Who is the REAL Terrorist?

In their statement, Transnational Feminist Practices Against War, the authors list and describe 5 responses to the events of the September 11 attacks. The response that stood out to me the most is their challenging of the constant jump to label terrorists and acts of terrorism based on stereotypical profiling of what the "ideal terrorist" looks like to American citizens. The challenge the U.S. discourse to reflect their definitions of terrorism on their own domestic and international agendas.

The writers, in this response critique, discuss two major factors in the static stereotype of terrorism. One of the factors is the broad and racist portrayal of what a terrorist looks like. The authors describe the profiling of a a terrorist in the eyes of the American society as, "anyone who looks like a Muslim, in which targets of racism include Muslims, Arabs, Sikhs, and any other people with olive or brown skin". They explain that the racism which fuels the current definition of "terrorist", it allows for all other people of color to be vulnerable to the scapegoat tactic of white Americans. The racial profiling of people who look like "terrorists" is one of the main causes of ignorance to the needs of POC in America and across the globe, specifically South Asians, Arabs, and other brown people and their diaspora, as they are not deemed worthy enough of our allyship or aid. This creates a hostile environment for victims of racial profiling, something which, coincidentally, the so-called "War on Terror" is trying to eliminate.

The other factor the authors point out is the participation of America in its own terrorist agenda in other countries. What is meant by this? The authors break it down; "We also want to inquire into construction of 'terrorism' that continue to target nonnative or "foreign" opposition movements while cloaking its own practices of terror in euphemisms such as 'foreign aid'. Deconstructing the trope of 'terrorism' must include a sustained critique of the immense resources spent by the U.S.  in training 'counter-terrorists' and 'anti-communist' forces who then, under other historical circumstances, become enemies rather than allies, as in the now famous case of Osama bin Laden". It is hard for many Americans to believe that the U.S. government not only aided in the start up of well-known terrorist groups targeting the U.S. as well as citizens of their own countries, but in the colonization and imperializaation of many countries, either directly, or with the help of their "foreign aid" policies. It is scary to think that we might not be protected by our "own people" because the so-called keepers of our freedom and safety, have themselves been very hypocritical in their "War on Terror".

A great example of this is America's allyship to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In order to get its foot in the door of the Middle East, America has teamed with Israel in its illegal occupation of Palestine, which the U.S. funds to an enormous extent. In doing this, the U.S. is actively condoning and participating in a terrorist regime to cleanse Palestine of its native peoples in order to give the land to its occupiers and to slice the U.S. a piece of the Arab pie. This isn't talked about, because the discourse around the Israeli occupation and U.S. contribution to it intentionally portrays is as a civil dispute between the two religious groups of the nation, and fails to address the uneven advantage Israelis have over Palestinians. Furthermore, Israel's reputation is protected under U.S. society while Palestine is exploited for its Arabic ethnicity by racist stereotypes of the community.

I wonder, taking into consideration these 5 responses to the 9/11 attack the authors discuss, what are solutions to each of these responses that we can implement in order to change the discourse around Arabs and Arab Americans and other POC caught in the crossfire?