Terrorism is a deeply racialized word which broadly means othered violence. The self has a state and has reasons for its violence, whereas the other is (usually) stateless and is completely irrational. State violence is a necessary evil, whereas stateless violence is just evil. Before you have a state — like the founding of Israel, or the American oligarch rebellion — you are ‘terrorists’ (née savages). Once you do have a state, then you have a self, you are no longer ‘other’. The blood washes clean from your hands and you can liberally point to others, doing the same shit you were just doing, except it’s bad now.

Whiteness

Terrorism is racialized because it maps onto the hierarchy of whiteness, the fluid racial order that colonialism used to map order onto the world, with corporations at the top, Europeans under them, and everyone else clambering up and kicking down for favor and resources. Animals and the natural world are, of course, at the bottom, because white supremacism is just a subsection of human supremacism over all. Terrorism is violence which flows the wrong way along the hierarchy. The problem is not violence per se but violence out of order. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s hierarchy, as the saying goes.

Hence the USA calls many groups terrorist, but never the KKK, which instead gets invited to the White House. Or Israel lies about their enemies beheading babies, while actually killing babies in incubators. There’s no inconsistency here because the hierarchy is preserved. The feeling of ‘terror’ is reserved for ‘white’ people (and humans), and what native or natural beings feel simply doesn’t register. Hence Israel refers to its periodic pogroms of Palestine as dealing with ‘human animals’ or ‘mowing the lawn’, just as America culled the ‘merciless savages’ and animals of Turtle Island.

Frightness

These are, of course, academic definitions of terrorism, whereas how it is experienced has a more specific meaning in modern times. While, politically, on an unconscious level, terrorism is racialized, on the personal, conscious level, terrorism is deeply emotionalized. Terrorism is perceived as attacks on civilians, usually gruesome ones that, most importantly, could happen to you. In fact, you’re about as likely to die in a tornado, but it’s the feeling (ie, terror) that counts. You can easily imagine yourself blowing up in a café or on a bus, and your (imaginary) selfhood is thus tied up in the (also imaginary) selfhood of the state. You are united, thus, against the other, in the imaginary selfhood you share.

Modern Times

Modern times, however, are a-changing. People can imagine themselves in all kinds of places, and ‘other’ people can project themselves in all directions. The contradiction of capitalist white supremacy is that it must keep including more people (human capital) to keep growing, so the definition of whiteness keeps expanding.Thus you get an Irish Catholic President (not ‘white’ this time last century), Indians running the UK, and Muslims all over the place. A whole range of people are dutifully climbing the ladder of whiteness, which now includes identifying with ‘others’ from a very young age. As the American yard signs read, ‘In this house, X, Y, and Z are welcome, as long as it doesn’t mess with my property values.’ This is the central contradiction of late-stage capitalism, the yard sign by which it is measured and found lacking.

To take the most proximate example in Palestine, White Empire needs to keep the Middle East divided and conquered to control the oil. But they’re not supposed to be doing genocide anymore, or even using oil! Whereas in the past the British Empire could just call itself an Empire and openly say they were taking shit and civilizing savages, you can’t say that shit anymore. But America, the heirs to White Empire, still has to do it! This is a deep contradiction.

What Empire has been teaching their children doesn’t match what they’re still doing, and as Bobby D said, “Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command” Unfortunately, Empire’s son’s and daughters don’t command shit, and Empire’s gerontocracts don’t give a damn, making the whole thing a carnival of impotence. The real battle is being joined by the orphan army of Hamas and the poorest countries in the Arab world, who are actually resisting, and being called ‘terrorist’ for their troubles. But the word doesn’t stick anymore because, well, just look at the world.

Modern Terrorism

Indians are cowboys and cowboys are Indians. Cops are robbers and robbers are cops. The media is social, and the social is media. Soldiers are terrorists and terrorists are soldiers. The world is upside-down which is terrible for an Empire defined by a hierarchy. To take the soldier/terrorist example, nothing is as it’s supposed to be. Hamas soldiers are attacking tanks, while Israeli tanks are attacking hospitals! There’s no way to spin this, really. The world itself has gone topsy-turvy. Just compare Telegrams and see.

Comparing Telegrams

I increasingly follow Telegram for news, because all the people you’re supposed to hate are on there. Like, for example, the Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. Terrorists, of course, but are they? Look at what they’re doing. Here is a random screenshot of their updates from 3 December 2023, auto-translated.

Of these activities, we have five reports of attacking soldiers and military equipment, ie, what soldiers are supposed to do. Only two of the reports are about firing rockets at settlements, themselves on occupied land. But let’s call that terrorism to be generous.

