> Damaging property for political ends has been part of the definition in the UK, and I think the US, for decades.

Does that include property in Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon? Because if the people who spray painted something are "terrorists", I want to know what the people who wiped Rafah off the face of the earth are called.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah

Colinizers?

The correct term is genocidal monsters.

Israelis and others who support this have shown that the lesson they took from the Holocaust is that they believe it's morally fine as long as they're the ones doing the killing.

Well the definition is flawed, or as the British say, the law is an ass.

Terrorism is widely understood to be the deployment of military force against civilian populations. Of course states do this all the time, but 'state terrorism' is basically dependent on whether politicians in country A align with country B or not; if they don't, they'll call out state abuses in country B as state terrorism, if not they'll say it's law and order.

Regardless of these nuances, extending the definition to include any kind of property damage is just laughably opportunist.

>any kind of property

"Any kind" is quite the load bearing argument there. Let me remind you Europe is under an ongoing land invasion, which is why fucking with its defensive capabilities is unlikely to solicit much sympathies.

You mean Russia invading Ukraine, right? Were these jets helping Ukraine or were they helping Israel?

Neither. They were part of anti-ISIS/ISIL operations.

In Europe?

Bad argument. If you sabotage military equipment in Europe, obviously you also indirectly lower the military potential of that army somewhere else. The planes in Europe aren’t there to be paperweights, they are either being maintained there for service or are there as a deterrent and need to be reinforced by other planes when damaged.

Bad argument. You're saying the French were wrong to sabotage Hitler's airplanes because they might've been used after the war to defend Germany from the USSR.

If you think European defense is analogous to hitler defending Germany in WWII, we should have started the discussion at a very different point. Do you really think that?

So the idea is that Russia is planning on invading the UK?

> Armed conflict by residents and citizens against the state is usually a serious criminal offense everywhere.

I think it’s worth considering that you’re much more likely to be a resident or a citizen than a state when you’re deciding how you feel about these kinds of things.

> Damaging property for political ends

Damaging military equipment is a military end, not a political one. If it were otherwise, then a military attacking a military would definitionally be terrorism. At that point, you've removed the utility of the word "terrorism" from English and made it synonymous with "armed conflict."

Terrorism being done chiefly to change policies by terrorizing people through symbolic acts is a constrained, generally-accepted definition of terrorism.

Contrast with 9/11, where symbols of American capitalism, filled with civilians, were attacked in order to terrify people who have nothing to do with those buildings into supporting changes in policy that hurt the US.

I suppose the UK could declare Palestine Action as combatants and hunt them down and shoot them.. but that doesn't seem very uh, appropriate. I sort of prefer them being arrested and going through courts.

Note that the UK would be committing war crimes in this case, since you are not allowed to murder unarmed soldiers, you are supposed to capture them and put them in POW camps.

Which is typically called „arresting“ when a government does it to their own citizens…

PA was armed.

> you are not allowed to murder unarmed soldiers,

That's also false, you can absolutely kill unarmed combatants so long as they remain combatants. Eg you can bomb an artillery crew even if they don't have sidearms.

To be eligible for capture, a combatant must generally surrender.

> typically called „arresting“ when a government does it to their own citizens

I encourage you to read up on POW camps. There are no attorneys or rights. You may work POWs. There are cases in which food and medical aid can be severely limited depending on how it is sourced. You may hold POWs functionally forever.

An artillery crew is armed with the cannon.

POWs don’t have attorneys, but they do have rights. Limiting food and medical aid is a war crime.

Of course, everybody routinely violates the rights of POWs, and only the losers ever get prosecuted.

Source that you wouldn’t be allowed to kill unarmed enemy soldiers? Imagine a scouting team doing reconnaissance, surely you’re allowed to attack and kill them?

Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.

Laying down your arms is generally considered an expression of surrender and renders protection.

Also, who sends scouts unarmed? They should at least have a sidearm.

Laying down arms as an action is different to being unarmed.

And it was a hypothetical, there are a lot of situations where you can kill unarmed military personnel legally.

You can just bomb military barracks full of sleeping unarmed people legally for example.

By that logic, PA had fighter jets.

And no, limiting food and medical is not a war crime if the source being limited is from the captor and matches the treatment of their own troops.

Or you know... they could just prosecute them for their crimes like an actual functioning democracy.

You cannot hide behind convenience.

Terrorising means causing terror. I have no real reason to be afraid of Palestine Action, because I am not a military jet.

Just because it's part of the government's definition doesn't mean that it's true. It's in the government's interest to define as much as possible as terrorism.