How do terrorists justify their actions

The Republic fully enables the right of the Irish nation to self-determination, to cultural and religious development, and to unencumbered formation of identities as Irishmen and Irishwomen. If choosing to remain in Northern Ireland, any Catholic is a citizen of the United Kingdom, which is similarly a wealthy and democratic state and an open society.

He or she will enjoy full political rights and religious freedom as a British subject, and be represented in the British Parliament, as well as in democratic local government within Northern Ireland. Living conditions for most Catholics in Northern Ireland, while unequal to those of most Protestants, partly due to discrimination, have throughout the period not been terribly harsh.

Discounting certain measures arising from the need to deal with terrorism, there has been little violence inflicted on the civilian population by the British authorities, and hardly anything that can be described as tyranny or repression. There is complete freedom of movement and ample possibility for cultural interaction with the Republic of Ireland, for any Catholic choosing to remain in Northern Ireland.

Irish Catholics have a strong historical case for resentment against the English. The case for armed struggle, let alone for continuous terrorism, is very weak. There is, in terms of just-war theory, no just cause. Unionist terrorism in Northern Ireland can similarly be shown to be unjustified. Even immediate unification of the whole of Ireland could not justify terrorism by Protestants, for reasons parallel to the above.

Consider the following: a. Israel was established in following a decision in by a large majority in the United Nations to partition what remained of the British mandate over Palestine the part west of the River Jordan into two independent states, a Jewish State and an Arab State Resolution The Jewish leadership accepted the decision.

The official leadership of the Palestinian Arabs rejected the very idea of an independent state for the Jews as well as the compromise partition plan, and the Palestinians began fighting, which included a terrorist campaign, combined with the invasion of the military forces of five Arab armies.

Hence already in the Palestinians could have had an independent state alongside Israel. The Palestinians made no such attempt, aiming their political efforts, coupled by continuous terrorist incursions, at Israel.

Cross-border terrorism was led in the pre period by the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement, headed since by Yasser Arafat, with the avowed intention of provoking a war between Israel and the Arab states. Indiscriminate terrorism aimed at targets such as airplanes, synagogues, schools, and supermarkets, was continuous. It seems that once these territories were in Israeli hands Israel became a classic target for non-violent resistance, as practiced by Gandhi in India.

In Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt. That plan could also have led to the establishment of a Palestinian state. The Palestinians refused to join the talks when invited by the Egyptian President Anwar Saadat, and rejected that plan.

The Palestinian state-on-the-way was once again derailed by Palestinian terrorism. The Palestinians rejected the offers, made no counter-offer, and resorted to violence. Palestinian independence and the end to Israeli control seemed imminent. The view that the Palestinians only want a state of their own alongside Israel and, if that is granted, they would truly recognize Israel and let it be rather than use any territory that would be conceded as a springboard for seeking to destroy it , was perceived to have been discredited once again.

The Israeli public in a political backlash elected Ariel Sharon. He has publicly supported the idea of a Palestinian state once terrorism ceases, although it is not clear what his intentions are.

None of this is to deny that certain Israeli actions have been morally unacceptable, and that some Palestinian resentment has justification. No doubt, as in the case of Northern Ireland, the narrative is more complex, and might be interpreted in somewhat different ways at various points. But our question is specific: whether terrorism has been justified. And in this case as well, the negative conclusion is clear: the Palestinians have repeatedly had peaceful opportunities for gaining a state of their own and, tragically, have opted instead for terrorism.

For this there is no ethical justification. In terms of just-war theory, the just Palestinian aim of establishing a state of their own alongside Israel did not require terrorism: the necessity condition was not met.

Historical circumstances have changed over the years, but the Palestinians have always seemed to prefer the hopes of annihilating Israel in concert with Arab states, or the romance of violent struggle, to constructive accommodation. Rather than terrorism being required in order to establish a Palestinian state, it is on the contrary the Palestinians that have repeatedly sabotaged the establishment of an independent Palestine alongside Israel, both directly, and indirectly through the influence of their choices and actions on the Israeli democratic process.

Instances of terrorism by Jews since the establishment of Israel also lack any credible moral justification. Al-Qaeda has targeted Western states and westerners in general, Russians, Jews, non-sympathetic Islamic regimes and targets within Muslim countries, and other areas where Muslims may gain power such as the Philippines.

