It takes a terrorist to know a terrorist

The nineyearold child Kim Phuc was naked terrified and running for her life from a deadly tidal wave of orange fire and black smoke Moments earlier a South Vietnamese Air Force plane had dropped a new incendiary explosive called a napalm bomb on her village of Trang Bang suspected by the United States of being a Viet Cong strongholdKim Phuc was terrified She had escaped incineration by ripping the burning clothes off her body but the intense heat had seared the skin off her arm and back leaving bare singed flesh Kim Phucrsquos mouth was wide open in a primal screamThe photo clicked by Nick Ut of the Associated Press was called The Terror of War It went on to win the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography and remains an iconic reminder of the horrors of warWhenever I read the word terrorist I think of the child in that photo If yoursquove ever wondered what terror looks like Kim Phucrsquos faceis the answerItrsquos 2023 a full halfcentury later and that word is in the air everywhere this time to describe Hamas whose blitzkrieg of Israel reignited simmering fires and precipitated a violent brutal noholdsbarred war with Israel and with no end in sight Each is promising to wipe the other outThe headlines tell me that I am to think of Hamas as the bad guys and Israel as the innocent victims Hamas is apparently a designated terrorist organisation even if they just pick their nose it counts as terrorismAlso read Celebrities should choose to lead by exampleHamas terrorists reveal a coordinated attack plan NBC NewsThe dastardly terrorist attacks perpetrated against innocent Israeli civilians by terror group Hamas CBS NewsThere is never any justification for terrorism We stand in solidarity with ReutersBut several venerable networks such as the BBC trod carefully calling Hamas militants but avoiding the TwordJohn Simpson BBC World Affairs Editor put out an explanation ldquoTerrorism is a loaded word which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally We donrsquot take sides we donrsquot use loaded words like evil or cowardly we donrsquot talk about terroristsrdquoAs usual we have questions Who decides what terrorism is If someone invaded your home and made you a refugee could you call them terroristsPalestine existed centuries before 1948 when a clique of western powers led by the British decided to carve a Jewish state out of Palestine and call it Israel Jews loved the idea Arabs rejected it and the partition was pushed through anyway Meanwhile the British fresh from creating Pakistan out of India just a year earlier and sowing the seeds for a bloody fractious future there retreated to their island singing It wasnrsquot meOver 700000 Palestinians instantly became refugees in what had once been their homeland The area has not seen peace since then Israelis and Palestinians die all the time each killed by the other side To a Palestinian Israel is the real terrorist who started it allThe world has not yet agreed on a single definition of terrorism Brian Jenkins terrorism expert says that ldquothe threat of violence individual acts of violence or a campaign of violence designed primarily to instil fear is terrorismrdquo Yonah Alexander of the International Center for Terrorism Studies says it is ldquothe use of violence against random civilian targets to intimidate or to create generalised pervasive fear for the purpose of achieving political goalsrdquoThe United Nations hasnrsquot classified Hamas as a terrorist organisation neither have most other countries However the USA the UK Canada and the EU have designated Hamas as terrorists and Israel as a victim and Irsquom guessing thatrsquos where you get your newsWhen Hamas attacks a kibbutz and takes Jewish hostages thatrsquos terror according to CNN However when a US drone accidentally wipes out a whole wedding party in Pakistan thatrsquos just collateral damage ShrugWhat would the Vietnamese child who survived napalm sayNapalm brewed by some Harvard scientists in a bathtub by mixing gasoline benzene and polystyrene is a monstrous malevolent explosive that creates a searing jellified gasoline that touches 2750degC and clings to the skin melting flesh to the bone The USA used it in World War II to wipe out 64 Japanese cities killing more people than the atomic bombs In the My Lai massacre the USA used napalm to murder hundreds of unarmed South Vietnamese civiliansNo one thought Kim Phuc would survive But after 14 months and 17 surgical procedures she returned home It was 10 years before she could walk again In 1992 she was granted political asylum in Canada where she lives with her husband and childrenThe napalm bombing of Trang Bang that Kim Phuc survived checks all the boxesIt was an act of violence with random civilian targetsIt created bloodcurdling terror and damaged families for generationsIt was a campaign planned by an international state player to achieve political goalsPerhaps one day someone will tell me why the USA is not called a state sponsor of terrorismYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper