Discussion 2
The Origins and Internationalization of Terrorism
A. Postwar Palestine
Palestine had, of course, long been the scene of numerous riots and other
manifestations of intercommunal violence that between 1936 and 1939 had culminated in
a full- scale rebellion by its Arab inhabitants. In 1937, a new element was added to the
country’s incendiary landscape when the Irgun commenced retaliatory terrorist attacks on
the Arabs. The group expanded its operations to include British targets in 1939 following
the government’s promulgation of a White Paper in May that imposed severe restrictions
on Jewish immigration to Palestine, thereby closing one of the few remaining avenues of
escape available to Euro pean Jews fleeing Hitler. But the Irgun’s inchoate revolt against
British rule was short- lived. Less than three months after it began, Britain was at war
with Germany. Confronted by the prospect of the greater menace of a victorious Nazi
Germany, the Irgun declared a truce and announced the suspension of all anti- British
operations for the war’s duration. Like the rest of the Jewish community in Palestine,
who had also pledged to support the British war effort, the Irgun hoped that this loyalty
would later result in the recognition of Zionist claims to statehood.
In May21942, a young private attached to General Wladyslaw Anders’s Polish
army- in- exile arrived in Palestine. Menachem Begin’s journey had been a circuitous
one. Born in 1913 in Brest Litovsk, Poland, the future prime minister of Israel (1977–
1983) had first become involved in Zionist politics as a teenager when he joined Betar, a
right- wing nationalist Jewish youth group. By the time he had received his law degree
from Warsaw University in 1936, Begin was head of the group’s Organization
Department for Poland. Three years later he was appointed its national commander.
When Germany invaded Poland in September21939, however, Begin was forced to flee to
Lithuania. A year later, Russian secret police arrested him and charged him with being
“an agent of British imperialism.” After spending nine months in a local jail, Begin was
sentenced to eight years of “correctional labor.” In June21941, when Germany invaded
Russia, he was on a Russian ship carrying political prisoners to a Stalinist labor camp in
Siberia. A reprieve came in the form of an offer to join the Polish Army or continue his
journey. Begin chose the former and found himself in a unit ordered to Palestine. Shortly
after his arrival, he established contact with the Irgun high command.
Since the suspension of its revolt, the Irgun had fallen into disarray. The deaths of
its ideological mentor, Vladimir Jabotinsky, in August21940 and its military commander,
David Raziel, nine months later had deprived the group of leadership and direction at a
time when its self- imposed dormancy required someone at the top with the vision and
organizational skills necessary to hold it together. Throughout 1943, Begin met with the
Irgun’s surviving senior commanders to discuss the group’s future. As the war against
Germany moved decisively in the Allies’ favor, they became convinced that the Irgun
should resume its revolt. Four dominant considerations influenced this decision. First and
foremost was news of the terrible fate that had befallen Euro pean Jewry under Nazi
domination. Second, the expiration in March21944 of the White Paper’s rigidly enforced
five- year immigration quota would likely choke off all future Jewish immigration to
Palestine. Third, the Irgun’s leaders agreed that the reasoning behind the self- imposed
truce they had declared four years before— that harming Britain might help Germany—
was no longer tenable since the course of World War II had now virtually assured an
Allied victory. Finally, by renewing the revolt, the Irgun’s revamped high command
sought to position themselves and their organization at the vanguard of the active
realization of the Jews’ political and nationalist aspirations.
In contrast to other colonial rebellions that either had sought decisive military
victories in actual battle or had relied on a prolonged strategy of attrition, the Irgun
adopted a strategy that involved the relentless targeting of those institutions of
government that unmistakably represented Britain’s oppressive rule of Palestine. Thus,
the Irgun recommenced operations in February21944 with the simultaneous bombings of
immigration department offices in Palestine’s three major cities— Jerusalem, Tel Aviv,
and Haifa. Subsequent attacks were mounted against the government land registry
offices, from which the White Paper’s provisions restricting Jewish land purchase were
administered; the department of taxation and finance, responsible for collecting the
revenue used to fund the government’s repressive policies; and of course the security
forces— the police and army— that were charged with enforcement of the White Paper
of 1939.
The Irgun’s most spectacular operation was without doubt its bombing in
July21946 of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel. Although much has been written about this
controversial incident, it is worth recalling that the King David was no ordinary hotel. On
six floors of its southern wing (beneath which the explosives were placed), the hotel
housed the nerve center of British rule in Palestine: the government secretariat and
headquarters of British military forces in Palestine and Transjordan. The attack’s target,
therefore, was neither the hotel itself nor the people working or staying in it, but the
government and military offices located there. Nor was its purpose random,
indiscriminate carnage. Unlike many terrorist groups today, the Irgun’s strategy was not
deliberately to target or wantonly harm civilians. At the same time, though, the claim of
Begin and other apologists that warnings were issued to evacuate the hotel before the
blast cannot absolve either the group or its commander from responsibility for the ninety-
one people killed and forty- five others injured— men and women, Arabs, Jews, and
Britons alike. Indeed, whatever nonlethal intentions the Irgun may or may not have had,
the fact remains that a tragedy of almost unparalleled magnitude was inflicted at the King
David Hotel, so that to this day the bombing remains one of the world’s single most
lethal terrorist incidents of the twentieth century.
In sum, this was not a war of numbers. Success was measured not in terms of
casualties inflicted (between 1945 and 1947, the worst years of the conflict, just under
one hundred fifty British soldiers were killed) or assets destroyed, but— precisely as
Begin had wanted—by psychological impact. In place of a conventional military strategy
of confrontation in battle, Begin and his lieutenants conceived operations that were
designed less to kill than to tarnish the government’s prestige, demoralize its security
forces, and undermine Britain’s resolve to remain in Palestine. Explaining his strategy,
Begin argued: “The very existence of an underground must, in the end, undermine the
prestige of a colonial regime that lives by the legend of its omnipotence. Every attack
which it fails to prevent is a blow at its standing. Even if the attack does not succeed, it
makes a dent in that prestige, and that dent widens into a crack which is extended with
every succeeding attack.” Thus, even though the British forces outnumbered the
terrorists by twenty to one—so that there was, according to one account, “one armed
soldier to each adult male Jew in Palestine”— even with this overwhelming
numerical superiority, the British were still unable to destroy the Irgun and maintain
order in Palestine.
Finally, an integral and innovative part of the Irgun’s strategy was Begin’s use of
daring and dramatic acts of violence to attract international attention to Palestine and
thereby publicize simultaneously the Zionists’ grievances against Britain and their claims
for statehood. In an era long before the advent of CNN and instantaneous satellite-
transmitted news broadcasts, the Irgun deliberately attempted to appeal to a worldwide
audience far beyond the immediate confines of the local struggle, beyond even the ruling
regime’s own homeland. In par tic u lar, the Irgun— like its nonviolent and less violent
Zionist counter parts— sought to generate sympathy and marshal support among power
full allies such as the Jewish community in the United States and its elected
representatives in Congress and the White House, as well as among the delegates to the
fledgling United Nations, to bring pressure to bear on Britain to grant Jewish statehood.