The ideology of this group is radical: it is anti-democratic and totalitarian, utopian, opposes universal human rights and the emancipation of women, anti-Western and anti-Semitic, and in favor of a continuous violent struggle towards the establishment of universal fundamentalist Muslim rule.

I trust that little needs to be said on why there is nothing here that can morally justify the most violent terrorist operations staged by al-Qaeda, which purposefully and typically discount non-combat immunity and moral innocence.

Primarily, there is, in terms of just-war theory, simply no just cause. There are 22 independent countries that are members in the Arab league, and dozens of explicitly Islamic countries the exact number depends on how those are defined.

There is ample potential for Islamic self-expression, the development of Muslim culture, and the practice of Islam, the religion of over one billion people. There are many problems within Muslim societies, as well as vast wealth derived from oil that could help deal with them, but nothing here can justify a terror campaign. We have seen, then, that the most concerted terrorist efforts since the Second World War, those of the IRA, of the Palestinians, and of al-Qaeda, seem to lie very low in any plausible scheme of moral justification.

This evaluation is not dependent on a subtle balancing of considerations, but is apparent to any sensible informed analysis.

What about the other side of the equation? Here, since we are thinking hypothetically, it is much harder to judge and, in any case, one must be very careful when suggesting that terrorist activity that might have been justified did not materialize.

Making a convincing case here would also require a very detailed description of the situations. However, I do not think that as philosophers we can hide from ourselves that such cases can probably be made. It is not clear whether terrorism would have been effective in stopping the horrors in those cases, or that there were not other untried means for doing so but, if such a case for unique effectiveness could have been made, perhaps in those cases it might have been, overall, justified.

Another possible area we might examine is that of limited terrorist actions aimed at galvanizing public attention to the plight of poor people in the Third World. With millions in Africa starving, with further millions dying because they cannot afford to buy inexpensive and readily available medication, and so on, a consequentialist perspective, at least, certainly justifies great moral outrage.

It might be argued that terrorism is unlikely to have a successful coercive effect here. However, if selective, limited and symbolic, it could certainly raise the issues to the headlines. Whether there are other as yet untried alternatives, and whether terrorism can be a positive influence here overall, are questions that, again, would require detailed investigation. But for our purposes it suffices that we pay attention to the interesting fact that no serious attempts of this kind — whether justified or not — have occurred.

Terrorism has continuously rocked the world, but such moral and idealistic aims have not been its targets. Thirdly, there is the issue of limited and narrowly focused terrorism aimed at toppling dictatorial regimes and establishing democracy. Many Third World regimes or indeed Second World ones, until the fall of Communism are not only undemocratic, but also severely oppressive.

In many countries there is no likely possibility of improvement unless present rulers are toppled. It could be argued that such regimes would not care about even a great deal of harm inflicted on their civilian population, hence terrorism would not be effective.

Other means of reform are perhaps not available, while limited terrorism focused on discrediting the regime or on influencing or harming the often-narrow elite might work. Again, great care must be taken here and the possibility of making a pro-terrorism case should be viewed skeptically.

The surprising fact, however, is, once again, how relatively uncommon terrorism has been in such contexts. The typical targets of terrorism in the narrow sense have been liberal democratic societies: consider which airlines have been hijacked, for instance. Terrorism has usually not targeted the worst but rather the best type of regimes in the world.

These are doubtless easier targets, but not morally fitting ones. Illusions I have argued, in a nutshell, that by and large where there has been terrorism it has not been justified, and where it perhaps could have been justified, it has not occurred. What follows from this? But not only is there no direct positive correlation, the two go in opposite directions.

It might be argued that terrorists and those assisting them cannot be expected to follow intricate discussions of analytic philosophy. But that was not the expectation: there is, after all, political leadership, public discussion, media coverage, academic research, and individual moral reflection, that might have been thought to have some positive effect, to help get things right.

The continuous nature of terrorism as practiced in all these cases also precludes the thought that what we have here are some simple errors of calculation e. Our result implies that the world is curiously disjointed. Perhaps there are situations where terrorism has been contemplated but not pursued as a result of good moral reasoning. Still, in a striking way the role of adequate moral reflection is shown in its emptiness — both when the efforts at justification ought to yield negative results, and when they ought perhaps to yield positive ones.

