Beirut matters in the book not simply as a place where violence occurred, but as a test of whether terrorism is defined by the means and targets involved or by the identity of the actor. The account of a 1985 bombing outside a mosque is set against the public condemnation of the Oklahoma City bombing: the comparison, Chomsky argues, makes visible how violence in Beirut could be treated as familiar background even when its circumstances resembled those that shocked Americans.

Beirut and the 1985 Bombing

The central Beirut episode described is a 1985 truck-bomb attack outside a mosque. The vehicle was packed with explosives and timed to detonate as people left the mosque, with the stated aim, in Chomsky’s account, of killing as many civilians as possible. The attack killed 80 people and injured 250, most of them women and children, according to a report in The Washington Post published three years later.

The target was a Muslim dignitary whom the Reagan administration opposed; he survived. Chomsky says that the attack was not a secret and that it had been discussed in the mainstream press before being quickly forgotten. He asks whether the CIA should have been permitted to organize it, placing the episode within a broader argument about the responsibilities of state agencies and the consequences of treating their violence differently from violence committed by non-state actors.

Comparisons and the Naming of Terrorism

Chomsky recalls that after the Oklahoma City bombing, newspaper headlines for several days said that “Oklahoma City resembles Beirut.” He reverses the comparison: Beirut, too, resembled Beirut, because the earlier bombing there had involved a truck filled with explosives and aimed at civilians. The contrast is not only between two attacks, but between the attention accorded to them. The Oklahoma City attack prompted widespread outrage; the Beirut bombing, despite its civilian toll and comparable method, did not remain in public view in the same way.

The episode supports the book’s distinction between a literal definition of terrorism and a political usage that reserves the label for violence by enemies. Chomsky cites the official U.S. definition as the calculated use or threat of violence for political, religious, or ideological ends, including through intimidation, coercion, or fear. On that definition, he argues, coercive violence against civilians cannot be exempted from scrutiny because it is carried out by a powerful state or its agencies. He further contends that official definitions of low-intensity warfare closely resemble official definitions of terrorism, and that terrorism is therefore also a component of state policy.

Beirut in a Wider Argument

Beirut appears alongside other examples in Chomsky’s critique of U.S. policy. He points to U.S. support for Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which he says killed about 18,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians and was not an act of self-defense, as acknowledged at the time. He also refers to later Israeli invasions in 1993 and 1996, both backed by the United States, and says that international reactions to the 1996 Qana massacre forced Bill Clinton to retreat. For Lebanon alone, he estimates that the civilian death toll after 1982 was probably 20,000.

These cases broaden the significance of the 1985 bombing without making them the same event. In Chomsky’s account, the Beirut attack is one instance in a pattern where state violence, allied violence, and violence by non-state groups should be assessed by consistent standards. The central question is not only who carried out an attack, but whether its methods, targets, and political purpose fit the definitions commonly invoked to condemn terrorism.

The Limits of the “War on Terrorism” Frame

The book argues that calling a campaign a “war on terrorism” is propaganda unless it actually targets terrorism as defined. Chomsky says that applying official definitions consistently to Western powers would expose the United States and its clients to the same classification used against adversaries. Beirut thus serves as a concrete counterexample to a framework in which terrorism is treated as the enemy’s violence while comparable state practices are described in different terms.

The episode also gives the book’s argument a recurring structure: an attack is named and condemned when it belongs to an enemy, while similar conduct by a powerful state or its allies recedes from attention. Beirut’s place in that contrast is especially clear in the remembered headline comparing it with Oklahoma City—and in Chomsky’s insistence that the comparison should run both ways.