Indeed, each successive terrorist outrage illuminated the government’s inability to
curb, much less defeat the terrorists. Already sapped by World War II, Britain’s limited
economic resources were further strained by the cost of deploying so large a military
force to Palestine to cope with the tide of violence submerging the country. Public
opinion in Britain, already ill disposed to the continued loss of life and expenditure of
effort in an unwinnable situation, was further inflamed by incidents such as the King
David Hotel bombing and the Irgun’s hanging in July21947 of two British Army
sergeants in retaliation for the government’s execution of three convicted Irgun terrorists.
All this changed, however, with the cold- blooded murder of the sergeants. Photo graphs
of the grim death scene— depicting the two corpses just inches above the ground, the
sergeants’ hooded faces and bloodied shirts— were emblazoned across the front pages of
British newspapers under headlines decrying their execution as an act of “medieval
barbarity.” As inured to the almost daily reports of the death and deprivation suffered by
the army in Palestine as the British public was, the brutal execution of the two sergeants
made a deep and unalterable impression on the national psyche. “All home comment on
that deed,” Monroe continued, was “different in tone from that on earlier terrorist acts,
many of which caused greater loss of life— for instance, the blowing up of the officers’
club or of the King David Hotel.” For both the British public and the press, the murders
seemed to demonstrate the futility of the situation in Palestine and the pointlessness of
remaining there any longer than was absolutely necessary.
B. Cyprus and Algeria
The Irgun’s revolt provided a template for subsequent anticolonial uprisings
elsewhere. Indeed, the most effective irredentist struggles of the immediate postwar era
were those that emulated Begin’s strategy and deliberately sought to appeal to— and
thereby attract the attention and sympathy of— an international audience. “Our
intention,” explained General George Grivas, the founder and commander of EOKA
(Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston, or National Organization of Cypriot Fighters), in
his memoirs, “was to focus the eyes of the world on Cyprus and force the British to fulfil
their promises.” Similarly, the 1954 proclamation of revolt against French rule of Algeria
by the FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale, or National Liberation Front) prominently
cited the “internationalism of the Algerian problem” as among its principal goals.
In pursuit of this end, both groups also made a conscious effort to appeal directly
to the United Nations for help. EOKA’s own proclamation of revolt, for example, was
specifically addressed to “Diplomats of the World.” It called upon them to “Look to your
duty. It is shameful that, in the twentieth century, people should have to shed blood for
freedom, that divine gift for which we too fought at your side and for which you, at least,
claim that you fought against Nazism.” In Algeria, FLN offensives, general strikes, and
other demonstrations were timed to occur when the UN General Assembly reconvened or
was already scheduled to discuss the conflict. In January21957, the fabled Battle of
Algiers, immortalized by the 1966 Gillo Pontecorvo film of the same name, when the
FLN unleashed its campaign of mass urban terrorism, was deliberately choreographed to
coincide with the General Assembly’s annual opening session. The FLN communiqué
announcing the strike that accompanied the new terrorist offensive candidly admitted to
this timing, announcing its desire to “bestow an incontestable authority upon our
delegates at the United Nations in order to convince those rare diplomats still hesitant or
possessing illusions about France’s liberal policy.”
In Cyprus, from the very start, Grivas appreciated the necessity of reaching out to
an audience beyond the immediate geographical boundaries of his group’s struggle. “The
enlightenment of international public opinion,” he recognized, “was bound to play an
impor tant part in bringing home to all concerned the Cypriot people’s demand for self-
determination. It is a fact that there were many foreigners and even United Nations
representatives who were completely ignorant of why we were demanding our freedom.”
My small force was outnumbered by more than a hundred to one,” Grivas later recalled,
“but, as I have said, this made no difference to the type of subversive warfare I was
planning.” His plan was to deploy the majority of EOKA forces in the island’s urban
centers, where they were organized into individual terrorist cells numbering no more than
eight to ten men each. Their mission was to tie up as many British troops as possible on
static guard duties in the cities, thereby allowing EOKA to consolidate its control over
the rest of the island.
By concentrating on urban operations, as the Irgun had in Palestine, EOKA also
gained immediate access to the news media dispatched to the island to cover the
escalating violence. Had EOKA, like traditional guerrilla forces, confined its operations
to the island’s rugged and isolated rural areas and mountain ranges, it would arguably
have lost this access and forfeited the exposure so critical to Grivas’s strategy. The urban
terrorist campaign was thus pivotal in securing the propaganda platform required by the
group to broadcast its cause to the world. In this respect, Grivas was able to derive great
satisfaction from the fact that within five months of the revolt’s proclamation, EOKA had
succeeded in attaining what a de cade of patient diplomacy and insistent lobbying had
failed to achieve: UN consideration of the Greek Cypriots’ nationalist claims. Hitherto,
the General Assembly had upheld British arguments that the situation in Cyprus was an
entirely internal matter and therefore outside the organization ’s purview. Now, for the
first time, Cyprus had been placed on the UN’s agenda. “This proved,” Grivas later
recalled, “that inside this international body the idea was beginning to penetrate that
something must be done about the Cyprus question.”
Throughout the campaign, Grivas coordinated his underground campaign with the
aboveground diplomatic efforts of Archbishop Makarios III (Michael Christodoros
Mouskos). As the appointed head of the Ethnarchy (Church Council) of Cyprus,
Makarios was also the Greek- Cypriot community’s de facto political leader. He and
Grivas had met as early as 1950 to plan the general outline of the revolt, and prelate and
soldier worked closely together throughout the struggle to achieve their shared goal of
enosis. Thus, the symbiotic relationship that is believed to have existed between Sinn
Fein and the IRA has a historical parallel in that between the Ethnarchy and EOKA thirty
years earlier, with Makarios playing the role allegedly performed by Gerry Adams, Sinn
Fein’s president since 1983. Like Adams, Makarios was also interned, and in 1956 he
was exiled to the Seychelles, being allowed to return to Cyprus two years later as a
condition for Greek- Cypriot participation in British- sponsored multiparty talks on the
island’s future. It was not until February21959 that agreement was reached.
At the other end of the Mediterranean, the revolt against French rule over Algeria
between 1954 and 1962 was the last of the immediate postwar anticolonial struggles. For
that reason, perhaps, it had the most direct and discernible impact on many later
ethnonationalist terrorist campaigns. Yasir Arafat, for example, in his authorized
biography, cites the pivotal influence that the FLN had on the PLO’s struggle and the
critical material assistance that Algeria later provided to the Palestinians. “I started my
contacts with the Algerian revolutionaries in the early 1950s,” he recalled. “I stayed in
touch with them and they promised they would help us when they had achieved their in
dependence. I never doubted for one moment that they would win, and that their victory
would be very impor tant for us.” In his own candid memoir, Nelson Mandela similarly
identifies the seminal influence that the FLN’s struggle had on the decades- long effort of
the African National Congress (ANC) to end minority white rule of South Africa.
