“Many terrorist organisations, pilloried as such in the course of recent history, have ceased to be pariahs and become legitimate interlocutors. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Algerian National Liberation Front, the African National Congress (ANC) and many others have been by turns described as ‘terrorists’, a word which serves to depoliticise their struggle, to present it as a confrontation between Good and Evil.
Each time the Palestinians rebel, the West, – so prompt to glorify the resistance of the Ukrainians – speaks of terrorism.
In 1967, following the Israeli aggression, General de Gaulle spoke these premonitory words: ‘Now Israel is organising, on the territories it has conquered, an occupation which will necessarily involve oppression, repression, and expulsions. If they encounter any resistance, they will call it terrorism…‘
Contrary to what many Israelis claim (…) this is not a ‘unilateral’ and ‘unprovoked’ attack. The fright which Israelis are experiencing just now, me included, is only a tiny fraction of what the Palestinians experience every day under the military regime which has raged for decades on the West Bank and under the siege and repeated assaults against Gaza. The responses we hear from many Israelis – calling for the military to ‘level’ Gaza, who say ‘they are savages, not people we can negotiate with, ‘they assassinate whole families,’ ‘there is no way to talk to those people’ – are exactly the words I have heard countless times in the mouths of Palestinians describing the Israelis.
As article 2 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen dating from 26 August 1789 proclaims: resistance to oppression is a fundamental right, one to which the Palestinians can justifiably lay claim.”
—Alain Gresh, 25 October 2023
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