The Right to Resist: Palestine and the Semantics of Terrorism - ZNetwork The Right to Resist: Palestine and the Semantics of Terrorism
The Palestinian struggle, which spans over a century, is fundamentally about the dispossession of land, resistance to displacement, self-determination and human rights. The indigenous people of Palestine have paid in lives, treasure, hopes and lost dreams because of Europe’s history of racism, antisemitism and colonial exploitation; a legacy that was transplanted into the Middle East in the form of the ethno-nationalist terrorist state of Israel. The bloody legacy of European colonialism that we see in Palestine today has been felt on every continent. The French were driven from Algeria in 1962, after 132 years of brutal occupation; and in African countries and Ireland, British colonizers experienced the same fate. The question in 2025 is when, if ever, will the Zionist Israelis face the same fate. The United States and Israel have leveraged a powerful, emotionally charged concept, “terrorism,” to ensure that does not happen. The “terrorism” pretext has been strategically employed to accomplish their long-term goals of eliminating all resistance and weakening regional unity in order to implement their hegemonic designs over the region. To that end, fear, victimhood and baseless extreme accusations have been used to delegitimize opponents and to garner public support. The behemoth Israeli propaganda machine, fueled by wealthy powerful U.S. political and media lobbies, has been an effective tool in falsely painting the revolutionary struggle of the Palestinian people as terrorism and resistance groups, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as terrorists. The association of terrorism with Arabs, particularly Palestinians, Muslims and the Middle East in general has created the current climate of indifference to the unspeakable atrocities Israel’s so-called “moral army” has been committing against defenseless Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel’s killing of innocents, reducing their homes to rubble and destroying the infrastructure that sustains them, are acts of terror. Resisting terror and self-defense against Zionist state violence, are not. In the timeline of history, the oppressed have never welcomed the oppressors. Colonial rule has always been met with violent opposition from the colonized. It appears, however, that America’s governing classes and their media enablers have consistently ignored this basic H101 reality. Generations of Palestinians and Muslims have had to live with U.S.-Israeli state-sponsored terrorism. There has, however, been marginal examination of how and why the term has been used, and of the existing conditions that have allowed the United States and Israel to assume the role of terrorism arbiters, deciding who and what are a threat to the region and the world. In Washington, in most European capitals and in corporate media, the “terrorism threat” narrative has become sacrosanct; the unquestioned and required catechism of foreign policy. Although “terrorism” is a tactic, it has become a politically and ideologically loaded term. The overarching power of the word to delegitimize and dehumanize those at whom it is directed has made it difficult to agree on how best to define it. There is, however, assent among many scholars that terrorism is a “method of coercion that utilizes or threatens to utilize violence in order to spread fear and thereby attain political or ideological goals.” It is a form of politically motivated violence and intimidation. The definition, in every respect, describes the Israeli regime’s criminal acts in its political and ideological pursuit of Eretz (Greater) Israel. The people of the Middle East, after decades of foreign wars and chaos, “are now more aware of who is a real terrorist.” Ironically, it was the current Syrian president, Ahmad al-Sharaa—former al-Qaeda operative designated global terrorist by the U.S. government (in 2013)—who highlighted the hypocrisy surrounding the word. During a recent interview at the Doha Forum in Qatar, when confronted about his past, al-Sharaa objected to the interviewer’s use of the term terrorist, implying that if it refers to those who have, for decades, killed innocent civilians in Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan, then the label could be equally applied to Israel and the United States. Al-Sharaa was recently removed from the foreign terrorist list (November 2025) just in time for his meeting in the White House with President Donald J. Trump. The path from internationally recognized terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head to “legitimate” self-declared president of Syria reveals not only the malleability of the concept of terrorism, but also how legitimacy can be constructed. As in the case of Syria, there are numerous instances of how the powerful have used terrorist propaganda to legitimize or construct political agendas or outcomes. Following are a few notable examples of that abuse: During the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989), the Mujahideen, who later merged as the Taliban, were described by the U.S. government as “freedom fighters,” and its leaders welcomed to the White House in 1987. The Reagan administration (via the