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Abstract

TERRORISM, LIKE THE RECENT tornados which struck in the Midwest, can come upon the unwary with lightning swiftness, strike in unexpected places, leave in their trail devastation, death, and helpless victims, and generate in relatives, friends, and a concerned public a sense of frustration and futility. Frustration in the sense that there was so little forewarning of the dramatic events that are to leave the lives of certain individuals forever changed. Futility that so little seems to be accomplished to prevent such destructive forces from again unfolding. The tornado that struck Xenia, Ohio, on April 3, 1974, took more than a score of lives. The terroristic group which struck Qiryet Shemoneh, Israel, on April 11, 1974, took 18. In the end results there are remarkable similarities between the two phenomena--one man-made, and one caued by the forces of nature. Terrorism, unlike tornados, can and must be stamped out by international cooperation and agreement. It can be contained and then ended by the determined international cooperation of nations and states and appropriate and effective sanctions imposed on those who continue to perpetrate this criminal conduct on their fellow man. By denying terrorists refuge in any country to which they might flee, by requiring immediate prosecution or extradition, by refusal to meet their extravagant demands, terrorism, and the reasons for promoting terrorism could be cancelled out. It may be a long time before tornados can be controlled. As yet man has not devised the scientific and technological means by which they can be dissipated before they touch the ground with their devastating effects, and (unlike the seeding of clouds to alter the rainfall) tornados seem unamenable to any man-contrived efforts to dissipate their ferocity. However, international terrorism, as a product of man, not of nature, has its genesis in the minds of men, who can be deterred, can be caught, and their objectives thwarted, by the determined efforts and agreement of the community of nations.

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