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When Civilians are the Main Target, there's no need to Consider the Cause; that's

Terrorism; it's Evil." Is this Correct?

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When Civilians are the Main Target, there's no need to Consider the Cause; that's

Terrorism; it's Evil." Is this Correct?

The idea that attacking civilians is Terrorism that does not depend on why it happens

ignores the moral difficulties of the situation. Such a strict approach fails to understand that not

all acts of resistance are the same or would set a clear difference between terrorism, collateral

damage and legitimate resistance. Although any attack on civilians is reprehensible, assigning

blame should not ignore the political background, how much was used or what other choices

were available to the sides. Historical and philosophical analysis demonstrates that, in many

cases, the rule of labelling civilians as terrorists helps the state retain its grip on violence, which

hides the main reasons behind asymmetric conflicts. To call targeting of civilians generally

"evil" is to miss the point about context and causation slicing open power differentials; rather,

what acts of harm can be minimized is a question of intention, structural domination and more

of the same or, conversely, how anything other than war can be created.

A main issue in this critique is the uncertain role of the principle of discrimination. The

intentional targeting of civilians is strictly forbidden in the just war tradition. However, Michael

Walzer argues that when a threat of extinction confronts a nation, such as Britain, faced under

Nazi attacks, targeting civilians could be deemed a necessary response (Walzer, 2006). Even

though this exception goes against key humanitarian principles, it demonstrates the importance

of weighing each action based on the situation. There's a clear difference between the moral

values behind targeting civilians to deny genocide and targeting them to control religion. Also,

because clear front lines no longer exist, the concept of non-combatant immunity becomes more

tricky. For example, in guerrilla warfare, people who normally work the land might take on

fighting roles during the day and look like ordinary citizens at night. Once civilian facilities are
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used to support fighting, it becomes difficult to make out who is fighting and who is a bystander.

If everyone in a society is involved in warfare, it becomes difficult to maintain the idea that all

civilians are safe, as Asa Kasher points out (Kasher, 2009).

These vagaries are not only academic. Notably, the 2023 war in Gaza puts forth the

ethical dilemmas of asymmetrical warfare. Hamas' use of placing military equipment in civilian

centres violates customary law, yet Israel's broad definition of military targets and, thus, high

civilian death toll also sparks ethical concern (Greenland et al., 2024). Frown upon one side

without investigating the practices and intents of both parties; it's arguable to leave out the many-

faceted nature of the conflict. The moral status of targeting must be determined not only by its

results but also by one's intentions and necessity and proportionality considerations that are

easily buried in public anger.

In ethics, justice of the cause is an issue. For instance, the ANC during apartheid also

carried out bombings targeting government infrastructure, with warnings given to reduce

casualties. They acted in a struggle against legalized racial oppression, a purpose thought to be

legitimate under international law. The Islamic State's (ISIS) campaign of attacking civilian

populations, like the theatre massacres, did not function in any emancipatory manner but instead

sought to impose an inhuman sectarian regime. Both could have led to civilians being killed,

though only the latter falls under C.A.J. Coady's definition of terrorism: violence carried out

against non-combatants by non-state actors intended to cause fear for ideological purposes

(Coady, 2004).

The motives and the means are important. Importantly, as Frantz Fanon described,

revolutionary violence grows from profound political and psychological estrangement under

colonial rule. Violence as a means of dehumanization for the oppressed, taking back agency
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once robbed by systemic brutality, becomes, for Fanon, "justified. Terrorism, in direct contrast,

is instrumental violence without liberatory ethics; it is aimed to demoralize, not to excite. To

treat the two types of violence as morally equivalent, which is characteristic of much media and

policy rhetoric, is not only factually incorrect but delegitimizes demands for justice. This

practice is illustrated nicely by Edward Herman's distinction between "retail versus wholesale

terrorism": he has in mind that small-scale attacks carried out by non-state actors are designated

as terrorism, whereas large-scale civilian deaths as a result of state action, for example, in U.S.

drone strikes or Saudi blockades both events of much higher magnitude get reframed as a

regrettable side-effect, as perfectly innocent collaterally damaged, and so the moral sting has

been withdrawn.

It's rarely helpful and frequently damaging to label violence as evil. The idea of the

"banality of evil" that Hannah Arendt offered has served as a reminder that ordinary people may

practice systemic violence following orders rather than as the emanation of monstrousness. On

the other hand, evil has deep religious connotations and is not amenable to rational analysis. For

example, referring to the Hamas 2023 attacks on Israeli civilians as evil may serve an emotional

requirement for condemnation, yet does nothing to discuss how the context of occupation,

disenfranchisement, and the displacement of decades contributed to a radicalization (Greenland

et al., 2024; Kasher, 2009). In the same vein, by so easily calling the bombing of Hiroshima

"necessary," political leaders are let off from needing to engage the moral burden of civilian

annihilation. According to Judith Butler, demonization of the enemy allows for a rotation of

dehumanization and unrestricted revenge (Butler, 2020).

