terrorism must be distinguished from violence; it seems that the distinctive feature of terrorism is its being indeterminate in choosing its target. it is because the target of terrorism is indeterminate, and therefore unpredictable, that terrorism produces terror, which is its nature. i shall distinguish between three kinds of violence, only the latter of which is terrorism. there is violence perpetrated against someone that is truly guilty; there is violence against someone that is believed to be guilty by the perpetrator; and finally there is violence against someone who is, even in the eyes of the perpetrator, innocent: and that is terrorism; when a violent act is committed against someone that is not actually the end of the violence, but only a means. that alone has the power of producing widespread terror because nobody, nobody, can possibly feel safe from this kind of violence; nobody, in fact, can claim to be foreign to such acts of violence simply because anyone could be the target of those. terrorist acts have ends and targets, but their ends and targets are not those which are the victims of terrorist acts; the victims are only means, and anyone can be a means through which terrorism pursues its target. whenever an act of violence is perpetrated against its actual target, while it remains unjustified, it is not terrorism.