The Convenient Enemy: Terrorism Designations Serve State Power

March 20, 2025
13:15

In the taxonomy of politically useful words, few have served power more faithfully than “terrorist.” It’s the linguistic equivalent of a skeleton key—unlocking military budgets, suspending civil liberties, and rendering constitutional constraints suddenly flexible. Most importantly, it transforms the labeled party into a legitimate target while simultaneously delegitimizing their grievances.

The scapegoating of Hamas as a “terrorist organization” provides the perfect moral cover for actions that would otherwise demand explanation. It’s worth asking: Who gets to designate terrorists, and by what authority do they claim this power?

The Mathematics of Violence

If we were to judge states by the raw data of human suffering they’ve produced, we might find ourselves with a very different list of “terrorist entities.” No organization kills more efficiently or in greater numbers than governments. And in the past two decades, no governments have produced more corpses—regardless of claimed justification—than the United States and Israel.

Since 2001, American military interventions have resulted in conservatively estimated 800,000 to 1 million deaths across Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and beyond. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, meanwhile, has claimed over 14,000 Palestinian lives since 2008, with the overwhelming majority in Gaza.

Hamas’s October 7 attack, horrific by any measure, killed approximately 1,200 Israelis. Every innocent death represents an individual tragedy. But the numerical disparity reveals the absurdity of suggesting that Hamas represents the primary threat to human life in the region.

When the world’s most lethal military powers appoint themselves judges of acceptable violence, we’re witnessing not moral clarity but power consolidation.

The Architect of His Own Enemy

The relationship between Israel and Hamas reveals something more complex than the simplified good-versus-evil narrative presented in Western media. Documents from the Israeli government show that between 2018 and 2023, Israel approved and facilitated the transfer of Qatari funds to Gaza, which indirectly benefited Hamas.

A 2025 Shin Bet investigation concluded that this flow of money, approved by Netanyahu himself, helped subsidize Hamas’s military buildup before the October 7 attack. Netanyahu explicitly stated in 2019 that supporting and transferring money to Hamas was part of Israel’s strategy to isolate Palestinians in Gaza from those in the West Bank.

Hamas wasn’t inexplicably created—it emerged organically during the First Intifada in 1987 as a response to specific historical conditions, much as Hezbollah formed in 1982 following Israeli operations in Lebanon.

The cynical reality is that having the perfect enemy—one dangerous enough to justify extreme responses but contained enough to manage—serves political purposes that peace never could.

The Language of Legitimacy

The terrorist designation functions primarily as a mechanism for determining whose violence requires justification and whose doesn’t. State violence, regardless of scale, remains perpetually “defensive.” Non-state violence, regardless of context, becomes inherently illegitimate.

Nelson Mandela remained on the U.S. terrorist watchlist until 2008—well after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Menachem Begin, former Prime Minister of Israel, once led the Irgun—considered a terrorist organization by the British for bombing the King David Hotel, killing 91 people.

The moral flexibility of these designations reveals their true purpose: not to identify uniquely abhorrent violence, but to establish a hierarchy of whose violence is permissible.

Moral Consistency, Not Equivalence

None of this constitutes a defense of violence against civilians—regardless of perpetrator. The targeting of Israeli citizens by Hamas was inexcusable, as is the targeting of Palestinian civilians by the IDF.

What’s required isn’t moral equivalence but moral consistency. If we believe killing civilians is wrong, then it’s wrong regardless of whether the killer wears a uniform, carries sophisticated weaponry, or operates from an office building in Tel Aviv or Washington.

The selective application of our language—and our outrage—reveals more about political allegiances than ethical principles.

Beyond the Terror Frame

Perhaps it’s time to move beyond the intellectually lazy frame of “terrorism” altogether. Violence against civilians warrants condemnation regardless of justification. But understanding political violence requires examining its causes, not merely its symptoms.

When states that have killed more civilians than any others in modern history designate who qualifies as a “terrorist,” we might reasonably question whether we’re witnessing justice or merely power defining its challengers.

The scapegoating of Hamas allows for the continuation of the very policies that created Hamas in the first place. It’s a cycle as predictable as it is tragic.

Rather than asking who deserves the label “terrorist,” we might instead ask: Who is actually making the world more terrifying? And whose interests does our selective moral outrage serve?

What do you think? Has the designation “terrorist” become simply another tool of state power, or does it still serve a legitimate purpose in identifying uniquely threatening actors? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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