WHAT EXACTLY IS TERRORISM?

Terrorism is the tactic of targeting civilians for the purpose of terrorizing them, into accepting someone else's demands.

WHAT IS NOT TERRORISM?

There is often collateral damage in war. Although this may cause civilian casualties, it does not constitute terrorism, because civilians were not targeted. Nor is it terrorism when regular or irregular soldiers are targeted and killed, because these are armed combatants, not civilians. When, for example, Israel targets members of Hamas or other Palestinian terror organizations these are not innocent civilians, but armed terrorists. Killing terrorists does not constitute terrorism.

TERRORISM IN THE ARAB ISRAELI CONFLICT

Israel does not target civilians. On the contrary, she seeks to avoid civilian casualties at all costs, even at the risk of the lives of her own soldiers. In the recent battle for Jenin, Israel could have destroyed the entire city with artillery, missiles or aircraft, without risking the life of a single soldier. Instead, the Israeli army chose to go house to house to avoid civilian casualties. Israel did this knowing that she was risking the lives of her own soldiers. Indeed, many died in the booby-trapped streets as a result, nevertheless, Israel sought to minimize civilian casualties.

In contrast, the Palestinians seek to maximize civilian casualties and have long used the targeting of civilians as their primary tactic in their effort to drive the Jews from the Jew's native land. For over a century, they have employed massacres, mob violence, lynching, airplane hijackings and now--suicide bombings. The murder of Israeli civilians in cafés, discos, malls, pizza parlors, and buses is not collateral damage, as these innocent civilians were in fact the suicide bomber's targets. The terrorists purposely choose locations and times where they can inflict the most civilian casualties.

Despite the media's frequent attempt to confuse the issue, Palestinian murderers of Israeli civilians are not "militants", "gunmen", or "guerillas". They are terrorists, and there is no moral difference between them and the terrorists of al-Qaida. One man's terrorist is not another man's freedom fighter. Terror is not a legitimate tactic under any circumstances, and there can be no excuse for it. No one has the right to take innocent life, no matter what his grievances, real or imagined, for a terrorist is not God, and cannot appoint himself the ultimate judge. Let's not call murderers, "martyrs".

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See also: "Seven Reasons Palestine Belongs to Israel"