CIA) supported them in their fight against the Soviet-back government in Afghanistan. Today the Taliban are on the U.S. Specially Designated Global Terrorists list. Menachim Begin, Israeli prime minister (1977-1983) and 1978 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, was once blacklisted as a terrorist and a prize offered for his capture. During the British Mandate of Palestine (1920-1948), he was officially described by the British and U.S. governments and the United Nations as the leader of the notorious Irgun terrorist organization. The Irgun was widely condemned for its violent tactics, notably the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and its role in the 1948 massacre of over 100 Palestinians at Deir Yasin. Yitzhak Shamir, Israel’s seventh prime minister, was also designated a terrorist by the British authorities during the 1940s. The Lehi group (Stern Gang) he led was notorious for using assassinations as a terrorist weapon and for the numerous war crimes committed against the Palestinians. Since President George W. Bush declared America’s “war on terror” in 2001 every U.S. administration has used “terrorism” as an instrument to conduct an openly aggressive policy in the Middle East. This has been especially true with regard to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has, since the 1979 Revolution, been committed to the Palestinian struggle for liberation and self-determination. Iran regards its support of the anti-colonial struggle against the virulent Israeli occupying power in Palestine, legitimate resistance. Washington sees Tehran’s opposition to its hegemonic plans and labels it “state-sponsored terrorism.” According to the U.S. State Department, a state is designated as a sponsor of terrorism if it has “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.” Hence, Iran and its regional allies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, do not meet Washington’s terrorism criteria, given that their military action has not been directed around the world, but solely against its regional foe—the Zionist colony of Israel. If its own standards of judgment were applied to the United States, it would find itself at the top of the state-sponsors of terrorism list. Thousands of Iranian civilians, political figures and scientists, including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, have suffered at the hands of terrorists. For decades, U.S. and Israeli regimes have covertly financed, equipped and trained opposition groups that have fomented and carried out terrorist attacks inside Iran. Without providing any evidence, the United States, in 2019, designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. This was the first time in history a country officially designated the military of another sovereign country a terrorist group. Finally, the asymmetry of expectations with regard to violence exercised by state and non-state actors is particularly pronounced towards Palestinian resistance movements. The term “terrorism” is generally applied to political violence carried out by non-state groups, like Hamas, while the institutional use of violence practiced by states, like Israel, is described as “self-defense.” The overwhelming military power of the U.S.-backed Israeli regime used against a mostly defenseless adversary is justified as counterterrorism. Under international law, Palestinian resistance groups ought to be seen as “freedom fighters,” not terrorists. The UN Charter, international law, as well as numerous General Assembly resolutions have affirmed the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and legitimacy of their struggle for liberation by “all available means, including armed struggle.” Their struggle is a response to colonial occupation, oppression and state violence. In this context, the actions of non-state resistance groups can be framed as “self-defense” in a conflict where they have had no other means to challenge a powerful state whose blueprint has been the total decimation of the Palestinian nation. Since its founding, the goal of Israeli regimes has been to make life so miserable for the natives of Palestine that they either die or disappear into other countries. The wanton killing and malicious destruction of 92 percent of Gaza speaks to that. The despair and hopelessness of years of colonial domination forced the Palestinians, on 7 October 2023, to either perish or assert their humanity against the violence imposed upon them for over 100 years. Since that October day, Israel’s unhinged barbarism—hidden beneath a“pristine” veneer of civilization—has been revealed. Also bared has been the heartlessness of corrupt American politicians, members of the press, clergy and influencers in academia, as well as compliant Arab dictators whose complicity has been vital to Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinians. The holocaust in Gaza, has made it increasingly difficult for Israel to control the narrative; to cover up the reality that it has been committing the ultimate crime against humanity. Tel Aviv’s use of “terrorism” to make its lies appear truthful and the murder of innocents “respectable” has finally waned, as the world has come to realize that Zionism has no place in a just world. M. 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