Terrorism: how the West can win
editor Benjamin Netanyahu
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1986)
This is a collection of papers read at the 1984 Jonathan Institute conference on terrorism held in Israel, and because these were originally papers there is no documentation: what we have is 230 pages of assertions. The contributors range from current “experts” on terrorism – Paul Johnson, Michael Ledeen, Claire Sterling, Lord Chalfont, Arnaud de Borchgrave – to a group of US government officials including Kirkpatrick, Schultz, Meese and Webster of the FBI.
The major themes here are:
- The Soviet Union is behind world terrorism;
- the PLO is a major Soviet agent in funding and encouraging world terrorism.
The minor theme is, of course, that the Soviet Union was behind the attempted assassination of the Pope.
But covertly the important theme – and presumably the point of the exercise for the Israeli state – is that the PLO is simply a terrorist organisation, the Israeli state is justified in its war against the PLO (qua Soviet terror front), and Israel, fighting Soviet-sponsored terror, is thus part of “the West”, despite being in the Middle East.
The quality of the contributions varies enormously and anything like a proper critique would take pages. However, a number of obvious points can be made briefly.
Totally absent, of course, is any mention of the US (and Israeli) supported state terror in Central and South America where the annual global death total from alleged Soviet-sponsored terror would account for, say, one week’s casualties in El Salvador. In attempting to distinguish between “our” terror and “terror” George Schultz actually says (p19):
“it is not hard to tell … who are the terrorists and who are the freedom fighter …. the Contras in Nicaragua do not blow up school buses or hold mass executions of civilians.”
This is preposterous, of course. I can’t be bothered doing it, but I’d bet a trawl through the press on the war in Nicaragua in the past three years would turn up examples of both – and worse – by the Contras. (But for Lobster readers this particular horse is not only dead but stinking.)
Such definitions of “terrorism” that are attempted merely produce problems. The version offered by the editor (p9) is:
“terrorism is the deliberate and systematic murder maiming and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear for political ends.”
Which just about covers the whole of American foreign policy since the late 19th century, but only just includes the IRA, for example. (To his credit, the editor does not mention the IRA in his essay.) Yet elsewhere Paul Johnson does include the IRA (and, incidentally, offers one of the real misinformation gems of the volume: “the IRA finances itself through the drug trade”).
Other gems, at random:
- Moshe Arens (ex Israeli defence minister) “By June 1982 there were about 15,500 armed PLO terrorists in Lebanon.” (Presumably, on the definition of “terrorism” given above, 15,500 people engaged in “the deliberate and systematic murder” etc. Which is absurd. 15000 armed men is an army. Perhaps there will be a shift to a “terror army”?)
- Claire Sterling, attempting to get round one of the real problems for her Bulgarians-shot-the-Pope thesis, namely: why, if the Bulgarian embassy officials were guilty, did they stay in Rome? points out that:
“One did not leave until 15 months after the Pope was shot … Another … until the investigating judge began to inquire into his diplomatic immunity… (and) Antonov was the only one who did not get out in time.”
Thus, it appears, “getting out in time” means anything up to 15 months later! (This really is vaguely insulting to one’s intelligence.)
- Jilian Becker, now part of the new London-based terrorism institute (see elsewhere in this issue), writes of captured PLO documents showing:
“that the Soviet Union, through the PLO, actively sought groups of malcontents and rebels.” (emphasis added); and, later writes of “fun revolutionaries” from Europe coming to Lebanon to “experience the thrill of killing people” and of thousands visiting the PLO mini-state in Lebanon who were “given a license to satisfy their instinct to kill” (emphasis added); and alleges that the bombings in 1980 at Bologna railway station and the Octoberfest in Munich “were carried out by Germans and Italians working closely with the PLO”.(She can’t bring herself to state that they were fascist outrages.)
Given the patience these absurd examples could be multiplied 10, 20-fold. This book is mostly junk, mere propaganda. I had it with me to read on the train when I visited Colin Wallace. I showed him the list of contributors and mentioned the Jonathan Institute. “Oh, a Mossad front, you mean”, he said, and put it down. A Mossad front? I don’t know. But misinformation at worst, wilfully partial at best, this sort of crude propaganda can only do the Israeli state harm in the long run.