re: #218 reuven

What, if anything, are we to make of Alice Walker calling the United States a “terrorist state?”

[Link: www.foreignpolicy.com…]

To me, it’s pretty shocking. And I need to see who is connected to the Alice Walker universe—from Tracy Chapman to Oprah Winfrey—so I can be sure not to support them.

Do you really find it shocking? It’s pretty well worn debate territory at this point.

I think it comes down to the near impossibility of clearly delineating ‘terrorism’; its a messy concept.

For what its worth, here’s the relevant part of the interview. I’d say her particular deployment of the word ‘terrorism’ is pretty poorly defined, but that’s about par for the course, whether you are on the left or the right.

AW: I think Israel is the greatest terrorist in that part of the world. And I think in general, the United States and Israel are great terrorist organizations themselves. If you go to Gaza and see some of the bombs — what’s left of the bombs that were dropped — and the general destruction, you would have to say, yeah, it’s terrorism. When you terrorize people, when you make them so afraid of you that they are just mentally and psychologically wounded for life — that’s terrorism. So these countries are terrorist countries.

FP: How is the United States a terrorist country?

AW: It is. Absolutely, it is. It has terrorized people around the globe for a very long time. It has fought against countries that have tried to change their governments, that have tried to have democracies, and the United States has intervened and interfered, like in Guatemala or Chile. I feel that it is so unreasonable, and I don’t quite understand how they can claim everyone else is a terrorist and they are not when so many people right this minute are terrified of the drones, for instance, in the war in Afghanistan. The dropping of bombs on people — isn’t that terrorism?

FP: Of course Israel and the U.S. aren’t the only ones that use bombs. Hamas has fired rockets at Israel in the past.

AW: Yes. And I’m not for a minute saying anybody anywhere should fire rockets. I mean, I would never do it. Nor would I ever supply such a thing to anyone. But it’s extremely unequal. If people just acknowledge how absurdly unequal this is. This is David and Goliath, but Goliath is not the Palestinians. They are David. They are the ones with the slingshot. They are the ones with the rocks and relatively not-so-powerful rockets. Whereas the Israelis have these incredibly damaging missiles and rockets. When do you as a person of conscience speak and say enough is enough?