It is on balance desirable to encourage Universal Jurisdiction, and to create pressure from below to make application of such jurisdiction as consistent as possible. I think this will act as a deterrent in some situations, although this impact will never be acknowledged by those affected as it would only embolden civil society to intensify its pressures.

There is no doubt that this fusion of terrorist and Muslim feeds virulent forms of Islamophobia, which is also encouraged by such incidents as the Westgate Mall massacre in Nairobi and the Anglican Church bombing in Pakistan. 9/11 greatly intensified this tendency toward fusion, but it had also been nurtured by Israeli propaganda that portrayed their Palestinian and Arab adversaries as "terrorists." In fact, the US government approach after 9/11 was modeled in many of its features on Israeli tactics developed during the long occupation of Palestine.

Looked at objectively, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths resulting from political violence are produced by what should be understood as "state terror." Terrorism also serves as an excuse to avoid diplomacy and the peaceful resolution of conflict.

The British leadership has acknowledged that it only became possible to end the violence in North Ireland when it stopped thinking of the [Irish Republican Army] as "a terrorist organization" and began treating it as a political actor with genuine grievances that deserved to be addressed.

In the current setting the situation of the poor is neglected despite the grotesque wealth of the capitalist elites, and the dangers to the well-being of humanity associated with climate change are ignored despite a strong scientific consensus warning of the adverse, and possibly irreversible, consequences of further delays in reducing the level of greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon.

It may be that there is so much ambiguity and ideology attached to the term 'terrorism' that it is best to avoid its use altogether, as it is likely to be twisted in public discourse to demonise the enemies of the established order, while exempting state violence from legal and moral scrutiny.

It should be appreciated that if the arrangement on Iran's nuclear program collapses after being so patiently negotiated, and successfully implemented since 2014 despite the intense opposition of Netanyahu's Israel and its American loyalists in Congress, it would be widely perceived around the world as a huge setback in the search for regional stability and the struggle to prevent any further spread of nuclear weapons.