Terrorism (1998)

Terrorism (Amended) (1998)

Terrorism is an international offensive, an open declared war against civilized society. No longer a marginal problem for the civilized world, it is a growing international threat to the peace and stability of all legitimate states.

  • Terrorism is the moral justification of murder, not merely as a means to an end, but for its own sake. The modern terrorist employs violence as a desirable for activity.
  • Terrorism deliberately suppresses the moral instincts on man. Terrorist organizers give their recruits intellectual justification for murder as well as systematically blunting their instinctive humanity.
  • Terrorism rejects politics as the normal means by which communities resolve conflicts. Terrorists reject the mainstream of western thinking which views politics (the art of negotiation and compromise) as an essential part of the basic machinery of civilization.
  • Terrorism assists the spread of the totalitarian state, and is entirely dependent on the continuing good will and active support of police states. The countries which finance and maintain the international infrastructure of terrorism and provide terrorists refuge and havens, training camps and diplomatic support are, without exception, totalitarian states.
  • Terrorism exploits the apparatus of freedom and is a direct and continuous threat to all the protective devices of a free society; to freedom of the press and the media, to the rule of law, to habeas corpus, to the continuing process of humanizing the legal code, to the civilizing of prisons, to any system designed to curb excesses by the police, prison authorities or other restraining forces.

Therefore, Women’s League for Conservative Judaism:

  • Condemns all forms of terrorism,
  • Supports the establishment and implementation of an international code of punishment for terrorists and for countries and individuals which aid and abet terrorists,
  • Rejects, as well, Jewish terrorist acts as antithetical to the values and teachings of our tradition. We applaud the government of Israel for moving aggressively against such acts which undermine the sovereignty of the State.
  • Calls on the United States to act on its own adopted law enabling our government to indict and prosecute all known terrorists who murder or maim American citizens anywhere in the world. We would urge the United States to aggressively pursue known terrorists, if their whereabouts be known, and bring them to justice and free civilized society of their continued threat.

Amended Resolution on Terrorists (1984)

Terrorism is an international offensive, an open declared war against civilized society. No longer a marginal problem for the civilized world, it is a growing international threat to the peace and stability of all legitimate states.

  • Terrorism is the moral justification of murder, not merely as a means to an end, but for its own sake. The modern terrorist employs violence as a desirable form of activity.
  • Terrorism deliberately suppresses the moral instincts in man. Terrorist organizers give their recruits intellectual justifications for murder as well as systematically blunting their instinctive humanity.
  • Terrorism rejects politics as the normal means by which communities resolve conflicts Terrorist reject the mainstream of western thinking which views politics (the art of negotiation and compromise) as an essential part of the basic machinery of civilization.
  • Terrorism assists the spread of the totalitarian state, and is entirely dependent on the continuing good will and active support of police states. The countries which finance and maintain the international infrastructure of terrorism and provide terrorists refuge and havens, training camps and diplomatic support are, without exception, totalitarian states.
  • Terrorism exploits the apparatus of freedom and is a direct and continuous threat to all the protective devices of a free society; to freedom of the press and the media, to the rule of law, to habeas corpus, to the continuing process of humanizing the legal code, to the civilizing of prisons, to any system designed to curb excesses by the police, prison authorities or other restraining forces.

Therefore, Women’s League for Conservative Judaism:

  • Condemns all forms of terrorism,
  • Supports the establishment and implementation of an international code of punishment for terrorists and for countries and individuals which aid and abet terrorists,
  • Rejects, as well, Jewish terrorist acts as antithetical to the values and teachings of our tradition. We applaud the governments of Israel for moving aggressively against such acts which undermine the sovereignty of the State.