Terrorism

Today I want to share with you somewhat more general reflection.
It considers Israel and Jewish communities around the world, but it considers us all, no matter who or where.

As throughout the years I have heard some most ridiculous opinions about terrorists (always in connection to one chosen example) from otherwise nice, helpful people I want to share my opinion here.

I will start with general things and only at the end put more emphasis on connections to Israel and Jewish communities.

Terrorism is really not so young as most people tend to think, it is old but the form and the intensity of it evolve. It is also connected to a crime as old as humankind - blackmail. It is threat to something valuable to the person/ group targeted in order to force him/ her/ them to behave in certain way.
At least that is how it started as things got worse.
Let's look at terrorism in kind of 'rational' way (yes, decision makers do it or so I suppose) - people who really are targeted are meaningless, the aim is fear and terror among survivors and specially intended persons (kings/ presidents/ governments/ company chairmen/ public opinion - you name it) in order to provoke certain behavior. So it is for - say - external market. For internal one it is showing the force of one's group of criminals and making publicity for oneself.
For example - communist terrorists (and there were many throughout XX century) were using terror to: grab the power (revolution in Russia was in February 1917, in October /or according to our calender in November/ it was coup d'etat), force Western countries into certain decisions or force them not to make/ apply them and on internal market it was way to induce fear so deep it made people helpless - purges were not for dead, they were means to achieve goal - terror among living stopping them from any kind of activity. And this proved successful.
So it was with IRA, ETA, Che Guevara guerrillas, Black September, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Taliban, you name it. 
Beside this crazy 'rationality' there is also pure hatred. The mechanism of terror in some circumstances is easy to create, and may be thought as some kind of rational warfare. It is always hard, nearly impossible to stop. That is so desperate. Once we create irrational hatred, dehumanize enemy (invented or real doesn't really matter), raise children in hatred, teach it - it is impossible to say: OK, no we change as we achieved what we wanted/ circumstances changed/ some other paths are more profitable. Any terrorist organization that would try to do it would be the first victim of the policy change. So it has to be continued, for inventors there is no other way of keeping power and popularity and sometimes even life, for those who were raised in it and for it it is the way of living, and as often they see the world in one dimension (like the servants of North Korean regime) they won't even see any other option, thus the point is reached in which terrorism claimed hostages on both sides.
I tried to picture it theoretically, so it may sound to you here and there as if I was trying to understand. And in a way I try as to know your enemy is wise, but I can think of nothing more abominable than terrorism!!!!! As what it really shows - always, no matter who, on which side, with what point of view and so on - is hatred and contempt for people (ALL people) and liberty. And those are values I cherish the most!
Let's start with liberty:  ANY terrorist organization, ANYWHERE in the world believes it has the one and only recipe for the world. Be it communism, divided Ireland, united Ireland, divided Spain, united Spain, Islamism, Wahhabi doesn't matter. The recipe is: you are with us or we will kill you (and sometimes or at later stages if you are with us but not radically enough we will kill you).  Simple: you, human beings are but small parts in our worldview, of no value and certainly not suppose to have any choice as to beliefs, point of view, friendships, thoughts even. Theoretically the one who described it best was George Orwell in 1984, unfortunately in reality whole communities were and are subjected to living in the world without freedom, where freedom is the most dangerous crime! To show few examples (contemporary, the past and present lists are long) so live people in North Korea, Cuba, Gaza (because of Hamas, nothing to do with Israel). But there are more.
As for people: people for terrorists are things. They have nothing but contempt for them. Some are enemies (be it Americans, Israelis, Jews, Christians, unionists, Protestants, Catholics, any others). Others are expendable. To hide behind one's own women and children is to show them contempt (think: ammunition and weaponry magazines in hospitals, schools, houses, it has been done), to aim at random people in terrorist attacks is to show them contempt (think about hostages on planes, participants of sport events like in Boston, people who may be victims of rockets fired from Gaza - may be Jews, may be Palestinians, tourists or even Hamas supporters from abroad, it is indiscriminate, think about children at school in Bieslan or Ma'alot). To go with explosives on one's own body in order to die killing is to show contempt for oneself and to order it to show contempt for one's own people! (children included).
So there is nothing but hatred and contempt in terrorism.
Sometimes terrorists are talked about or even written about in media as liberty fighters gone wrong. They are as far from it as can be. They are anti-liberty fighters perfectly successful and on the right track (from their point of view).
Also there is nothing about being poor in terrorism, it is always ideological or political. Few words were so connected as multimillionaire Osama ben-Laden. War is expensive, it may deprive people around of their resources but terrorists are usually well financed.

Now, when terror strikes Israel or Jews around the world (as it often unfortunately does) it is more than even repeated that perpetrators are terrorists but at the same time some kind of liberty fighters gone wrong (they repeat the world Palestine over and over). Read above and think: striking Jewish children at French school, striking civilians, Arabs and Jews alike, tourists sometimes with rockets from Gaza, striking Olympic team (Munich), striking children at school (Ma'alot) or Holocaust survivors at religious feast (Netanya), killing older American invalid on chair as he happened to be a Jew (Achille Lauro) - is this the fight for anything (but just killing)? Does it show interest in fighting for something or just shows contempt for people and will to kill them, dispose of them (same spirit Nazis have shown).
Jews and Israelis are one of main victims of terrorist activities, though at the same time one of the most experienced fighters of terrorism (out of necessity). But think please about Bieslan children in Georgia, Israeli children in Ma'alot, Boston marathon victims, victims of IRA, victims of Burma's terror against Muslims (there they are targeted more than average) and please remember: nothing in terrorism is and never was or will be about freedom fighting - unless it is fighting AGAINST freedom of every single one of us.