Car Bomb in Lebanon

Kamal Medhat, a member of Fatah and representative of the PLO, was assassinated in Lebanon. There was a bomb inside a shed on the side of the road that was detonated as he drove by, killing the Palestinian official and three others. It is not certain who is behind the attacks, but Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas labeled it an act of terrorism (BBC News 23 March 2009). Medhat dedicated his life to easing tensions between Palestinian factions in Lebanon and his death was a direct attack on the efforts made by him to stabilize and unite the factions (BBC News 23 March 2009). This article shows to me how distorted the term "terrorism" has become in the United States. Terrorism is defined in the United States Law code as "politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents" (U.S. Code Title 22, Ch. 38, Para. 2656f(d)). Medhat's assassination seems to be committed by someone who has interest in Palestinian unrest which suggests political motives. The United States media has fostered a general tendency to pigeonhole terrorists as the "other," or Middle Eastern, or Islamic. We stereotype terrorists as having religious motives and reasons for their violence, but in studying the mission of Hizbollah, it's unclear whether religion is their motive or rather the mechanism by which their motives are played out.