upvote
Here's my "nuanced" take: If a pro-zionist group were officialy designated as terrorists for spraying paint into a jet-engine I would find that ridiculous too.
reply
PA hit a police officer in the back with a sledgehammer.

During a 2024 raid on an Elbit Systems factory near Bristol, Samuel Corner—a Palestine Action activist—struck police sergeant Kate Evans in the back with a sledgehammer while she was on her knees arresting another activist. She suffered a fractured lumbar spine, was off work for three months, and later had to give up her rank. Corner was convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm and sentenced to seven years and eight months.

Also groups protesting Islamic violence rarely drive their cars through St John’s Wood screaming “kill the Jews rape their daughters” but that’s just my own personal experience.

reply
Sabotage of military aircraft is political violence.
reply
> I think its likely they do have sympathy for violent groups

The US regime is an extremely violent group, so I that's certainly the issue.

reply
[flagged]
reply
Right. But when when a group blows up hospitals, schools and other infrastructure and murders 70,000 civilians (Israel)... Why is that not disignated terrorism?
reply
Because you made that up. Hamas (and a few Palestinian civilians who decided to join in the fun) started a war by running round murdering and raping Israeli citizens. Hamas also recruits child soldiers. Hamas also openly and quite preferably launches attacks from schools and hospitals. Hamas openly and continually attacks Israeli citizens with rockets.
reply
You're not suggesting that most, if not all of these, are things the US hasn't done, are you? Surely not. The one you might try and dispute is the "50,000 protestors" one, as you know the other ones are clear as day.
reply
But it’s okay when we do it.

More seriously though, there’s no reasonable comparison to be made between any western power and Iran, Russia, or (and especially) Hamas.

October 7th was beyond the pale. Systemic rape, torture, and terror used to be something reasonable people could agree to stand against.

reply
I notice people always respond with "but the US does this too!" and never actual incidents. No, I'm not going to just high five your vague head nod at wrong doing you can't even describe.

Seriously, sit down, make a list of incidents, including weighing the outcome of those incidents. If it's a case where an officer or a soldier did something wrong, list what happened after (court, punishment, cleared of wrongdoing, etc)

Then do the same for your favorite alternate country that you think is superior. If you want to pick team Iran or Russia, then lay it out for them. Make the same list.

reply
The shootings took place on May 4, 1970, during a rally opposing the expanding involvement of the Vietnam War into Cambodia by United States military forces, as well as protesting the National Guard presence on campus and the draft. Twenty-eight National Guard soldiers fired about 67 rounds over 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom sustained permanent paralysis.

Eight of the shooters were charged with depriving the students of their civil rights, but were acquitted in a bench trial.

I'm not going to make an exhaustive list of all the terrible shit perpetrated by the US government and its agents. It would be too detrimental to my health. But you choosing to bury your head doesn't prove anything either, so I guess I have one up on you.

reply
the difference is literally 10000x
reply
The obvious key to the whole charade Would be to run down all of the games they played: Remember Dita Beard and ITT, the slaughter of Attica The C.I.A. in Chile knowing nothing about Allende at this time In the past, as I recollect, Augusta, Georgia The nomination of Supreme Court Jesters to head off the tapes William Calley's Executive Interference in the image of John Wayne Kent State, Jackson State, Southern Louisiana Hundreds of unauthorized bombing raids The chaining and gagging of Bobby Seale Somebody tell these Maryland Governors to be for real!
reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre

you would do well to note that this page links directly to an entire wikipedia entry for 'US War Crimes': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

reply
Everything I mentioned was from the last year. My Lai was more than 50 years ago and the perpetrator was arrested, tried and convicted.
reply
Spraying paint into the jet engine of a military aircraft is not "terrorism". It may be criminal, but it was not in any way a violent crime. Given that it disabled the aircraft, it counts as more than mere vandalism, but calling this an act of terror is outrageous.

The logic seems to be that Hamas has committed terrorist attacks against Israel, and is also the government of Palestine, so anyone fighting for the human rights of Palestinian people is actually materially supporting Hamas terrorism against Israelis. That does not really track if you know anything at all about what's going on in Palestine right now, or what people's actual criticisms of Israel are.

reply
Terrorism is often defined as actions designed to invoke political change.

There's no actual requirement for violence for it to be terrorism.

reply
You have a very nuanced take that I broadly agree with. I would add that they were probably targeted for political reasons, it's not like the current administration is going out of their way to tackle right wing "terrorism".
reply
deleted
reply
> Palestine Action has been designated a terrorist group in the UK as well after sabotaging military aircraft (the article says they sprayed paint, but does not say it was sprayed inside jet engines, rendering them inoperable).

That pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Definitions of "terrorism" that extend to sabotage against occupying or invading militaries and their allies are meaningless and hollow dilutions. At that point the discourse has been reduced to something like "violence is scary".

This use is also interesting (and galling) because it frames disarming as an unacceptably violent act.

There are some definitions of terrorism that leave room to designate attacks against professional agents of state violence as "terror", e.g., attacks on soldiers who are off-duty, attacks on civilian police forces, attacks on nominally civilian intelligence organizations like the CIA, etc.

Imo such uses of the words "terror" and "terrorism" should be considered carefully, because sometimes they are meaningful or useful, but often they are essentially attempts to hoodwink the public. Effectively they are designed so that any attack against an occupying army by a faction too weak to muster a permanent standing army of equal strength falls into the "terrorism" category, which means invasion is "war" but resistance is "terrorism".

