The Selective Application of 'Terrorism'
THE CLAIM: The Danish court, as reported by ABC News, convicted two Swedish nationals of terrorism for a grenade attack that caused property damage but no injuries near the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen in August 2019. This ruling frames the act unequivocally as a terrorist endeavor, implying a clear and consistent definition of political violence. THE EVIDENCE: The court's judgment rested on the
intent to 'intimidate the population and destabilize society.' This definition, while legally sound within Danish statutes, prompts a broader inquiry into its proportional application across various acts of political violence globally. The attack itself, described as one of 'low intensity,' detonated outside the embassy, damaging its outer wall and shattering windows in nearby buildings, but
failed to inflict casualties. THE CONTRADICTIONS: The alacrity with which 'terrorism' is applied here stands in contrast to incidents where state or state-sponsored actors commit acts of violence. For instance, the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Beirut in November 2013, which killed 23 people and wounded almost 150, was widely condemned but the term 'terrorism' was often applied selectively,
sometimes implying a symmetrical conflict rather than a unilateral act of aggression by a designated terror group. More broadly, the systematic violence against civilian populations perpetrated by state actors, such as the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, where 3,500 Palestinian civilians were killed, are rarely, if ever, prosecuted under international terrorism statutes against the involved state