For the most part, terrorists are desparate people with serious grievances.
Indeed. I think it is generally also true that they see no way of their grievances being addressed without using terrorism - the diplomatic or political route has been exhausted (or in some cases does not even get started) and convential military conflict is a non-starter.
Whatever you may think of their aims and methods it seems almost certain to me that without the actions of the Provisional IRA from the late '60s onwards the non-loyalist community in Northern Ireland would still be being denied many civil rights such as equal housing and employment rights, let alone any discussion of their political aspirations.
A strange quirk of the situation in Northern Ireland is that the advent of Republican terrorism led to the creation of Loyalist terrorist movements. These claimed to be protecting their communities from the IRA terrorists and it led to a brutal cycle of attacks and killing. Although the situation is by no means perfect and a peaceful outcome is by no means guaranteed the best - indeed to date only - solution to the Irish problems has been negotiations aimed at producing a solution which addresses the grievances and fears of
all sides. The terrorists were at least indirectly involved in these negotiations. Actually, the negotiations are pretty meaningless if they aren't in my opinion.
Similarly without the PLO actions of the '60s onwards nobody of any political significance would have paid any interest at all to their plight. I was going to say "and Israel would still be free to treat them as second class citizens" - but the sad truth is that (and much worse - I think Israel treats the Palestinians as sub-humans) is still happening.
People like Faith seem to regard terrorism as a root cause of problems - I regard it as a symptom (although it can also be regarded as a secondary cause of subsequent problems which can take on a life of their own).
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