The notion of "civilian" or "non-combatant" isn't always straightforward, either. In the history of the PKK, for example, one of the "civilian" forces targeted by bombings and shootings were a local militia whose sole purpose was suppressing popular unrest among local Kurdish populations who were forbidden from speaking their own native languages, celebrating their holidays, etc. Formally these militias were not part of an army. But their scarcely concealed function was suppression of the local population, unlike (for example) a proper civilian police force whose role is at least nominally to promote public safety, assist vulnerable (weak, elderly, disabled) citizens with daily life, investigate crimes, mediate/de-escalate disputes, etc.

Anyway, it's worth sitting down and thinking through a few different serious definitions of terrorism and asking yourself what use they are. One or more definitions will likely stand out to you as particularly useful when it comes to thinking through things like the safety of innocents, the morality and bounds of acceptable political activism, and other topics that might directly affect your comfort and safety. You'll often find that governments and large press organizations try to trade on the emotional impact of those definitions while operating under rather different ones that are more convenient for themselves.

reply
> Palestine Action has been designated a terrorist group in the UK as well after sabotaging military aircraft

This is already an extreme perversion of justice all on its own. Damaging military equipment is absolutely outside any useful definition of terrorism. This is simply armed conflict.

reply
Damaging property for political ends has been part of the definition in the UK, and I think the US, for decades. I would say the case for targetting military equipment is stronger than for damaging most other things.

> This is simply armed conflict.

Armed conflict by residents and citizens against the state is usually a serious criminal offense everywhere.

reply
> Damaging property for political ends has been part of the definition in the UK, and I think the US, for decades.

Does that include property in Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon? Because if the people who spray painted something are "terrorists", I want to know what the people who wiped Rafah off the face of the earth are called.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah

reply
Colinizers?
reply
Well the definition is flawed, or as the British say, the law is an ass.

Terrorism is widely understood to be the deployment of military force against civilian populations. Of course states do this all the time, but 'state terrorism' is basically dependent on whether politicians in country A align with country B or not; if they don't, they'll call out state abuses in country B as state terrorism, if not they'll say it's law and order.

Regardless of these nuances, extending the definition to include any kind of property damage is just laughably opportunist.

reply
>any kind of property

"Any kind" is quite the load bearing argument there. Let me remind you Europe is under an ongoing land invasion, which is why fucking with its defensive capabilities is unlikely to solicit much sympathies.

reply
> Armed conflict by residents and citizens against the state is usually a serious criminal offense everywhere.

I think it’s worth considering that you’re much more likely to be a resident or a citizen than a state when you’re deciding how you feel about these kinds of things.

reply
You cannot hide behind convenience.
reply
> Damaging property for political ends

Damaging military equipment is a military end, not a political one. If it were otherwise, then a military attacking a military would definitionally be terrorism. At that point, you've removed the utility of the word "terrorism" from English and made it synonymous with "armed conflict."

Terrorism being done chiefly to change policies by terrorizing people through symbolic acts is a constrained, generally-accepted definition of terrorism.

Contrast with 9/11, where symbols of American capitalism, filled with civilians, were attacked in order to terrify people who have nothing to do with those buildings into supporting changes in policy that hurt the US.

reply
I suppose the UK could declare Palestine Action as combatants and hunt them down and shoot them.. but that doesn't seem very uh, appropriate. I sort of prefer them being arrested and going through courts.
reply
Note that the UK would be committing war crimes in this case, since you are not allowed to murder unarmed soldiers, you are supposed to capture them and put them in POW camps.

Which is typically called „arresting“ when a government does it to their own citizens…

reply
PA was armed.

> you are not allowed to murder unarmed soldiers,

That's also false, you can absolutely kill unarmed combatants so long as they remain combatants. Eg you can bomb an artillery crew even if they don't have sidearms.

To be eligible for capture, a combatant must generally surrender.

> typically called „arresting“ when a government does it to their own citizens

I encourage you to read up on POW camps. There are no attorneys or rights. You may work POWs. There are cases in which food and medical aid can be severely limited depending on how it is sourced. You may hold POWs functionally forever.

reply
An artillery crew is armed with the cannon.

POWs don’t have attorneys, but they do have rights. Limiting food and medical aid is a war crime.

Of course, everybody routinely violates the rights of POWs, and only the losers ever get prosecuted.

reply
> Damaging military equipment is absolutely outside any useful definition of terrorism.

I hope no one takes this seriously.

If you're caught sabotaging equipment on a US military installation in many cases they are authorized to use deadly force and you'll be held accountable under the UCMJ. The absolute best outcome is you're designated a terrorist and live to see a prison cell.

reply
Terrorism used to be defined as attacking civilian targets to aid in political messaging.

Attacking military targets is somewhere between an insurgency, partisanism, or an armed conflict.

If we let terrorism mean “any act against the state”, then people who burn police cars are the same as people who plant bombs in shopping malls.

reply
Are you sure you want to say it's armed conflict? That makes it legitimate to kill members of Palestine Action.
reply
The labeling of groups as "terrorist" is intended to justify authorization for military action against those groups, where, prior to the Global War on Terror, state affiliation or outright sponsorship was typically needed for a military response.
reply
Do you think that's a different understanding of the situation than the one that the state currently has?

Is it not "legitimate" in the same way to kill terrorists?

reply
I am not an expert on the legalities. My impression is that, if they are terrorists, you kind of have to catch them in the act, or preparing to act, or providing support for actions. An army, in wartime, can be attacked in broader circumstances.

Corrections welcome if I am wrong.

reply
The US has murdered around 220 people at sea over the last year for the act of travelling like they are "narco terrorists".
reply
[flagged]
reply