Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine)
A. What is terror?
There is no single, universally agreed-upon international definition of terrorism, but there is a consensus that it involves violent or criminal acts intended to cause death or serious injury to uninvolved civilians or non-combatants. The purpose of these acts is to intimidate a population or to coerce a government or international organization into taking or refraining from action. Some definitions also require the intent to advance a political, religious, or ideological cause.
Thus, the main elements of terror are:
Criminal acts: Actions that involve violence, the threat of violence, murder, kidnapping, hostage-taking, and arson.
Intention to cause fear: The aim is to “provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons
Coercion of authorities: A goal to “compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act”.
Political, religious, or ideological motive: The acts are committed to further a specific political, religious, or ideological cause.
Terror can be committed by individuals, organizations, and states.
There are “red terror” and” white terror”. “White terror” is by counterrevolutionary forces, and red terror is against white terror. To give two known examples: The Red Terror against the Monarchists during the French Revolution. The red terror of the Russian revolution against the terror of the pro-Tsar forces.
B The definition of terror in Israel
The legal definition of terrorism in Israel, as it appears in the Counter-Terrorism Law, 5776-2016, is “an act that constitutes an offense committed with a political or ideological motive, and includes serious harm to a person, the public, infrastructure, or religious sanctities.” This definition differs from Jenner’s international definition, as it does not require that the goal be to harm civilians, nor does it require that the motive be to achieve political goals.
In Israel, a “terrorist act” is defined by the 2016 Counter-Terrorism Law as a criminal offense, or a threat of one, committed with a political, religious, nationalistic, or ideological motive. The act must be intended to provoke public fear or panic, or to force a government or international organization to act or refrain from acting. Furthermore, the act must have resulted in, or posed a risk of, serious harm to a person’s body or freedom, public safety or health, property, or religious object.
Political or ideological motive: The motive behind the act is the key to defining it as terrorism, and not just the act itself.
Thus, the legal definition of terror in Israel includes acts against soldiers, policemen, and armed civilians who are involved in the repression of the Palestinians. It excludes armed resistance to the occupation. It is against international law.
C.The right of armed struggle
International law recognizes a right to armed resistance for occupied peoples, particularly against colonial domination or oppressive foreign rule, grounded in the principles of self-determination and the law of belligerent occupation. While international humanitarian law does not create a general “right” to participate in armed resistance, it protects those who do, provided they comply with its rules, and recognizes the legitimacy of the struggle itself. This right is considered part of a larger effort to achieve freedom and self-determination, and resistance movements are viewed as legitimate in their aims to reclaim land, rights, and independence, as long as they adhere to international humanitarian law, which prohibits targeting uninvolved and unarmed civilians.
Legal basis and recognition
Self-determination: The right to resist is closely linked to the principle of self-determination, especially when a people’s political participation is denied through foreign occupation.
Law of belligerent occupation: This right is recognized within the framework of international humanitarian law, such as the Hague Regulations of 1899 and 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.
The illegal occupation represents an unlawful use of force (i.e., aggression). As long as the illicit occupation persists, it constitutes, under international responsibility rules, a continuous wrongful act, thereby preserving the occupied state or people’s continuous right to self-defense. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has explicitly affirmed the right of Palestinians to resist Israel’s military occupation, including through armed struggle. This right was affirmed in the context of the right to self-determination of all peoples under foreign and colonial rule. Some of the most relevant UN resolutions on this matter include:
UNGA Resolution 3314 (1974) affirmed the right of self-determination, freedom, and independence for all “peoples under colonial and racist regimes or other forms of alien domination.” It affirmed the “right of these peoples to struggle to that end and to seek and receive support.
UNGA Resolution 37/43 (1982) reaffirmed the “inalienable right” of the Palestinian people and all peoples under foreign and colonial domination to self-determination. It also reiterates the legitimacy of “the struggle of peoples for […] liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.
D. Is the Israeli occupation legal?
Recent positions by several reputable entities, including UN Commissions of Inquiry on Palestine/Israel, the current and former UN Special Rapporteurs on Palestine, a study released by CEIRPP, alongside numerous relevant academic studies, deem it unlawful (i.e., aggression). This matter is also currently under consideration by the ICJ.
E. Israel is a white terrorist state.
The war of Israel on Gaza killing at least 70,000 people, most of them women and children, is not only genocide but an act of terror, aiming at forcing out the Palestinians, many of them children of the people removed by Israel in 1948 from their homes.
The pogroms by the Jewish settlers protected by the army and the police in the West Bank are another form of terror.
Matan Golan writes in Haaretz.
“Nationalist crime in the West Bank has also exacerbated the rhetoric of the extreme right: in recent years, activists have been distributing messages in public WhatsApp groups that boast of Jewish terror incidents, and recently settlers have begun to accept more open responsibility for their actions, sometimes under the nickname “King David Brigades.” In one case last month, one of the groups distributed a detailed list of Palestinian villages in the West Bank that had been attacked by settlers, including the number of attacks.
