Terrorism as a Form of Communication Review of Literature Introduction

The general argument of this study is that terrorism, as a mode of communications, is also a form of warfare; therefore, the study of warfare, particularly in its communicative aspect ("sending a message" through military action or the threat of military action). Therefore, a portion of the literature on the art and history of war falls within the purview of this study. The literature of war is of course enormous; the works considered under that heading below are those that either focus on general doctrines which are applicable to war through terrorism as well as to forms of war more conventionally identified as such, or that make specific points useful to the development of the thesis of this study.

The other categories of literature relevant to this study are communications theory and the literature of terrorism. Communications theory per se is given only an extremely cursory consideration in this study, with the purpose of establishing only the general validity of treating actions, as opposed to the verbal or visual messages that we more conventionally unde

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East, which has featured most prominently in contemporary terrorism. David C. Rapoport (no date), in "Terror and the Messiah: An Ancient Experience and Some Modern Parallels," in the book The Morality of Terrorism, examines the experience of the Zealot and sicarii movements of ancient Judea, and draws from it specific contemporary parallels. These parallels, however, are not to Palestinian or Islamic terrorism directed against Israel or its supporters, but to the role of terrorism, and specifically Menachim Begin's Irgun, in the political violence that preceeded the establishment of the State of Israel. Rapoport also, however, draws more general parallels between the course of events in ancient Judea and the typical courses of events that have followed upon terrorist campaigns in various parts of the contemporary world. A striking feature of Zealot and sicarii violence in ancient Judea, Rapoport suggests, is the role of Jewish terrorist activity, and the Roman reprisals it provoked, in effectively eliminating the political middle. Moderate Romans were frustrated and exasperated, and turned to harsher measures, while moderate Judeans were physically eliminated by assassination, cowed into political ineffectiveness, or
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Approximate Word count = 6048
Approximate Pages = 24 (250 words per page)

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