Raging Within: Ideological Terrorism

This is the fifth or sixth book on terrorism for middle school students from Samuel Katz this year; That's Katz with an initial M.--not Katz, author of Battleground and Lone Wolf, and no relation to him. At first blush, this book seems only marginally interesting, in that it deals with groups that have largely faded into the history of the last 30 years. Gone from the headlines (fortunately) are Germany's Red Army Faction and Baader Meinhof gang, as well as the Japanese Red Army. But all three groups were tied to major terror attacks and murders in the 1970s--as Katz explains. And what makes these 72 pages filling six chapters especially interesting are the highlighted factors that bound such groups to an international terrorist coalition--the Cold War, Communism--and the Middle East. How many kids (or adults for that matter) realize that the RAF "studied" with Palestinian terrorists who hoped to drive Israel from the Middle East, in terror camps in south Lebanon, or helped them purchase arms and ammo on the world's black markets? It made a sort of deadly sense, for whereas Arabs might raise Israeli suspicions when crossing into Israel territory from Lebanon, "a white European would not" (p. 13). Alas, the same thinking seems to function today for such "peace activists" as the International Solidarity Movement, whose workers in reality train in terror techniques and subterfuge, according to FrontPageMagazine and reporter Lee Kaplan. Similarly, Katz exposes the ties of Greek "revolutionaries" in the group called 17 November that sprang from the Italian and British withdrawals from Greece in the aftermath of World War II. Herein lies my greatest criticism. The 17 November group assassinated U.S. and Greek officials in 1975, and during the 1990 and 1991 Persian Gulf War attacked U.S. targets with greater intensity. This was terrorism of the worst sort, for which there is no excuse. Nevertheless, given 17 November's terror against Turkey, Katz should have mentioned the context of Greek resistance against 14 centuries of jihad, including the Greek civil war. Finally, how many realize that the JRA trained with the PLFP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) alongside Kurds, South Africans, Irish and German terrorists in the mountains near Sidon? How many remember the May 30, 1972 attack in Lod Israel, when three Japanese travelers from Rome blew 26 (mostly) Puerto Rican Christian pilgrims off the planet and left 52 others crippled for life? The best thing about this book is its clear demarcation of lines that respect no race, and no religion, and whose victims can be anyone, anywhere. The next best thing is its outline of the terror trail that leads unceasingly back to perpetrators originating in the Muslim regions of the Middle East. --Alyssa A. Lappen