Quote from: commandrix on July 01, 2014, 02:50:44 PM

Maybe it's just that, in the Israeli's case, killing civilians is accidental (and Hamas has been known to use their own civilian population as hostages in an attempt to look good to the media when civilians inevitably get killed), but when Palestinians kill Israeli civilians, it's usually quite cold-blooded and deliberate.

And maybe that has something to do with the fact that Israel has one of the most powerful armies in the world, while Palestinians are helpless civilians living under occupation for three generations, and the only thing they can possibly do to lash back is get their hands on a gun and kill the first Israeli they see before the army gets them...

The very notion of "Terrorism" was invented by empires to justify their violence against occupied civilian populations.
As your comment demonstrates so nicely, empires try very hard to create a distinction between two types of violence - legitimate violence and non-legitimate violence. The organized, large-scale violence of the empire against the populace, which is always far more deadly, is deemed a legitimate, necessary attempt to maintain order and security. The small-scale, scattered, unorganized violence of the weak populace against the occupying empire is called "terrorism" and portrayed as barbaric and indiscriminate.

Such has been the nature of empires since the dawn of history. Even the Roman empire tried to paint provincial rebellions as barbaric (which is exactly where the word barbarian comes from).

The truth is that organized imperial violence is always more cruel, as well as much more lethal. But it has been my experience that citizens of empires are simply incapable of grasping this truth. To westerners, the illusion that their armies are involved in some kind of noble, almost benevolent pursuit of security, stability and order is too deeply entrenched. I assure you, if you spend some time living under Israeli or American occupation, you will also start thinking of "terrorist acts" as small examples of brave people who's spirit will not be crushed, making a futile but noble attempt to fight back against the horror of their everyday lives.