Within the societies and cultures that have generated terrorism, or support it, moral deliberation on our topic has failed to be effective. The thought that terrorism can be adequately guided by processes of justification is an illusion.

What, then, is going on? Terrorism exists in our three major examples for historical, sociological, cultural and psychological reasons. It is not by chance that, in all three cases, religion plays a large role. The nationalistic and religious hatred lying behind IRA, Palestinian and al-Qaeda terrorism goes a long way towards explaining it. It is not so much substantive moral concerns - with massive danger to life, collective self-determination, personal freedom, basic cultural and religious rights, lack of alternatives or the like - that lie behind these instances of terrorism, but the ghosts of history, the depths of ill will and the temptations of power.

What does the considerable impotence of this project in the present context imply about what we should do? At the very least, it seems to me to suggest that we take great care with this issue. For those deontologists who would condemn every instance of terrorism as such, matters are simpler. But that even without dismissing the possibility that terrorism can be justified, we have nevertheless concluded that, in the major examples of its prevalence, terrorism has been unjustified, should lead us to be very skeptical about the idea of permitting terrorism.

It might be countered that the absence of actualization of those examples where terrorism might be justified should lead us, by the same token, to be more daring in allowing it. But I do not think that matters are symmetrical here. We should err on the side of not allowing terrorism.

In a still deeper way, we need to confront the fundamental power of illusory forces. In the past, illusory ideas of superiority and fanatical power-hunger coupled with fantasies of world-mastery, such as those of the Nazis, overtook whole nations. The record of modern terrorism shows some of those elemental illusory forces at play and, in any case, exhibits a similar gross blindness to, or disdain of, acceptable standards of moral justification.

There is a grand struggle between moral justification and the temptations of terrorism, and at least where terrorism has occurred, so far moral justification has seemed to have but little effectiveness. This applies both at the grass roots level and with the respective elites. All of this does not mean that we should give up the effort at clarifying standards of moral justification, or give up the ideals of public enlightenment.

Any acts of cruelty hurt people, of course, and it is hard to deny the injury done by terrorists to their victims. But terrorists may believe that their actions will not have consequences to themselves since their cruelty will lead them to paradise, a better world under the Islamic rule of ISIS. Many jihadists even consider the civilians of Western countries as enemy fighters , since they support the politicians leading the war against ISIS.

In an adjunct attack to the January Charlie Hebdo attack , for instance, the perpetrator who attacked a Jewish supermarket in the surburbs of Paris, Amedy Coulibaly, justified killing a police officer and his deadly hostage-taking by claiming that the French government had decided to attack jihadists in Mali.

Know that in the heart of the lands of the Crusaders there is no protection for that blood, and there is no presence of so-called civilians. Rather than explain their actions, terrorists attack those who disapprove of their deviance. For them, the condemners — journalists, judges, police officers, and the like — are corrupted, depraved, brutal hypocrites and deviants, because they are kafir non-believers.

Thus the jihadists widely employ takfir - the branding of others as infidels who deserve death. To justify such atrocities, ISIS members will call their victims infidels, crusaders, fornicators, drunkards, sodomites, and so on. This neutralisation technique allows criminals to shrug off denunciation of their actions by questioning those segments of society that critique terrorism.

Social control may be neutralised by sacrificing the demands of larger society for the demands of smaller social groups to which the terrorists belong, such as ISIS and its sibling groups. The rhetoric of Islamic State makes much of its promises of brotherhood and friendship, and assures that ISIS endows its fighters with the gift of a shared higher meaning in life.

Dar al-Islam said in a article:. When they sacrifice their life for their religion, for their brothers and their sisters, we cry for them, really knowing that they are now with our Lord in his Paradise. In such a situation, the terrorists can neutralise any sense of guilt by demonstrating the noble spirit of their criminal actions, carried out as a sacrifice at the request of their small, tight-knit group community ISIS. Using total justification in their quest to achieve ISIS global domination, terrorists give themselves free reign to strike any supposed enemy, by any means necessary - even to kill innocents, non-Muslims and Muslims alike.