ABSTRACT
The State of Israel is to the world today what the United States may have seemed 170 or 180 years ago: a city on the hill, a place where it was important to protect, defend and display the light of freedom, even if you never made it personally to the citadel. Terrorism itself is not new. What is new about it is its transnational character — the internationalization of what Brian Crozier has called “motivated violence for political ends.” The internationalization of terrorism has many immediate causes. Vast improvements in transportation allow terrorists to move swiftly and anonymously from nation to nation without fear of detection. The diffusion of modern military technology has simplified the process of inflicting destruction of an unprecedented scale, and modern communication eases the international coordination of terrorist activities and the dissemination of its “message.” International terrorists, contrary to their image, are not usually the warped, demented individuals so often portrayed in the news media.