By the middle of 1956, the rebellion against French rule had been raging for
nearly two years; the FLN, however, had precious few tangible achievements to show for
its efforts, and recent advances by the security forces in the countryside had seriously
undermined the group’s rural insurgent strategy. Accordingly, the FLN embarked on a
new strategy that would, for the first time, focus on the country’s capital, Algiers, and
thereby apply pressure to France by appealing directly to international opinion. The
architect of this new strategy, first unveiled during the August21956 summit convened at
Soummam, Morocco, in hopes of reversing the FLN’s declining fortunes, was Ramdane
Abane, a leading figure in the movement until his execution the following year during an
internecine power struggle. As the group’s chief theoretician, he was also its most potent
intellect. From an impoverished background and entirely self- educated, Abane was as
completely unsentimental as he was ruthless, maintaining an unalterable faith in the
efficacy of violence. This was clearly evident in his famous directive number nine,
wherein he succinctly explained not just the purpose of the FLN’s new strategy but the
elementary logic behind urban terrorism. “Is it preferable for our cause to kill ten enemies
in an oued [dry riverbed] of Telegram when no one will talk of it,” he rhetorically asked,
“or a single man in Algiers which will be noted the next day by the American press?”
The chain of events that led to the FLN’s full- scale urban terrorist campaign,
however, had actually begun two months earlier, in June, with the execution by guillotine
of two convicted FLN fighters. As had occurred countless times elsewhere (Palestine and
Cyprus included), such attempts by the ruling regime to deter further violence with a
particularly harsh exemplary punishment backfired catastrophically. The recipients of this
lesson, rather than serving as abject examples, as often as not become martyrs:
emblematic rallying points for the revolutionary cause around which still greater sacrifice
and still further bloodshed and destruction are demanded and justified. Thus, it was in
Algeria, where the FLN announced that for every FLN fighter executed, a hundred
Frenchmen would meet a similar fate. Hitherto, the group could boast that its campaign in
the capital had been deliberately nonlethal, its bombs directed against inanimate
“symbols” of French rule— government offices and buildings, military cantonments and
police stations— but not deliberately against people. This now changed with Abane’s
instructions to the FLN’s urban cadres to unleash a reign of unpre ce dented bombings
and terror. Within seventy- two hours, forty- nine French civilians had been gunned
down. Then, in August, as a result of the new strategic direction approved that same
month at Soummam, the bombings began.
The campaign was spearheaded not by the group’s hardened male fighters but by
its attractive young female operatives— whose comely bearing and Euro pean looks, as
Saadi Yacef, the group’s operations officer in Algiers (who later reprised his real- life
role in the famed 1966 Gillo Pontecorvo film The Battle of Algiers), correctly guessed,
would arouse far less suspicion than their male counter parts. Their targets, moreover,
were neither military nor even governmental, but the crowded seaside milk bar
frequented by pied noir (French colonist) families after a day at the beach; a cafeteria
particularly favored by Euro pean university students; and the downtown Air France
passenger terminal. The coordinated operations killed three people and injured some fifty
others— including several children, some of them among the dozen or so victims
requiring surgical amputation of mangled limbs. Throughout it all, Abane was unmoved.
Drawing the same analogy between the terrorist bomb in the dustbin and the “poor man’s
air force” cited in chapter21, Abane is said to have dismissively observed, “I see hardly
any difference between the girl who places a bomb in the Milk- Bar and the French
aviator who bombards a mechta [village] or who drops napalm on a zone interdite
[interdiction, or free- fire, zone].”
Massu went on the offensive. Having fought in Indochina, he and his senior
commanders prided themselves on having acquired a thorough understanding of
revolutionary warfare and how to counter it. Victory, they were convinced, would be
entirely dependent on the acquisition of intelligence. “The man who places the bomb,”
declared Colonel Yves Godard, Massu’s chief of staff and later one of his sector
commanders, “is but an arm that tomorrow will be replaced by another arm”; the key was
to find the individual commanding the arm. Accordingly, Godard and his men set out to
uproot and destroy the FLN’s urban infrastructure. Their method was to build up a
meticulously detailed picture of the FLN’s apparatus in Algiers that would home in
relentlessly on the terrorist campaign’s mastermind. Godard’s approach, dramatically
depicted onscreen by Pontecorvo, was described by the British historian Alistair Horne as
a “complex organigramme [that] began to take shape on a large blackboard, a kind of
skeleton pyramid in which, as each fresh piece of information came from the
interrogation centres, another name (and not always necessarily the right name) would be
entered.” That this system proved effective, there is no doubt. The problem was that it
also depended on, and therefore encouraged, widespread abuses, including torture, for
Massu and his men were not particularly concerned about how they obtained this
information. Torture of both terrorists and suspected terrorists became routine. The
French Army in Algeria found it easy to justify such extraordinary measures, given the
extraordinary conditions. The prevailing exculpatory philosophy among the Tenth
Parachute Division can be summed up by Massu’s terse response to complaints, that “the
innocent [that is, the next victims of terrorist attacks] deserve more protection than the
guilty.”
For de cades, Massu remained unrepentant, maintaining that the ends justified the
means used to destroy the FLN’s urban insurrection. He later had second thoughts. In
2000, for instance, Massu told an interviewer that France should acknowledge that torture
was routinely employed in Algeria and officially condemn it. The officer under
Massu’s command at the time, retired general Paul Aussaresses, who was directly
responsible for implementing this policy, however, has never softened. “For my part, I do
not repent,” Aussaresses told the same interviewer. “Torture never pleased me but I was
resolute when I arrived in Algiers. At the time it was already widespread. If it were done
again, it would piss me off, but I would do the same thing because I do not believe that
one can do it differently.” Respect for the rule of law and the niceties of legal procedure,
much less international conventions governing the rights of combatants, he argued, were
totally irrelevant given the crisis situation enveloping Algeria in 1957. “Only rarely were
the prisoners we had questioned during the night still alive the next morning,”
Aussaresses explained in his memoir, The Battle of the Casbah: “ Whether they had
talked or not they generally had been neutralized. It was impossible to send them back to
the court system; there were too many of them and the machine of justice would have
become clogged with cases and stopped working altogether. Furthermore, many of the
prisoners would probably have managed to avoid any kind of punishment.” Thus, the
battle was won and the terrorists’ indiscriminate bombing campaign ended. Extraordinary
measures were legitimated by extraordinary circumstances— all of which Aussaresses
maintains is beside the point. As torturers before and since have claimed, he too
contends, “I don’t think I ever tortured or executed people who were innocent. I was
mainly dealing with terrorists who had been involved in attacks.”
