Why Has It Been So Difficult To Reach An Agreed Definition Of Terrorism?
...of Insight an SBS television program asked a number of people from different ethnic background that” Terrorism' is a word we hear a lot these days, but do we really know what it means? ’’ Here are what they defined terrorism as
WOMAN 1: Usually politically motivated, but any group of people or a person that strikes terror into the heart of innocent people.
WOMAN 2: I think once civilians are particularly targeted, that for me is terrorism.
WOMAN 3: Before this all happened, before September 11, it wasn't a word that got thrown around a lot. Now it is. Now whenever they use the word 'terrorism' they have an image of someone who looks Middle Eastern.
DAVID ERVINE Former IRA Operative: Well, I think terrorism is the expression of grievance. It has to have somewhere to come from, not a region. It has to have people to come from. It has to have a trade to come from, a nucleus or a group, that group of course can be encouraged to do the unforgivable, the unreasonable, the unhuman almost provided it has a sense of something that it can describe for itself, justification, which is "Look what they're doing to us. I am the victim here. I am truly the victim. And even though I make you a victim, I only make you a victim to point out that I am indeed myself a victim." And I think it's the same measurement right across the world.
GENERAL YAAKOV AMIDROR, FORMER ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE: I think that terrorism is when the targets are pure citizens, not as an accident, not as a mistake, but when the terrorists are looking for citizens to kill - mothers, children, old people - is the main target of their action. And this is pure terrorism. There are some soft definition of terrorism but that is pure terrorism.
ALI KAZAK, PALESTINIAN DELEGATION: I'd like to speak about states' acts of terrorism. Now, no one is speaking about states' acts of terrorism, which is very...
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