Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

710 • ZEALOTSof protest without the police intervening or arresting the protestors.The EZLN further underscored its preference for relatively peacefuland more effective social netwar over guerrilla violence by SubcommanderMarcos’s September 1996 letter stating that the EZLNneither desired nor needed the announced support of the PopularRevolutionary Army.After the election of President Vicente Fox on 2 July 2000, theMexican federal government greatly reduced army troops and otherfederal security forces in the Chiapas region. On 28 March 2001EZLN representatives concluded a peace accord with the Mexicangovernment in a ceremony attended by President Fox in the lowerhouse of the Mexican Congress in Mexico City. The last majorknown incident involving the EZLN involved riots on 3–4 May 2006in Texcoco, in which demonstrators, consisting of EZLN leaders andmembers of other Mexican antiglobalization groups, who were protestingthe scheduled construction of a Wal-Mart store on the site ofan indigenous marketplace, clashed with the police force of Mexicostate and federal security forces. These clashes led to about 206 arrestsand injuries leading to the death of two protestors. Although theEZLN has continued to engage in sporadic political protests since2005, the organization has become essentially a political group ratherthan an active insurgency.ZEALOTS. Also known as the Sicarii (dagger wielders), the Zealotswere first-century A.D. Jewish religious ethnonationalists in the Romanprovince of Judea who carried out terrorist attacks on Romanofficials and Jews viewed as Roman collaborators as well as wagingan open insurgency against Rome in the period 66–70 A.D. The immediategoal of the Zealots was to purge Hellenistic cultural influencesfrom Jewish life as well as to rid Judea of Roman domination. Their ultimategoal was actually to initiate the advent of the Messiah by forcingan apocalyptic confrontation between Rome and the Jewish nation. AsJudea lacked sufficient human resources to withstand Rome’s militarypower, the Zealots believed that by provoking such a crisis they couldforce God’s direct intervention to save the people of Israel, to whomHe was bound by the terms of His covenant with the nation of Israel.The historian Josephus Flavius recorded most of the activity ofthe Zealots-Sicarii as having occurred in the 25 years preceding thedestruction of Jerusalem by Roman forces in 70 A.D. The Gospel