C. The PLO and the Internationalization of Terrorism
The advent of what is considered modern, international terrorism occurred on
July222, 1968. On that day, three armed Palestinian terrorists, belonging to the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), one of the six groups that then constituted
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), hijacked an Israeli El Al commercial flight
enrooted from Rome to Tel Aviv. Although commercial aircraft had been hijacked before
— this was the twelfth such incident in 1968 alone— the El Al hijacking differed from all
previous ones. First, its purpose was not simply the diversion of a scheduled flight from
one destination to another, as had been happening since 1959 with a seemingly endless
succession of homesick Cubans or sympathetic revolutionaries from other countries
commandeering domestic American passenger aircraft simply as a means to travel to
Cuba. This hijacking was a bold political statement. The terrorists who seized the El Al
flight had done so with the express purpose of trading the passengers they held hostage
for Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel. Second, unlike previous hijackings, in
which the origin or nationality of the aircraft that was being seized did not matter so long
as the plane itself was capable of transporting the hijacker(s) to a desired destination, El
Al—as Israel’s national airline and by extension, therefore, a readily evident national
symbol of the Israeli state— had been specifically and deliberately targeted by the
terrorists. Third, by engineering a crisis in which the consequences of a government’s
ignoring or rejecting the terrorists’ demands could prove catastrophic, leading to the
destruction of the aircraft and the deaths of all people on board, the terrorists succeeded
in forcing their avowed enemy, Israel, to communicate directly with them and therefore
with the organization to which they belonged, despite the Israeli government’s previous
declarations and policy pronouncements to the contrary. Finally, through the combination
of dramatic political statement, “symbolic” targeting, and crisis- induced de facto
recognition, the terrorists discovered that they had the power to create major media
events— especially when innocent civilians were involved. As Zehdi Labib Terzi, the
PLO’s chief observer at the United Nations, reflected in a 1976 interview, “The first
several hijackings aroused the consciousness of the world and awakened the media and
world opinion much more— and more effectively— than twenty years of pleading at the
United Nations.”
Many of the postwar anticolonial terrorist campaigns, as previously noted, also
had a prominent international orientation. With the El Al hijacking, however, the nature
and character of terrorism demonstrably changed. For the first time, terrorists began to
travel regularly from one country to another to carry out attacks. In addition, they also
began to target innocent civilians from other countries who often had little if anything to
do with the terrorists’ cause or grievance, simply to endow their acts with the power to
attract attention and publicity that attacks against their declared or avowed enemies often
lacked. Their intent was to shock and, by shocking, to stimulate worldwide fear and
alarm. These dramatic tactical changes in terrorism were facilitated by the technological
advances of the time that had transformed the speed and ease of international commercial
air travel and vastly improved both the quality of tele vision news footage and the
promptness with which that footage could be broadcast around the globe. Accordingly,
terrorists rapidly came to appreciate that operations perpetrated in countries other than
their own and directly involving or affecting foreign nationals were a reliable means of
attracting unparalleled attention to themselves and their cause.
The end of the First Arab- Israeli War in 1949 introduced two new factors into
Middle Eastern politics: the Jewish State of Israel and the Palestinian refugees exiled
from it. During the war, many of Palestine’s Arab inhabitants had fled their homes for the
safety of neighboring countries. Some had left voluntarily; others had been forcibly
expelled by the advancing Israeli forces. The exodus of Palestinian Arabs, however, did
not end with the cessation of fighting. Fears of Israeli reprisals, coupled with the hope
that the defeated Arab armies would shortly regroup and renew the fight against Israel,
had convinced many Palestinians that they were better off becoming temporary exiles in
the countries of their Arab brethren than remaining in the new Jewish state. The number
of these displaced people soon climbed beyond 700,000— although some estimates put
the figure as high as 950,000.
Crowded into decrepit refugee camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, the
Palestinians dreamed of the day when the Arab armies would arise to destroy Israel and
return them to their homes. The Arab states, however, disheartened by the crushing defeat
inflicted on them by the numerically inferior Israeli forces, had no desire to launch
another war. Furthermore, in the wretched conditions of the Palestinians’ exile, the
region’s Arab leaders seized on an issue that could be exploited for their own ends. On
the one hand, the Palestinian cause was a useful means by which to marshal international
opprobrium against Israel and also to generate support among Arab states for greater
regional unity against the common Zionist enemy; on the other, the refugee issue offered
a convenient way to deflect attention from domestic problems by focusing popular
discontent outward, against Israel, for the injustice done to the Palestinians. In any event,
what the Palestinian refugees had once hoped would be a brief absence from their land
evolved into indefinite displacement.
Meanwhile, inside the refugee camps, groups of desperate and disgruntled
Palestinians were slowly banding together and establishing new political movements and
associations. Out of these groups emerged new leaders, men who were untainted by the
humiliation of the 1948–1949 defeat and had not been party to the broken promises of
their Arab hosts. These leaders argued that the Palestinians must henceforth rely on no
one but themselves if they were ever to reclaim their homeland. Small groups of fedayeen
(Arabic for “commandos”) began to sneak out of the refugee camps to carry out cross-
border hit- and- run attacks inside Israel. At a time when Egypt, like all other frontline
Arab states, was militarily unprepared for another major war, its president, Gamal Abdel
Nasser, saw in the raids a means by which he could both harass Israel and simultaneously
advance his claim to leadership of the Arab world. Accordingly, Egypt began actively to
train and arm the fedayeen. By 1953, Palestinian marauding had become both sufficiently
frequent and sufficiently lethal to provoke repeated Israeli military reprisals. Thereafter, a
deadly cycle of raid and retaliation followed, culminating in the 1956 Suez crisis and
providing Israel with the excuse it sought to invade the Sinai peninsula and eliminate the
Egyptian bases supporting the fedayeen operations. Nearly a de cade later, an almost
identical tit- for- tat pattern of terrorist attack and Israeli reprisal set in motion a similar
chain of events that resulted in the 1967 Six Day War.
The incident began on September25, 1972, shortly before 5:00 a.m., when eight
terrorists belonging to the PLO’s Black September Organization (BSO) burst into the
Israelis’ dormitory, killing two athletes immediately and taking nine others hostage. As
news of the attack spread and police rushed to the scene, the site was cordoned off and
the terrorists issued their demands. They offered to exchange the hostages for 236
Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails and 5 other terrorists being held in Germany—
including Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, the founders of the radical left- wing
West German terrorist group the Red Army Faction— and they wanted a guarantee of
safe passage to any Arab country (except Lebanon or Jordan). They also threatened to
begin killing one hostage every two hours if their demands were not met. Fifteen hours of
negotiations followed until a deal, brokered by the West Germans, was struck. The
terrorists and their hostages, it was agreed, would be transported in two helicopters to the
air base at Fürstenfeldbruck, where they would then board a Lufthansa 727 aircraft and
depart for Cairo. Once in Egypt, the exchange of prisoners would be effected and the
terrorists allowed to proceed wherever they wished. The Egyptians, however, later
changed their minds and decided to refuse the aircraft landing rights.