Now let’s compare to Israel, which is, in contrast, all terrorism all the time. Israel doesn’t have granular updates at all. They just include big updates, saying something insane like “10,000 airstrikes were carried out” and expect you to take their word that terrorists were hit, despite people having eyes and social media to see the actual civilian carnage.

The Israeli Occupation Forces use the word terrorism a lot, but the world has eyes and their victims have cameras. We have seen the targeted bombings of hospitals, mosques, refugee camps, and homes. We have seen tanks physically invading hospitals, forcing the doctors out at gunpoint, abducting them, and leave premature babies to die and decompose alone. We have seen the bombing of refugee camps with 2,000 kg American bombs. We have seen the targeting of journalists, food and water supplies, not to mention cutting off water, electricity, and fuel to an entire population. Israel's acts are terrifying and they have traumatized not just Palestinians but the entire world. If this isn’t terrorism, what is?

Israel lies about every target being a ‘terrorist’ target, saying that Hamas was ‘near or inside civilian buildings, such as schools, kindergartens, mosques, and playgrounds.’ Then they film themselves standing in front of toilets and baby bottles, claiming its terrorist infrastructure, and they look like idiots.Meanwhile the western media has been crying wolf about terrorism for two decades now, and can hardly back them up on this one. It doesn’t work anymore, but Satan knows they’re trying. You can see the excuses yourself.

This thin gruel, however, is beggared by the Palestinian Resistance, posting videos of them running up on tanks and blowing them up with their bare hands. Of them releasing hostages with daps instead of broken bones. The ‘terrorists’ look like soldiers and the soldiers look like terrorists. While the Resistance updates are all about hitting military targets, the Israeli updates are about blowing up hospitals and homes. The IOF tried to post a Hamas-style video of battle footage and just filmed themselves shooting up desks in an empty school. They look like idiots.

Who’s Bad?

So who’s the terrorists now? Who always was? Once you get past the perception of othered violence and look at it objectively, it’s the guys in masks saying Allahu Akbar that act like decent soldiers while the suit-and-ties on TV look like absolute ghouls. Meanwhile a world with social media can easily imagine themselves in the Palestinians, and can thus feel Empire’s violence for what it is. Terrorism, acts on civilians which inspire terror in the population at large.

The Resistance, on the other hand, is methodically dismantling the military might of Empire with GoPros on; thus dismantling their mighty propaganda too. The ‘terrorists’ look like brave soldiers, while the ostensible soldiers look like absolute cowards and bullies, killing children more than anybody else. This was always true but A) the bad guys won and B) controlled perception. Now the doors of perception are overflowing with the blood of children and we can see White Empire as it is. Infinitely terrible.

So who’s the terrorists now? Who always was? Don’t follow the bullshit, which is bullshit. Follow the body count. Who’s hitting civilians and making a big show of it, and who’s hitting military targets and making every homemade mortar count? All of the bombs Israel, America, and the whole White Empire have dropped on millions of people are worse than the improvised bombings and stabbings people have responded with for the simple fact that they killed more people.

Calling one act ‘terrorism’ and the other business as usual is only possible because of a mass advertising campaign to comprehensively deny the feelings of people actually being bombed and manufacture the feelings of people that just see it on TV. You see it in Israel with the lies about October 7th — that children were beheaded, that people were raped, that civilians were targeted. None of this is true, but it doesn’t matter, it’s about evoking a feeling, it’s about terrorizing people to get what you want, which is what the Empire was doing.

Allahu Akbar

Thus it ain’t the people saying Allahu Akbar you should fear. God is great, especially compared to the godless carbon crusaders defiling their own holy land. America is the Great Satan, creating a Babel Tower of bombs and mass media that needs to be taken down, brick by brick, mortar by mortar. While imperial liberals call for an incremental approach, that simply doesn’t work when children are dying every 10 minutes. Obviously you’d fight for your children. Their incrementalism looks demented now.

Jihad against this great evil is justified, and godspeed to the mujahideen fighting it. Jihad — far from being the scary Muslim word it’s been marketed as — means a righteous struggle, and it’s an act of self-discipline above all. Hamas certainly has attacked buses and cafés before, but they’re much more disciplined now. Their attacks on October 7th were more than proportional, and they and their allies are strategically lighting up military targets above all. The contrast couldn’t be more striking. The terrorists are acting like soldiers and the soldiers like terrorists, except with industrial munitions and air forces. Israel and America are attacking ambulances and entire neighborhoods, while Hamas dismantles tanks with their bare hands and sheer bravery. So I’ll ask it again, who’s the terrorists now? One side is blowing up hospitals and the other tanks. Once you get past the racism, isn’t it obvious?