The UN is actually trying to (gasp) come up with a definition of terrorism . Although it might surprise many, the UN has been operating over its lifetime with no agreed upon understanding on this important international action. Four years after the attacks of 9/11, over 30 years after the Munich Olympics, and despite literally thousands of terrorist attacks throughout the world and the international body still has yet to agree on what constitutes terrorism. This, despite the fact that there have been no fewer than 1427 terrorist attacks internationally between 1986-2005, and indeed likely many more (click here for details on each attack), several hundred within the past few years alone. So… what took so long? The answer, to anyone who follows international news, is painfully obvious.

The debate, according to the BBC, has focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Over the past several years, many in the international community could simply not bring themselves to accept that the murder of innocent Jewish men, women, and children in the worlds only Jewish state, is just as bad as the murder of anyone else. Because of this, they refused to agree on any definition since any meaningful definition would have to include the preferred Palestinian method of warfare.

The proposed draft that the UN is hoping countries will sign, says the following:

“We affirm that the targeting and deliberate killing of civilians and non-combatants cannot be justified or legitimised by any cause or grievance, and we declare that any action intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such an act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population or to compel a government or an international organisation to carry out or to abstain from any act cannot be justified on any grounds and constitutes an act of terrorism.”

This definition is useful for several reasons.

First, the “targeting and deliberate” clause separates terrorism from accidental of unintentional killings, so as not to include episodes like the police shooting in London , or the unfortunate collateral damage inherent in any modern military conflict.

Second, the clause includes not only murder, but even actions “intended to cause death or serious bodily harm,” but do not. Thus, failed attempts may still constitute terrorism.

This act is a long time coming, if indeed it is adopted. The lack of any agreed upon definition has prevented the possibility of any comprehensive convention on terrorism or agreed upon counter-measures. In place of any agreement is the relativist and morally empty mantra that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

It is time for the world to realize that one mans terrorist is another mans terrorist. Words have meaning and unless such meaning is legitimized by the most important international body on the planet, this world will continue to be a no-man’s-land of moral equivalency and international misunderstanding.