ABSTRACT
Attacks are often carefully choreographed to attract media attention. The holding of hostages serves to increase the drama, especially if their being killed is a possibility. Terrorism is aimed at the people watching and, in this sense, "terrorism is theater." A serious attempt to define terrorism came in 1937 when the League of Nations formulated the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism. The convention was intended to suppress acts of terrorism having an international character only. "Acts of terrorism," as set forth in Article I, are "criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or the general public. Terrorism is a purposeful human political activity primarily directed toward the creation of a general climate of fear designed to influence, in ways desired by the protagonist, other human beings and, through them, some course of events.
