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In an escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and associated culture war, we now have one of the first(?) terroristic threat charges brought against someone in the States. A teacher felt that a student’s comment about his flag was disrespectful and responded by threatening to behead her. It is reported that the teacher shouted:
And students report hearing that
The teacher who made this terroristic threat is Benjamin Reese, a Jewish man from Georgia, and the flag he had in his room was an Israeli flag [1] [2]. I find this noteworthy for two reasons. A Jewish man is making threats that I would have guessed came from a Muslim, which tells me about my bias and the level of passion on both sides of the conflict right now. But I’m also surprised that, despite the story first being published 24hrs ago, it’s untouched by mainstream news except RawStory. There’s local affiliates, RawStory, and YahooFinance Canada. But there’s no CNN, Fox, NYTimes, etc. They can’t be waiting for more information, because we already have the police reports. I predict that this story will not gain the traction that it would had the threat been made by a Palestinian man, or Muslim generally. Certainly that would be brought up on prime time Fox.
This instantly reminded me of the Day of Hate news blitz, when the Chabad-affiliated Barry (Baruch) Nockowitz picked up a toddler and threw him against a wall because of “anti-semitism”, telling police he would find another kid to attack [3]. Besides Miami Herald, this had zero news coverage, all the while coinciding with the “day of hate” which received George Floyd levels of news coverage and zero crimes committed. (As proof of how little coverage it got, themotte is on the first page of google results for his name, linking to the last time I mentioned this crime).
...it's terrorism for a teacher to scream inappropriately at a student now? Or at least a 'terroristic threat'?
You don't think that's overblown?
Isn't that just garden variety verbal abuse?
The term doesn't really have legal meaning, just an inflation in language.
But in this case, it actually fits. The teacher isn't threatening the kid with beheading on a personal basis, because the kid is annoying him. He is threatening the kid for the kid's political views, telling him if you oppose Israel you should/will be beheaded, or at least that your teacher will scream such obscene threats at you. This would have the likely effect of preventing other students from expressing similar views, for fear of beheading/getting screamed at by their teacher. The purpose is terroristic: the threat was made to change the expressed political views and actions of the threatened person and the audience.
I would say threats with a political purpose or agenda behind them are strictly worse than threats with a purely personal Animus. For scalability reasons, because of the additional victims in the audience, and because of the added threat to freedom of speech/association/etc. If he threatened a kid because the kid annoyed him, that would only impact the kid. When he threatened a kid for the kid's views on Palestine, the kid is victimized, and any members of the audience who share that view of Palestine are equally victimized because they know their teacher is also threatening them if they speak out (probably throw in anyone who has views that also might cause controversy), and the rest of the group is victimized because their thoughts will tend to be restricted by the threat.
Harsh, signal punishment is necessary to let everyone know that society does not condone political violence and that they are free to speak and think what they will.
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In Georgia, a "terroristic threat" has little to do with terrorism; it includes includes a threat to commit any crime of violence with the purpose of terrorizing another, and is a misdemeanor unless the threat suggests the death of the threatened individual.
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No, I think threatening to cut someone's head off is actually a terroristic threat. A simple, "I'll fucking kill you" would be garden variety verbal abuse, but specificity feels oddly escalatory. If someone tells me they'll kill me, well, that's not great. But if they tell me they're going to cut my ear off, I will think they have a specific idea in mind.
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I think it is not colorful enough and over the top be clear cut verbal abuse. If he threatened to hang them by their own intestines while raping their pet hamster dressed in santa suit it would have been. I will kick your ass and behead you is in the "low chance, but could be serious" territory especially while in rage. Context and body language matters a lot. Without video it's hard to make a call.
What makes the crime a terroristic threat rather than just a death threat?
I think the term comes from a threat that is intended to terrify rather than a threat to commit terrorism. The criminal act is threatening to commit any violent crime so threatening to assault someone is terroristic threat in Georgia law.
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