The Middle East: terrorism, international law, and the cosmopolitan Myth

In the "war on terror" state actions following terrorist attacks have redefined how state responses intersect with international law. The continued violations of international laws have meant that not only do citizens face the threat and risk of violence from terrorist attacks, but also from the policies states introduce as responses to terrorist attacks. This article critically examines state responses to the "terrorist" attacks by Hamas on 7 October 2023 through the lens of cosmopolitanism to demonstrate the ever-increasing erosion of the principles of humanity, equality, and international law in the "war on terror". In critically examining state responses, the article considers how the Israeli response to these attacks mobilised political discourses, constructed binaries, and involved military interventions and the implications of these for moral, ethical, and political cosmopolitanism. The article uses ethical and moral cosmopolitanism to explore the use of racialisation through language, stigmatisation and differentiation in state political discourses, and the silencing of civic, academic, and institutional cosmopolitan voices following the attacks. The final part of the article explores how the discourses of racialisation prevalent in political speeches transcended into racialised actions and the implications of Israel's response for political cosmopolitanism and the "war on terror". In demonstrating the presence of racialisation in state discourses and policies, the article details how the state response to these attacks intersects with genocidal discourses and genocidal actions, and how through doing so, represents a level of state violence that has previously not existed in state responses to terrorism in the "war on terror".