As for the failure to save the hostages, for many other countries as well as for
West Germany the botched rescue attempt provided stark evidence of how serious a
threat international terrorism had become and how woefully inadequate their own
counterterrorist capabilities were. The embarrassed West Germans lost little time in
establishing a special antiterrorist detachment of their border police, known as GSG-9
(Grenzschutzgruppe Neun). Five years later, it acquitted itself brilliantly in Mogadishu,
Somalia, rescuing all eighty- six hostages on board a Lufthansa flight hijacked enroute
from Mallorca by a mixed team of Palestinian and West German terrorists. In this
incident, in marked contrast to the debacle at Fürstenfeldbruck, the GSG-9 commandos
killed three of the hijackers and captured the fourth before they could harm any of the
hostages (one GSG-9 officer was wounded in the rescue assault, as well as four
hostages). In France, the Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN)
was created within the Gendarmerie Nationale as that country’s dedicated counterterrorist
unit; in Britain, the elite Special Air Ser vices Regiment (SAS) was given permission to
establish the Counter- Revolutionary Warfare detachment with a specific
counterterrorism mission. In 1980, these SAS units successfully resolved the six- day
siege at the Iranian embassy in Princes Gate, London, rescuing nineteen of the twenty-
one hostages (two died during the rescue operation) and killing five of the six terrorists.
Curiously, at the time the United States decided not to follow the example of its Euro
pean allies and established no special, elite counterterrorist unit of its own— thus
courting the disaster that came eight years later in the failed attempt to rescue the fifty-
two Americans held hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Instead, President Richard
Nixon ordered the formation of the special Inter- Departmental Working Group on
Terrorism, chaired by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and elected to concentrate on
diplomatic initiatives in the UN and elsewhere, focusing on the adoption of international
conventions against terrorism.
During the weeks that followed the incident, thousands of Palestinians rushed to
join the PLO’s constituent terrorist organization s. It is perhaps not entirely coincidental,
then, that eighteen months after Munich, the PLO’s leader, Yasir Arafat, was invited to
address the UN General Assembly and shortly afterward the PLO was granted special
observer status in that international body. Indeed, by the end of the 1970s the PLO, a
nonstate actor, had formal diplomatic relations with more countries (eighty- six) than the
actual established nation- state of Israel (seventy- two). It is doubtful whether the PLO
could ever have achieved this success had it not resorted to international terrorism.
Within four years, a handful of Palestinian terrorists had overcome a quarter century of
neglect and obscurity. They had achieved what diplomats and statesmen, lobbyists and
humanitarian workers had persistently tried and failed to do: focusing world attention on
the Palestinian people and their plight. They had also provided a powerful example to
similarly frustrated ethnic and nationalist groups elsewhere, and within the de cade, the
number of terrorist groups either operating internationally or committing attacks against
foreign targets in their own country to attract international attention had more than
quadrupled. According to the international terrorism incident database formerly
maintained by the RAND Corporation, the number of organizations engaged in
international terrorism grew from only eleven in 1968 (of which just three were
ethnonationalist/separatist organization s, and the remainder were radical MarxistLeninist
or left- wing groups) to an astonishing fifty- five in 1978. Of this total, more than half
(thirty, or 542 percent) were ethnonationalist/separatist movements, all seeking to copy or
capitalize on the PLO’s success. They ranged from large international communities of
displaced persons with profound historical grievances, such as the Armenian diaspora, to
minuscule self- contained entities like the obscure expatriate South Moluccan community
in the Netherlands. What they all had in common, however, was a burning sense of
injustice and dispossession, and a belief that through international terrorism they too
could Finally attract worldwide attention to themselves and their causes.
D. The Rise of Ethnonationalist Terrorism
The Armenians, as noted in chapter21, had waged an inchoate armed struggle
against Ottoman rule during the 1880s and 1890s in hopes of eliciting Western sympathy
and intervention. Their revolt had culminated in 1896 with the daring but ill- fated
seizure of the Ottoman Bank in Constantinople. This event was followed by three days of
intense anti- Armenian rioting and bloodshed during which untold numbers of Armenians
lost their lives. Thereafter, most overt manifestations of Armenian nationalism lapsed
into temporary abeyance, and those that did surface were forcibly suppressed. Nationalist
activity was rekindled, however, during World War I, mostly as a result of Russian
efforts to foment Armenian unrest and thereby undermine the common enemy, Turkey.
Ottoman suspicions of their Armenian subjects’ loyalty, already aggravated by these
Russian interventions, were further inflamed by the Armenians’ refusal to support the
Turkish war effort. Accordingly, in 1915, Taalat Pasha, the Ottoman interior minister,
ordered the Armenians’ expulsion from their traditional homelands in eastern Turkey to
Syria and Iraq. Although the exact number of Armenians who perished at this time of
widespread war and upheaval remains a matter of considerable debate, the figure most
commonly cited is 1.5 million people— roughly 602 percent of Turkey’s Armenian
population. The events of 1915, therefore, are often cited as the first state genocide of the
twentieth century.
Despite the magnitude of this catastrophe, for sixty years thereafter the
Armenians’ tragic history remained either ignored or forgotten. This began to change in
1975 when two Armenian terrorist groups— known as ASALA (the Armenian Army for
the Secret Liberation of Armenia) and the JCAG (Justice Commandos of the Armenian
Genocide)— emerged from the civil war then engulfing Lebanon. When asked to account
for the sudden reemergence of Armenian terrorism, Hagop Hagopian, ASALA’s founder
and leader, unhesitatingly cited the Palestinian example. “Indeed, so important was the
Palestinians’ influence, and so close were their relations with the Armenian community
in Lebanon, that ASALA can claim direct descent from both George Habash’s PFLP and
an even more radical splinter group of that organization , the PFLP Special Operations
Group, led by Dr.2Wadi Haddad.
It was ASALA’s early success in reinvigorating the Armenian cause that
prompted the formation of a rival group, the JCAG. Although the two differed in their
ideology— ASALA was avowedly Marxist- Leninist, adhering to the PFLP’s global
revolutionary orientation, while the JCAG tended to represent more mainstream
Armenian nationalist views— both had the same three goals: to exact revenge for the
events of 1915, to force the present Turkish republic to recognize the genocide committed
by its Ottoman predecessors and thereby accept responsibility for it, and to compel the
Turkish government to make reparations payments to the survivors and their descendants.
In pursuit of these ends, between 1975 and 1985 more than forty Turkish diplomats and
members of their families were murdered by Armenian terrorists. Whereas the JCAG
(and its splinter group, the Armenian Revolutionary Army) preferred individual
assassinations of Turkish diplomats or nonlethal bombings of Turkish diplomatic and
airline facilities, ASALA tended to employ more indiscriminate tactics and weapons,
evincing little concern about who was killed or injured, Turk and non- Turk alike, so long
as the operation succeeded in attracting attention. In July21983, for example, ASALA
bombed the Turkish airline’s ticket counter at Orly Airport in Paris, killing seven people
and wounding fifty- six others. A month later, an ASALA attack at Ankara’s Esenboga
Airport killed nine people and injured seventy- eight, while an assault mounted in
Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar killed two and wounded twenty- seven. Indeed, ASALA’s brutal
tactics and desperate bids for attention drew comparisons with the ruthlessness of the
Palestinian Black September Organization in general and the Olympics massacre in par
tic u lar.
By the early 1980s, the Armenians’ use of terrorism had apparently paid off.
“Thus it is true that the re- emergence of the Armenian question in the news— and
especially of the Armenian genocide—is largely owing to Armenian terrorists,” wrote
Gerard Chaliand, a French Armenian scholar and one of the world’s foremost authorities
on terrorism and guerrilla warfare, in 1983. A year earlier, in a study of the Armenian
terrorist movements, Andrew Corsun, one of the U.S. State Department’s leading
analysts of terrorism, similarly argued that “by resorting to terrorism, Armenian
extremists were able to accomplish in 52 years what legitimate Armenian organization s
have been trying to do for almost 702years— internationalize the Armenian cause.”
However, while publicity and exposure proved to be easily gained through terrorism, the
Armenian groups also found that attention does not necessarily translate into more
tangible gains. For example, a detailed empirical study of American network news
coverage of Armenian terrorism between 1968 and 1983 concluded that while the
terrorist campaign had certainly increased public name recognition of the Armenians, it
had not engendered any meaningful awareness or sensitivity about the Armenians’ cause,
their historical condition, or their political aims. More critical, perhaps, was the fact
that, unlike the Palestinians, the vast majority of the worldwide Armenian diaspora did
not rally to, much less actively support, the terrorists. Despite expressions of
understanding of the terrorists’ goals and motivations, the Armenian community offered
them little overt assistance and became increasingly alienated by the violent acts
committed in its name. What minimal actual support did exist began to dry up following
the 1983 Orly Airport attack, to the point that, by the end of the de cade, none of the
Armenian terrorist groups was still actively engaged in international terrorism.
As a universally applicable model, therefore, the Palestinian archetype seems
wanting. Nonetheless, nearly twenty years later, the Palestinian example continued to
loom large for ethnonationalist/separatist groups seeking international recognition and
self- determination. During the 1990s, for example, Kurds fighting for autonomy in
southeastern Turkey reportedly debated whether to adopt the Palestinian model for their
own struggle. To date, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK)— which renamed itself
KongraGel (KGK) in 2003— has largely eschewed international terrorism as a means to
advance its nationalist claims, concentrating instead on an internal campaign of rural
guerrilla warfare coupled with occasional acts of urban terrorism inside Turkey only.
The failure of the Kurdish movement to garner the same level of international
attention and recognition as comparable groups, such as the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO), has reportedly fueled growing discontent among younger Kurdish
militants. This sense of frustration stems from a perceived disparity in the global response
to the plight of the Kurdish people compared to other oppressed minority groups. Despite
sharing similar aspirations for self-determination and autonomy, the Kurdish struggle has
often been overshadowed by other conflicts and geopolitical considerations. The lack of
diplomatic representation and international support for the Kurdish cause has left many
feeling marginalized and overlooked on the world stage.
For younger Kurdish militants, who have grown up in an era of global
connectivity and heightened awareness of human rights issues, this perceived neglect is
particularly galling. They see the successes of movements like the PLO in securing
diplomatic recognition and support as evidence of the potential impact of assertive
advocacy and, in some cases, militant action. As a result, there is a growing sentiment
among younger Kurdish militants that more radical and confrontational tactics may be
necessary to draw attention to their cause and compel the international community to take
action. This disillusionment with peaceful methods of advocacy reflects a broader
frustration with the status quo and a desire for tangible progress towards achieving
Kurdish rights and recognition.
The assertion made by proponents of terrorism, as documented during that period,
draws attention to what they perceive as a glaring disparity in international representation
and diplomatic recognition. They point to the fact that the Palestinian people, despite
their status as a minority population, have managed to establish embassies in over 100
countries worldwide. In contrast, the Kurds, who constitute a significantly larger minority
group, lack similar diplomatic representation on the global stage, with no official
embassies to advocate for their interests and rights.
This comparison underscores the perceived inequities in the international
community's approach to addressing the grievances and aspirations of different minority
groups. Proponents of terrorism argue that the Palestinian example highlights the
effectiveness of assertive and sometimes confrontational tactics in securing diplomatic
recognition and support for their cause. By drawing attention to this disparity, proponents
of terrorism seek to justify their resort to extreme measures as a means of redressing
perceived injustices and amplifying the voices of marginalized groups. They argue that
peaceful methods of advocacy and diplomacy have failed to yield meaningful results for
the Kurds and other oppressed populations, necessitating more assertive and, at times,
radical forms of action.
However, critics caution against equating diplomatic recognition with the
legitimacy of tactics such as terrorism. They argue that while the Palestinians may have
succeeded in establishing diplomatic missions, resorting to violence has not ultimately
advanced their quest for self-determination and statehood. Moreover, they warn against
the dangers of employing terrorism as a means of achieving political goals, emphasizing
the human cost and moral implications of such tactics.
In line with their radical convictions, certain members of the Red Army Faction
(RAF) advocated for the adoption of an aggressive campaign of international terrorism.
This stance stood in stark contrast to the counsel of their more moderate counterparts,
who cautioned against such a strategy, fearing that it would not only undermine the
credibility of their cause but also alienate potential allies on the international stage. The
proponents of a more militant approach believed that escalating acts of terrorism beyond
national borders would amplify their message and draw attention to what they perceived
as the injustices perpetrated by imperialist powers. They argued that targeting prominent
symbols of Western dominance and interventionism would galvanize support for their
cause among disaffected groups worldwide, while also demonstrating their commitment
to solidarity with oppressed peoples across the globe. However, their elders, who had
witnessed the evolution of the RAF and understood the complexities of navigating
political struggle, counseled caution. They warned that resorting to indiscriminate
violence and targeting civilians would only serve to undermine the legitimacy of their
movement, alienating potential sympathizers and tarnishing their reputation on the world
stage.
Moreover, they cautioned against the potential consequences of provoking a harsh
response from the authorities, which could result in a crackdown that would cripple the
organization and extinguish any hope of achieving their objectives through peaceful
means. In the end, the debate within the RAF over the merits of international terrorism
reflected broader tensions within the organization between ideological purity and
pragmatic realism. While some advocated for a confrontational approach rooted in
revolutionary zeal, others favored a more nuanced strategy that prioritized building
alliances and garnering support through non-violent means.
E. Revolutionary of Left- Wing Terrorism
The “internationalization” of terrorism that occurred in the late 1960s and early
1970s was not solely a product of Palestinian influence and success. Outside the Middle
East, a combination of societal malaise and youthful idealism, rebelliousness and
antimilitarism/anti- imperialism was rapidly transforming the collective political
consciousness among the more affluent countries of Western Europe and North America.
Perhaps the unpre ce dented economic prosperity of these years allowed the luxury of
introspection and self- criticism that, in more radical political circles, generated a
revulsion against the socioeconomic inequities endemic to the modern, industrialized
capital ist state. “All they can think about,” Ulrike Meinhof, the political activist and
radical newspaper columnist turned Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorist, once dismissively
remarked of her fellow Germans, “is some hairspray, a vacation in Spain, and a tiled
bathroom.”
The sharp contrast between the highest and the lowest domestic levels of wealth
and consumer consumption was further accentuated by the growing economic disparity
between the developed world and the undeveloped world—as it came to be called, the
“Third World.” This was attributed by radicals as much to the “neo colonial ist” ethos
and economic exploitation inherent in capitalism as to the interventionist foreign policy
championed by the United States under the banner of fighting the spread of communism.
Thus, by the late 1960s, opposition to America’s involvement in Indochina had emerged
as the principal rallying cry for politically engaged, disaffected youth everywhere. “Anti-
imperialism meant first of all the protest against the Vietnam war, but also [against] the
American predominance over most countries of the Third World,” the former RAF
terrorist Christoph Wackernagel explained in a 1995 speech recounting his own
experience.
Yet it would be a mistake to dismiss Proll and Baumann simply as apolitical
narcissists or mere dropouts from society. Like many of their generation, they too were
animated by a profound sense of social injustice coupled with an intense enmity toward
what they perceived as worldwide American militarism and domination. “To my mind, it
wasn’t simply an international question,” the German terrorist Hans Joachim Klein
recalled in a 1978 interview, “but also an internal problem. The B-52s stopped over at
Wiesbaden on their way from Vietnam.” The pervasive influence of the Vietnam War on
German terrorism can be seen in several of the con temporary Second of June statements
reproduced in Baumann’s autobiography, as well as in RAF communiqués issued long
after the war and American involvement in Indochina ended.
The Red Army Faction (RAF) embarked on its initial terrorist operation, distinct
from its prior activities such as bank robberies, as a retaliatory response to the U.S. Air
Force's mining of North Vietnam's Haiphong harbor. This significant shift in tactics
underscored the group's commitment to international solidarity and its willingness to
resort to violence to express its opposition to perceived acts of imperialism and
aggression.
The target selected for this operation was the U.S. Fifth Army Corps officers'
mess in Frankfurt, Germany. In a meticulously planned attack, the RAF detonated a
bomb at the mess hall, resulting in the tragic loss of one life and injuries to thirteen
others. The attack sent shockwaves through both military and civilian circles, drawing
attention to the group's capacity for coordinated and lethal action.
The choice of target was symbolic, representing the group's direct confrontation
with the perceived symbols of American military power and influence. By targeting a
facility associated with the U.S. military, the RAF sought to register its protest against
what it viewed as imperialist policies and interventions abroad.
Moreover, the attack on the officers' mess in Frankfurt served as a stark reminder
of the transnational dimensions of the RAF's ideology and operations. In aligning itself
with the struggles of the Vietnamese people against foreign aggression, the group sought
to position itself within a broader global context of anti-imperialist resistance.
However, the consequences of the attack were far-reaching, both for the victims
and for the RAF itself. The loss of life and the injuries inflicted underscored the human
toll of political violence, while the subsequent manhunt and crackdown by law
enforcement agencies intensified pressure on the group and its members.
In retrospect, the bombing of the officers' mess in Frankfurt marked a significant
escalation in the RAF's campaign of armed struggle, foreshadowing the more deadly
attacks and violent confrontations that would follow in the years to come. It served as a
chilling reminder of the group's willingness to resort to extreme measures in pursuit of its
radical agenda, leaving a lasting imprint on the collective memory of both Germany and
the international community.
The Palestinians were in fact the obvious candidates. As far back as 1968, the
PLO— and Habash’s PFLP especially— had welcomed terrorists from around the world
to its guerrilla camps in Jordan for training, indoctrination, and the general building of
transnational revolutionary bridges. In this respect, the Palestinians pioneered the
networking dimension of international terrorism and multinational operational attack
teams still in evidence among many groups today. In 1969, the Palestinians had
welcomed the first delegation of West German terrorists— Baumann’s comrades in the
“Blues” group, an early precursor of the Second of June Movement—to their guerrilla
training camps in Jordan. “They got some training there: how to shoot; how to make
bombs; how to fight,” Baumann recalled. “But the Palestinians told them to go back to
Germany and make propaganda for them. That was all they were hot for— they offered
no weapons.”
The profound influence exercised by the Palestinians over the Germans was
perhaps never more clear than in 1985, when the RAF joined forces with the French left-
wing terrorist organization Direct Action (in French, Action Directe, thus AD), in hopes
of creating a PLO- like umbrella “anti- imperialist front of Western Euro pean guerrillas”
that would include Italy’s Red Brigades (RB) and the Belgian Communist Combatant
Cells (CCC) as well. But just as the Armenians’ and South Moluccans’ attempts to
replicate the PLO’s success had foundered, so did the efforts of German and French
organization s. Within two years, the promised campaign of “Euroterrorism” against
NATO’s politico- military structure had fizzled out.
The organizations that emerged and thrived within the global conditions of their
time, deriving their fundamental raison d'être from the socio-political contexts in which
they operated, found themselves grappling with a rapidly shifting landscape. The very
conditions that had fostered their growth and provided fertile ground for their ideologies
were undergoing profound transformations at a pace that outstripped their capacity to
adapt. These organizations, borne out of the crucible of social upheaval, economic
disparities, and political ferment, had been shaped by the tumultuous currents of their era.
They drew sustenance from grievances real and perceived, articulating a vision of radical
change that resonated with disaffected segments of society.
However, as the world around them evolved and new challenges emerged, these
organizations found themselves increasingly out of step with the prevailing zeitgeist. The
forces of globalization, technological advancement, and geopolitical realignments were
reshaping the contours of power and influence, leaving behind those who clung
steadfastly to outdated ideologies and modes of operation. Caught between the inertia of
the past and the imperatives of the present, these organizations faced a daunting dilemma.
The very conditions that had once empowered them now threatened to render them
obsolete, relegating them to the status of relics from a bygone era.
As the pace of change accelerated, these organizations struggled to keep pace,
grappling with internal divisions, external pressures, and the relentless march of history.
The gap between their aspirations and their ability to effect meaningful change widened,
casting doubt on the viability of their continued existence. In this rapidly evolving
landscape, the specter of irrelevance loomed large, threatening to consign these once-
revolutionary organizations to the dustbin of history. Their fate served as a cautionary
tale about the perils of clinging too tightly to the certainties of the past in a world that was
hurtling towards an uncertain future.
The "anti-imperialist front" found itself thrown into disarray, crippled by the
significant arrests of key members from the French and Belgian factions. These
apprehensions struck a severe blow to the cohesion and effectiveness of the movement,
leaving it reeling and vulnerable. With the loss of its leadership figures and the ensuing
vacuum of authority, the once-unified front began to fracture, its ranks plagued by
uncertainty and discord. Without the guidance and direction provided by its most
prominent members, the movement struggled to maintain its organizational coherence
and strategic focus. Unsurprisingly, given these tumultuous circumstances, the Red
Brigades, a prominent component of the anti-imperialist front, soon found themselves
adrift in a sea of uncertainty. Bereft of the support and coordination offered by their
fellow groups, they languished in a state of complete lassitude, their revolutionary zeal
sapped by internal divisions and external pressures.