We need, therefore, when confronting reality, to set aside ethical evaluation (or at least to

defer it to another mode or genre of discourse) and rekindle something like what Avishai
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Margalit calls a "decent society," a society that seeks understanding without justifying injury,

repudiates atrocity while probing its causes (Luban, 2007). The Northern Ireland peace process is

a case in point. Peace was achieved not by labelling all paramilitary activity as terrorism but by

addressing the political causes that gave rise to it. This method led to the demilitarization of

struggle without losing accountability. Likewise, policy-making frameworks that regard

terrorism as a black-and-white category that cannot be negotiated with or politically reformed are

wont to freeze conflicts, blocking potential negotiated settlements. When Palestinian resistance

is equated with terrorism, and nothing justifies their quest for self-governance, violence will go

on and on and on.

Domestically, absolutism in counter-terrorism has enabled civil liberties to be

dismantled. The Patriot Act and similar tools of the sort enforced by liberal democracy across

the world have only evinced minorities, largely among the poorest of society, and evidenced few

concrete gains in security. The war on terror has widened surveillance, normalized indefinite

detention, legalized drones and sanctioned extrajudicial killing. Meanwhile, the structural drivers

of violence, poverty, occupation, and political exclusion are left to fester. Findings from the

Costs of War Project show that drone strikes and other military action frequently create more

enmity and recruitment for extremist groups than they quell (Crawford & Lutz, 2018).

Approaches that can address structural inequities through negotiated settlements hold

more promise. Colombia's peace accord with the FARC in 2016, though far from perfect, shows

that even organizations that have been branded terrorists can be incorporated into the political

process. This calls for acknowledging grievances, a readiness to give and take, and international

assistance to transitional justice. It also represents a moral turn from blanket condemnation to
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contextual engagement. We should ask whether an act is wrong, why it happened, what

alternatives were available, and how such violence can be avoided.

Conclusion

Ultimately, refusing to oversimplify morality is not condoning moral relativism. Killing

civilians deliberately is always a grave wrong. However, getting to the bottom of the motivation

behind such acts and the environment and limitations within which they occur is critical to

effectively responding to them. There's still a billboard that we can use by Igor Primoratz in his

revised definition of terrorism: the intentional targeting of civilians for ideological purposes.

There is a method of responding to terrorism, but it is based on the character of its cause. We

negotiate with nationalists who resist the occupation, but we cannot deal with apocalyptic

organizations who swear by annihilation. This nuanced approach steers between the black hole

of moral equivalency and the possibility of peace.

At a time when state violence claims exponentially more lives of civilians than do non-

state actors, ethical scrutiny should look not simply at insurgents but at the systems and policies

that maintain possession of violent realities. The challenge now is not merely to denounce

terrorism but to destroy the conditions under which it is seen as an option. That requires moral

courage, historical reflexivity, and a practised ability to confront even the most unpleasant truths

about power, violence, and justice.

References

Butler, J. (2020). The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind. Verso.

Coady, C. A. (2004). Terrorism and innocence. The Journal of Ethics, 8(1), 37-

58. [Link]

Crawford, N. C., & Lutz, C. (2018). Human Cost of Post-9/11 Wars: Lethality and the Need for

Transparency. Watson Institute, Brown University. [Link]

Greenland, P., Lakser, O., & Lipschutz, L. (2024). Importance of a broader view of the Hamas–

Israel war. BMJ Global Health, 9(2), e014378. [Link]

014378

Herman, E. S., & O'Sullivan, G. (1990). The Terrorism Industry: The Experts and Institutions

That Shape Our View of Terror. Pantheon Books.

Isacson, A. (2021, November 23). A Long Way to Go: Implementing Colombia's peace accord

after five years. WOLA. [Link]

colombias-peace-accord-after-five-years/

Kasher, A. (2009). Operation Cast Lead and Just War Theory. Israel Studies, 15(2), 34–51.

Luban, D. (2007). Legal Ethics and Human Dignity. Georgetown University, Washington DC.

Cambridge University Press. [Link]

Margalit, A. (1998). The Decent Society. Harvard University Press.

Walzer, M. (2006). Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. Basic

Books.