A New York Times editorial on Saturday February 24, 2024, referred to Hamas as a terrorist organization. While the Times called for a cease fire in the war between Israel and Hamas and opposed the continued Israeli destruction of Gaza and its impact on civilians, it never referred to the Israeli bombardment of cities as an act of terror.
Online and on its website, I could not find an official definition used by the New York Times of terrorist or terrorism. However, according to ChatGPT, “The New York Times defines terrorism as the use of violence or intimidation in pursuit of political, religious, or ideological goals. This can involve targeting civilians or non-combatants to create fear, coerce a population, or influence government policies. The definition often includes acts committed by non-state actors, such as extremist groups, but can also encompass state-sponsored terrorism. The NYT, like many other reputable news outlets, strives to provide accurate and balanced coverage of terrorist incidents while adhering to journalistic standards.” But of course, this is not an official definition.
While a number of government agencies have labeled Hamas a terrorist organization, including the U.S. Treasury and State Departments and the Council of the European Union, part of the problem with addressing terrorism in the media and in school curriculum is that there is no agreed upon definition. As a teacher, I’ve used segments from the movie The Battle of Algiers (1966) to illustrate the difficulty of deciding who is the terrorist. During the Algerian war for independence, French colonial police acting outside official channels attack the rebel FLN forces in the Arab section of Algiers killing indiscriminately. The Algerian fighters respond by setting off bombs in civilian sites in the French sector. I asked students to consider, who were the terrorists?
Terrorism, la Terreur, was first introduced into common usage during the French Revolution when it was considered a positive instrument for achieving the ideals of virtue and democracy. Robespierre believed the Revolution had to employ terror to root out and defeat the Ancient Regime for democracy to triumph.
When President George W. Bush called for a “War on Terrorism” after the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, he declared terrorism the greatest threat facing America and the world. At the time, there was no agreed upon definition of the term, largely because its application was very subjective. A 2004 opinion essay in the International Herald Tribune pointed out that “Anyone who reads both the Western and Arab press cannot help noticing that the Western press routinely characterizes as ‘terrorism’ virtually all Palestinian violence against Israelis (even against Israeli occupation forces within Palestine), while the Arab press routinely characterizes as ‘terrorism’ virtually all Israeli violence against Palestinians.”
The United Nations General Assembly has been unable to develop a working definition of terrorism because of the politicization of the term. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, there is a “customary definition of terrorism” and since 2005, there is a consensus in the international community that terrorism includes “three key elements: (i) the perpetration of a criminal act (such as murder, kidnapping, hostage-taking, arson, and so on), or threatening such an act; (ii) the intent to spread fear among the population (which would generally entail the creation of public danger) or directly or indirectly coerce a national or international authority to take some action, or to refrain from taking it; (iii) when the act involves a transnational element.”
According to the United States criminal code, international terrorism means activities that “(A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended— (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum;
The FBI definition of terrorism is much simpler. Terrorism is “Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups who are inspired by, or associated with, designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations (state-sponsored).”
While the United Nations “customary definition” and the U.S. Criminal Code pretty definitely encompass the October 7, 2023 Hamas murder of Israeli civilians and the seizing of hostages, a strong case can also be made that the Israeli response, especially the bombing of urban areas, the killing of 30,000 Palestinians, over half of which were children, and the dislocation of over a million people, also constitutes terrorism.
Terrorism is mentioned as a topic for discussion in three places in the New York State high school social studies framework. In a tenth-grade unit on tensions between traditional cultures and modernization students examine the use terrorism as a tactic. In a tenth-grade unit on globalization and a changing global environment, students examine “threats to global security, such as international trade in weapons (e.g., chemical, biological, and nuclear), nuclear proliferation, cyber war, and terrorism, including a discussion of the events of September 11, 2001.” In an eleventh-grade unit on the United States in a changing world (1990 – present), students learn about the “response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001” and the “War on Terror.” However, nowhere in the three suggested units are teachers offered a definition of terrorism they can use in their lessons.