If change is its watchword, the next US administration will have to tackle the root causes, not mere manifestations, of terrorism, writes Ayman El-Amir* America has never ceased to shock or surprise the world. It did the first by defying the international consensus and invading Iraq in 2003. In November 2008, it surprised the world and itself by electing the first African American president. If this demonstrates the deftness of one man who rallied Americans around the centrist concept of change, it provides the president-elect with a flexible mandate to take a fresh look at one of the world's most lethal phenomena -- terrorism. The problem, which former Russian president Vladimir Putin characterised as "the scourge of the 21st century", has been frozen in time and manipulated by the neoconservative clan of the Bush administration. Because of the traumatic events of 11 September 2001, when the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York were crash- bombed by terrorists piloting civilian aircraft, the US launched a retaliatory carpet-bombing of Afghanistan. While this marked the beginning of the Bush administration's global war on terror, it also skewed UN negotiations to define and formulate a binding international treaty against terrorism. Two decades of UN deliberations identified three aspects of terrorism: anarchic terrorism that only seeks destruction and the spread of panic by irreverent groups with maverick agendas; terrorism by freedom fighters in territories under foreign military occupation or for self-determination and independence; and state terrorism against opposition individuals or those under military siege. Terrorism to spread anarchy and demolish state structure and civil institutions was more widespread in the 19th century. It coincided with the rise of nationalism and claims of separate national identities in imperial Europe, where anarchist groups perpetrated acts of terrorism in the quest to tear down what they considered as iniquitous social and political structures in a continent of more than 500 minorities. It was marked by political assassinations of which the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the prized heir to the Austro- Hungarian Empire, and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo in 1914 by a young Serb nationalist triggered a series of events leading to the outbreak of World War I. However, the unifying structure of the nation-state prevailed as it used its central role to establish order and stability. Despite some outbursts of anarchist-terrorist organisations in the 20th century, such as the Baader-Meinhoff in Germany, the Red Army Brigades in Japan and the spate of underground organisations in the US, including the Black Panthers, the Weathermen, Revolutionary Force No 9 and the Simbionese Liberation Army, anarchist-terrorism was besieged and liquidated by the early 1970s. The 11 September terrorist attack came as a bonanza for Israel and its now comatose former prime minister Ariel Sharon in more than one way. It virtually sealed the UN debate on terrorism that had as its core issue the distinction between senseless violence and national liberation struggles, particularly by freedom fighters in territories under military occupation. The situation perfectly served the purposes of Sharon in persuading an inexperienced and humiliated president in Washington that by confronting and liquidating Palestinian resistance Israel, too, was combating terrorism. With President Bush's blessings, the US administration provided cover for a series of Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians in the occupied territories, starting with the siege and massacre in Jenin in 2002. It marked a signpost in Israel's long trail of state terrorism against the Palestinians since the 1947 UN Partition Plan. Israeli practices of the expropriation of Palestinian land, demolition of homes, territorial expansion and the transfer of Israeli population to occupied Palestinian territories, imposition of a state of siege on various population centres, collective punishment against the Palestinian population, destruction of groves and plantations, denial of medical facilities and medical assistance, delaying the rescue of seriously wounded persons and the murder of protesting women and children are documented human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity. For the Palestinians under brutal Israeli military occupation, armed resistance is the only option they have to face systematic Israeli expansionist policy aimed at the obliteration of Palestinian identity. Almost all first generation Israeli leaders were members of terrorist organisations that drove the Palestinians out of their homes and towns in what they called "the war of liberation". This translated into evicting Palestinian inhabitants from their land by massacres and intimidation to fulfil a racist-Zionist hoax of a "land without people for a people without land". When Menachem Begin was sworn in as prime minister of Israel on 20 June 1977, the legendary CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite prefaced the evening news broadcast by the words: "Menachem Begin, a terrorist come prime minister, was sworn in today." Of the worst examples of state terrorism, Israel is not the only one. The same practice occurred in several South American countries, including Chile, Argentina and Brazil where the military seized power and sought to liquidate the opposition. However, unlike the Israeli example, these were not race-based persecutions by a foreign military power that sought the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population. Israeli state terrorism is more akin to Nazi Germany's persecution of resistance fighters in European countries it conquered and subdued. It was in these circumstances that European armed resistance against the Nazis was born, blessed and abetted. The Palestinians are now denied this exclusively white European right. Indigenous state terrorism is practised by the military in several African, Asian and Arab countries against their opponents under a variety of emergency laws. But it is different in the sense that it is perpetrated by one of the powers on the national scene, not by a foreign power of occupation and exploitation in the colonialist tradition. For the new US president to confront terrorism with any degree of success he will have to view it as a global political problem that requires political not military solutions. It only becomes a security problem if and when it reaches US shores. But even then it cannot, and will not be addressed by the short-sighted strategy of hot pursuit to the ends of the world that the Bush clan, under the Bush doctrine, followed without much success. A political solution will require a thorough analysis of the root causes of terrorism, not its justification, and building a global consensus to combat it. But building a coalition of the perpetrators of military occupation and territorial expansion as epitomised by Israel, or building alliances with dictators whose violation of the basic human rights of their nationals is winked at because these regimes serve US interests, could only help stoke not stem the tide of terrorism. Whatever the perspective, any objective analysis of the root causes will identify two major factors: foreign military occupation and domestic violence against the population by oppressive regimes. To build a strong and effective alliance against terrorism, the US will have to rid itself of the vestiges of its aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. For Iraq, the imposition of an agreement to guarantee long-term US military presence could only serve as a casus belli that will not accommodate the interests of the US in the region. Afghanistan has fought foreign military intruders for most of its modern history and will continue to do so, even if it is pitted against the entire NATO alliance. A peaceful solution based on national consensus needs to be worked out in Afghanistan, the Taliban included. For Iran, the new regional power in the Middle East, the ring of military bases surrounding it, the threat of military action against it and Israeli aspirations for regional military hegemony are the fundamental reasons for its reactive defence- mechanism policy. US incitement of its Gulf/ Middle East so-called "moderate" allies against Iran is one of the follies of the Bush administration. This kind of confrontation should be scaled back if a meaningful dialogue about some of the root causes of terrorism is to be fruitful. * The writer is former Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington, DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York.
