In plain English, what’s the difference between a militant and a terrorist?

Just when it is needed most, plain language and common sense are being lost on all sides of the debate on terrorism. This confusion was on display after the Israeli government assassinated Hamas leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

Journalists have long opted out of calling Hamas a terrorist group, preferring the less pejorative "militant group". This is, in part, because the United Nations has not proscribed Hamas as a terrorist organisation. But we need not rely on the Byzantine operations of the UN to know the meaning of words.

The ABC, SBS and the commercial networks, all seek euphemisms like "militant" in order to be seen as even-handed. News agency Reuters banned the label "terrorist" in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001. We also hear regularly from ABC journalists about the “so-called war on terror.” Perhaps they mean the war on militancy or the so-called war on alleged militancy?

This mealy-mouthed approach to language gives militants of all types a bad name. We militant guardians of plain language would be reluctant to use Hamas’s tactics against the ABC. And we doubt that the ABC would label us as militants if we did.

Hamas targets Israeli civilians in an attempt to force them to change their political views. That is terrorism and Hamas is a terrorist organisation. The question of why many Palestinians are so desperate that they feel compelled to take such extreme action is another matter entirely.

One reason for the widespread refusal to label Hamas as a terrorist group is that they have a welfare arm that provides schools and medical care in the occupied territories. Leaving aside the propaganda and hatred that Palestinian children would imbibe in those schools, its welfare functions do not make Hamas any less of a terrorist entity.

The leader of a terrorist organisation is surely a legitimate military target. The fact that Sheik Yassin was a spiritual leader and wheelchair bound, made his orders no less lethal to Israeli citizens.

Assassination may not be tactically smart, as is probably the case with the Sheik, but the moral angst over the loss of a single life is somewhat misplaced, in the instance of such an eager participant in the Middle East bloodbath.

The consensus among political leaders, that political leaders should not be attacked, is neither here nor there, as many world leaders double as military commanders-in-chief. If they don’t want to be targets they should be careful where they point their guns.

In squibbing the use of the label of terrorism, Reuters ran the line that “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.” Nonsense. This conceptual confusion over the ends and means of political action is common enough, even in our universities. Freedom is a political goal. Terrorism is a means of achieving a political goal. Hamas is thus both freedom-fighter and a terrorist group. Ghandi drew the distinction between ends and means and so should we.

By this definition, then, is Israel a terrorist state? That would depend on the intent of the Israeli government in its incursions into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

At the very least, Israel acts with reckless indifference to civilian casualties when it takes action against terrorist groups in the occupied territories (the Israeli government prefers “disputed territories”). But, unlike Hamas, Israel claims not to be targeting civilians. If the intent of the incursions is to pressure civilians into not supporting Hamas, then they are indeed acts of terror.

Viewers of the Fox News Channel will be familiar with their use of the term "suicide-murderer". Surely the accepted term "suicide bomber" conveys the intended meaning. We know the intent of the terrorists. Altering the language to add a layer of condemnation brings us no closer to understanding the problem.

Those using the euphemism "militant" instead of "terrorist" are doing the reverse, seeking to avoid the moral condemnation associated with the word terrorism. But this example simply shows the futility of a bias-free approach. Terrorism has a simple meaning, which should be applied to those who practice it. There is a good reason why the word carries a pejorative bias.

What is it about world politics that prevents clear thinking? We have seen for the past year a tendency to wilfully confuse the war on terrorism, with the war in Iraq. The people of Spain voted out a government that supported a war they didn’t want. For their trouble, supporters of the war have labelled them appeasers. The fact the Spanish people changed their government after being targeted by al-Qa’ida, is no more appeasement of terrorism, than the American decision to withdraw its forces from Saudi Arabia.

There was all sorts of yelping from right-wingers when John Pilger recently told the ABC that Australian soldiers were legitimate targets for the Iraqi resistance. But Pilger, wrong about most things, is correct on this occasion. It is an obvious consequence of waging war that our soldiers become targets for the enemy.

Any numbers of high-profile leaders are convinced that terrorism is caused by poverty. Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke recently of the “conditions of poverty, of disease, of ignorance” that breed terrorism. However commendable it would be to reduce global poverty, it has very little to do with terrorism.

All the S11 bombers were educated members of the Arab middle class. Al-Qa’ida’s recruits are driven by perceived injustice, not poverty. Indeed, education is an essential part of the development of zealotry of all kinds. That, quite simply, is why Hamas operates schools.

An even-handed approach to the world’s trouble spots need not be a value-free approach. It is difficult enough trying to sort out solutions to the world’s many problems without crossing the line between impartiality and vacuousness in our discourse. Let’s start by calling a terrorist a terrorist.