 16 • h o w t e r r o r i s m i s w r o n g D e f i n i n g Te r r o r i s m Understanding how to define terrorism is notoriously difficult It is one of the most contested concepts and obviously complex Governments characteristically define terrorism as something only their opponents can commit and as something only... neoconservatives, Christian fundamentalists, and the Israeli Right are especially intent on arguing that the terrorism carried out by Palestinians is the same as that conducted by Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network.1 They agree with former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon that terrorism is terrorism is terrorism anywhere in the world.”2 Asserting that Israel is battling the same enemy as the United States,... and Political Violence [110] C ha p t e r 7 The Moral Assessment of Violence and Terrorism [126] Chapter 8 Moral Inquiry, Action, and Care [144] No te s [165] B ib l io g r a p h y [183] Index [199] HO W TERRORISM IS WRONG This page intentionally left blank Introduction What questions should we ask about political violence? We are often in doubt This book offers moral assessments of some forms of political. .. order to spread fear among other potential dissidents, this was state terrorism And as Israeli and U.S political scientists Neve Gordon and George López, respectively, say, “Israel’s practice of state-sanctioned torture also qualifies as political terrorism It is well known that torture is not only used to extract information or to control the victim; it is also used to control the population as a... compares terrorism with war, clarifies meanings, and assesses comparative wrongs It argues that terrorism is not uniquely atrocious but is on a continuum with many other forms of political violence, and it maintains that wars, even “good wars,” are often morally far worse It concludes with a suggestion about seeking the causes of terrorism The second chapter is previously unpublished It considers the issues . h0" alt="" HOW TERRORISM IS WRONG This page intentionally left blank HOW TERRORISM IS WRONG Morality and Political Violence Virginia Held 1 2008 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works. otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Held, Virginia. How terrorism is wrong : morality and political violence. Violence, ” Journal of Social Philosophy 36(2) (Summer 2005): 175–193; Terrorism, Rights, and Political Goals,” in Violence, Ter- rorism, and Justice, ed. R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris