Terrorism in the literature of the 1970s.Has the old axis of the dispute remained valid?

Abstract

The 1970s are referred to as the “golden age” of terrorism. In this decade, it tookon an international character and links between terrorist groups from different countriesbegan to form. In the literature of that period, as well as now, the difficultiesassociated with building a uniform definition of the phenomenon of terrorism wereemphasized, as well as the practice of supporting it by the countries of the communist bloc. At the same time, the first classifications of sources of financing terrorism weremade, including mainly state sponsorship, donations and criminal activity. The axisof the dispute in the literature of the discussed decade was the attitude of individualauthors to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and all assessments of the phenomenonof terrorism were a derivative of views on this issue. However, this state of affairs wasnot specific only to the 1970s. This dispute has survived to this day, taking the formof a debate on the phenomenon of the so-called “Islamophobia.” In the course of thisdebate, some authors question not only Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians, butalso the legitimacy of the “global war on terrorism” conducted after 2001 by Westerncountries. This article is an expression of unequivocal condemnation of the views presentin some of the literature that actually justify terrorism, and especially those views thatfalsely equate the phenomenon of the so-called “Islamophobia” with anti-Semitism.The discrepancy of opinion on terrorism, revealed already in the 1970s, is a permanentelement of the discourse on this matter to this day.