The escalation of the rhetoric in the groups began in recent weeks, after the number of reports in the Israeli media about the events in the West Bank increased. A cartoon video circulated in one of the groups showed a masked boy wearing a tzitzit with his eyes closed. In the background, a recording of Knesset member Merav Cohen saying the words “Jewish terrorism” in the Knesset plenum was heard, and the phrase “Jewish light” appeared on the screen in their place. Another post posted a song whose lyrics stated that “‘settler violence’ is an expression of love for the land and the people.”[i]
Ilana Hamerman wrote in Haaretz: “A silly video recently uploaded by Itamar Ben-Gvir on the social network X It is seen, and not for the first time, standing with his entourage next to a long line of Palestinian prisoners lying on the ground with their hands cuffed behind their backs. He points to them and says: “You see, Ella… Heroes of our women, children, and babies, look at how they are today, a minimum of minimum conditions, but there is something else that must be done – the death penalty for terrorists.”
You can’t see the faces of the people who have been humiliated in this way by the bully in a suit and a kippah, and they are lying motionless on their bellies, but you can’t see his fat, wicked face, and the vigorous gestures that accompany his speech. Seeing and being shocked: Here is the man who was convicted, among other things, of incitement to racism and support for a terrorist organization, and who stole the license plate of Yitzhak Rabin’s car and said that they would come to him too — and they came.
Today, he is a senior minister in Israel and trains the barbaric, and in many cases, even fatal, abuse of thousands of detainees and prisoners in Israel’s detention facilities. What he proudly calls “minimum conditions” means that thousands of people are held in extremely crowded conditions, in horrible hygienic conditions, starving, denied proper medical care, sick, and abandoned to physical and mental abuse.
The face of the generation is like Ben Gvir’s. The country is full of terror — Jewish terrorism. And the Jewish terrorists do not let up: the guards continue to abuse, from the Yemenite field to the Russian Compound, the settlers continue to beat, shoot, uproot, and set fire, and most of the West Bank, under Israel’s reign of military and economic terrorism, is plagued by poverty and unemployment. Palestinian cities and villages are stuck in a diabolical maze between hundreds of checkpoints, settlements, and violent outposts, and every trip from one place to another is a nightmare. Tens of thousands of Palestinian workers are still not allowed to work in Israel, and many farmers are prevented from cultivating their land, harvesting their vineyards, and harvesting their orchards, whether by order of the army or because of settlers who vandalize their plots and attack them.
More terror. The policy of demolition and displacement of residents became more systematic and cruel during the years of the barbaric war in Gaza: the military destroyed homes and infrastructure in the refugee camps to pave roads for the passage of military vehicles, aerial bombardment became routine here as well, and entire neighborhoods in the Jenin and Tulkarm areas became ghost neighborhoods. The soldiers of the mighty power in the Middle East became heroes over women, children, and babies”.[ii]
E. Are the civilians that were killed by Hamas in October 2023 innocent civilians?
Most of the civilians who were killed were living in Gaza’s envelope. In simple words, Zionist settlements prevent the Palestinian refugees from returning to their lands. Furthermore, most of them served in the Zionist army that has been committing war crimes for many years, at least from 1947-8, and many years before, since the beginning of the colonization of Palestine.
Zionist paramilitary Groups: Groups such as the Irgun, Lehi (Stern Gang), and, at times, the Haganah (the most prominent Jewish paramilitary organization, which later formed the core of the Israel Defense Forces), used violence as a strategic weapon to hasten the establishment of a Jewish state.
These groups conducted a campaign of bombings, assassinations, and other attacks. Targets included British military and police outposts, as well as Arab civilians in markets and coffee shops, with the aim of deterrence and driving them out of their homes.
Notable Incidents: Infamous operations include the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem (which was the British administrative headquarters, killing 91 people) and the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre, in which at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children, were killed. According to the Zionist Historian, the Zionist armed forces committed 30-40 massacres in different villages.
F. Conclusion
Israel is the front line for Western imperialism in the region. In support of Israel, they call Hamas fighters terrorists, while Hamas is using armed struggle in the struggle for a Palestinian state, which is their right according to international law. Israel is a terrorist state of the counter-revolution. The only solution is a free, democratic, and red Palestine from the river to the sea.
So why then, when Israel is the terrorist state and the Palestinians have the right to armed struggle, does the UN not defend the Palestinians and punish Israel? The UN has replaced the League of Nations, but it functions like the League of Nations that Lenin spoke about:” The so-called League of Nations has become in reality a plague of nations. Born of the hatred engendered by four years of world war, ruled by the unscrupulous, moribund servants of greedy imperialism and capitalism, this organization is doing its utmost to prolong the sufferings of humanity. This so-called League of Nations is sending to slaughter British workers in Mesopotamia and India, French workers in Syria, Polish workers in Russia, and Turkish nationalists and Greeks throughout Asia Minor. It is starving to death the innocent children of Vienna, even the Lord Mayor of the City of Cork in the Tower of London.”[iii]
Thus, the UN can be a platform for propaganda, but can never be trusted.
Endnotes:
[i] https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2025-11-20/ty-article-magazine/.premium/0000019a-9d3f-d5e6-abff-fdff14b70000?fromLogin=success
[ii] https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/2025-11-13/ty-article-opinion/.premium/0000019a-7d74-d259-af9a-ffffecc40000
[iii] Against the Plague of Nations; An Address to Thinking People on the Polish Question (1920) Lenin