The observation in the title of this post is pretty obvious but, apparently, not to Tom Friedman at least not as expressed in his most recent New York Times column. He opens by singing the praises of Manmohan Singh’s response to Lashkar-e-Taiba’s terrorist attack in India fifteen years ago. Admirably, his reaction was restrained. He follows with remarks about Israel:
I understand that Israel is not India — a country of 1.4 billion people, covering a massive territory. The loss of more than 160 people in Mumbai, some of them tourists, was not felt in every home and hamlet, as the deaths, maiming and kidnapping of roughly 1,400 Israelis by Hamas were. Pakistan also has nuclear weapons to deter retaliation.
Nevertheless, it is instructive to reflect on the contrast between India’s response to the Mumbai terrorist attack and Israel’s response to the Hamas slaughter.
What he doesn’t seem to appreciate is that there’s a difference in kind between India’s 2008 terror attacks and what Israel has just experienced. A difference in scale really is a difference in kind. Although LeT has a similar objective to Hamas’s, in LeT’s case the conquest of India for Islam, no one seriously thinks that LeT is capable of doing it. Hamas’s threat to Israel’s existence is significantly more proximate, especially considering that the number of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is expected to outstrip the number of Jews in Israel soon. By some accounts that’s already the case.
That places Mr. Friedman clearly in the “Israel has a right to exist but…” camp.
I do think it’s quite natural that an attack by 3000 men is treated quite differently from an attack by 10 men. Any government with a sense of self-preservation would.
Its my opinion, but the lack of a word that succinctly describes the scale of what occurred on 10/7 bedevils punditry. Should Hamas perpetuated be called “terrorism” or “guerilla warfare”?
One can compare the event to others by either the number of attackers or by the casualties suffered. On a basis of casualties, 10/7 can be compared to 9/11. But on the basis of number of attackers, 10/7 is off the charts. Its about two orders of magnitude larger the most famous terrorist attacks; 9/11 (19), Paris (9), Beslan (32), Mumbai (10),
I meant to say “Should what Hamas perpetuated be called “terrorism†or “guerilla warfareâ€?
We probably need another word. When the targets are civilians, there is no strategic or tactical significance to the attacks, and the objective appears to be purely political and/or to induce a reprisal, it certainly qualifies as terrorism.
“When the targets are civilians, there is no strategic or tactical significance to the attacks, and the objective appears to be purely political and/or to induce a reprisal,”
Hmmm. Maybe not strategic/tactical in the pure military sense. But certainly using civilians is part of the portfolio of tactics in todays war, played out on TV and in the press in general. Its the worst of human impulses. Maybe that’s what you mean by political.
Also, the distinctions among combatants and non-combatants assumes Western culture. Arab culture does not traditionally make such distinctions. Israeli culture only does so to the extent that it has been Occidentalized.
I was pretty active participant in some of the War blogs in the 2000s. There were endless discussions about the best definition of terrorism and terrorists. I think the best I can say is that no one ever agreed on a best definition. Also, while there is almost always a secondary political/ideologicalreligious motivation you also can have a desire for revenge. If some woman signs up to be a suicide bomber because a bomb killed everyone else in her family is she really a terrorist or just someone whoo wants revenge? What if she actually joins a terrorist group in response hoping to get revenge. Anyway, it’s messy.
I think I would prefer terrorists for Hamas. Guerillas dont always focus on killing civilians although through history they have engaged in terrorism, it’s just not the only thing they do. Attacking civilians seems to kind of come and go. We had 5-7 million civilian deaths in WW1 and about 50 million in WW2. Civilian deaths increased due to the nature of the wars but also their deaths were more acceptable if trying achieve a military goal. Would firebombings of cities have been as acceptable in WW1? Beats me.
Steve
The word you’re missing in your comment is “target”. Civilians were Hamas’s targets. That’s terrorism by just about anyone’s definition.
I think it takes more than that. We very deliberately targeted civilians when we firebombed Tokyo.
Steve