The arrests of key figures from the French and Belgian factions dealt a fatal blow
to the cohesion and viability of the anti-imperialist front, precipitating its rapid decline
and eventual dissolution. Without the support and solidarity of its constituent groups, the
Red Brigades found themselves unable to sustain their momentum or advance their
revolutionary agenda. In the absence of a cohesive and coordinated resistance, the once-
potent forces of the anti-imperialist front succumbed to internal strife and external
pressures, leaving behind a legacy of shattered dreams and unfulfilled promises. The
arrests of its leading members marked the beginning of the end for the movement,
signaling its inevitable descent into obscurity and irrelevance.
The Red Army Faction's (RAF) once fervently proclaimed forty-year
revolutionary struggle for the Italian people had come to a sobering halt before even a
single generation had fully transpired. Just a decade prior, the group had proudly
espoused its vision of radical transformation, envisioning a protracted battle against
perceived injustices and inequalities plaguing Italian society.
However, as the years unfolded, the reality of the RAF's revolutionary aspirations
collided with the harsh pragmatism of history. Despite its initial fervor and zeal, the
group found itself increasingly beleaguered and marginalized, unable to sustain the
momentum of its revolutionary fervor. The lofty ideals that had animated the RAF's
inception gradually gave way to a sense of disillusionment and fatigue. The once bold
and defiant rhetoric of revolution began to ring hollow as the group struggled to maintain
relevance in the face of shifting political landscapes and evolving societal dynamics. The
rapid pace of change and the complexities of modern governance proved formidable
obstacles to the realization of the RAF's revolutionary ambitions. As the world around
them transformed, the group found itself increasingly out of step with the prevailing
currents of history.
Amidst the backdrop of political upheaval and transformation sweeping through
the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the Red Army Faction (RAF) in Germany
continued its operations, albeit with a sense of despondency and disillusionment. While
historic political revolutions were unfolding in neighboring regions, reshaping the
contours of power and ideology, the RAF found itself grappling with its own internal
struggles and external challenges.
As the winds of change swept across Eastern Europe, ushering in an era of
glasnost and perestroika under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, the ideological
foundations of the RAF appeared increasingly outmoded and out of touch with the
prevailing zeitgeist. The fervent revolutionary zeal that had once animated the group's
activities seemed to pale in comparison to the seismic shifts occurring on the global
stage.
Despite the tides of history turning around them, the RAF persisted in its militant
campaign, clinging to a vision of radical transformation that appeared increasingly
disconnected from the realities unfolding elsewhere. While the fall of the Berlin Wall and
the unraveling of the Soviet bloc heralded a new era of hope and possibility for many, the
RAF remained mired in its own internal dynamics and ideological dogmas.
The group's persistence in the face of changing political landscapes underscored
both its resilience and its obsolescence. While the RAF continued to carry out sporadic
acts of violence and sabotage, its relevance and influence waned in the face of broader
historical forces at play.
Ultimately, the RAF's steadfastness amidst the political revolutions sweeping
through the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe served as a poignant reminder of the
group's isolation and irrelevance in the evolving dynamics of post-Cold War Europe. As
the world underwent profound transformations, the RAF found itself increasingly adrift,
clinging to an outdated vision of revolution that had long since lost its potency and
appeal.
The pivotal events of 1989, notably the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent
reunification of Germany, dealt a significant blow to the ideological resilience of the Red
Army Faction (RAF). These momentous developments not only reshaped the geopolitical
landscape of Europe but also undermined the foundation upon which the RAF had built
its revolutionary aspirations.
The collapse of the Berlin Wall symbolized the end of the Cold War era and the
demise of the ideological divide that had defined post-war Europe. With the reunification
of East and West Germany on the horizon, the ideological underpinnings that had fueled
the RAF's militant activism began to lose relevance and resonance. The prospect of a
unified Germany presented a new set of challenges and opportunities, rendering the
RAF's agenda increasingly obsolete in the eyes of many.
Furthermore, the national reunification deprived the RAF of a convenient cross-
border sanctuary, which had previously provided refuge and logistical support for its
operations. The dismantling of barriers between East and West Germany meant that the
group could no longer rely on the relative ease of movement across borders or the
sympathetic networks that had facilitated its activities.
As the geopolitical landscape shifted and Germany underwent a process of
reconciliation and integration, the RAF found itself increasingly isolated and
marginalized. Its once formidable network of support dwindled, and its capacity for
action diminished in the face of heightened scrutiny and surveillance by law enforcement
agencies. In this evolving context, the RAF struggled to adapt to the changing realities of
post-reunification Germany. The loss of its ideological moorings, coupled with the
absence of external sanctuaries, undermined the group's cohesion and strategic viability.
Ultimately, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the national reunification that ensued marked a
decisive turning point in the decline of the RAF, hastening its eventual collapse in 1992.
Politically marginalized and lacking both patronage and a secure refuge, the Red
Army Faction (RAF) ultimately crumbled in 1992, succumbing to its own fatigue and the
apathy of those within the newly unified Germany whom the organization claimed to
champion. The RAF's decline marked the culmination of a tumultuous chapter in
Germany's post-war history, characterized by violent extremism, ideological fervor, and
the relentless pursuit of revolutionary change. Emerging in the late 1960s amidst a
backdrop of social upheaval and political dissent, the RAF sought to challenge the
perceived injustices of capitalist society through a campaign of armed resistance and
urban guerrilla warfare.
However, as the political landscape evolved and Germany underwent
reunification in 1990, the RAF found itself increasingly isolated and marginalized. With
its radical agenda losing resonance in the face of shifting geopolitical realities, the group
struggled to garner support or sympathy from the broader populace. Moreover, the
waning of the Cold War era meant that erstwhile allies and benefactors were no longer
willing to provide sanctuary or sustenance to the RAF's cause. Cut off from external
sources of support and facing intensified pressure from law enforcement agencies, the
group found itself besieged on all fronts.
Amidst internal divisions, waning morale, and the relentless pursuit of its
members by security forces, the RAF's infrastructure crumbled, leading to its eventual
dissolution in 1992. The demise of the RAF marked the end of an era of militant
extremism in Germany, though its legacy continues to resonate in debates surrounding
political violence, radicalization, and the limits of dissent in democratic societies.
Ultimately, the collapse of the RAF underscored the limitations of armed struggle as a
means of effecting social change and highlighted the importance of constructive dialogue,
democratic engagement, and non-violent activism in shaping the course of political
evolution. As Germany embarked on a new chapter of its history, the demise of the RAF
served as a cautionary tale about the perils of extremism and the imperative of fostering
inclusive and participatory forms of political discourse.
