Article by Yossi Schwartz. Internationalist Socialist League (Section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 04 October 2022, https://the-isleague.com/ and www.thecommunists.net
If anyone had doubts whether a new Intifada is taking place in the West-Bank, the statistic of the Zionist Shin Bet confirms our position: A new Intifada against the Zionist oppression is occurring. According to the Jerusalem post report from 3rd October, close to 50% rise in shooting attacks in West Bank on the Zionist army.
“According to the Shin Bet, there were a total of 212 attacks compared to 172 in August, a rise of 23 percent. Meanwhile, July saw 113 and June had a total of 147 attacks”…”There has been a significant rise in shooting attacks in the West Bank and Jerusalem over the past month, an increase of around 47 percent according to new data released by the Shin Bet internal security agency…The numbers released by the agency showed that in the month of September there were a total of 34 shooting attacks. That’s more than once per day. The data marked an increase from the 23 shooting attacks in August and a significant increase from 15 in July- 126%…According to the Shin Bet, there were a total of 212 attacks compared to 172 in August, a rise of 23 percent. Meanwhile, July saw 113 and June had a total of 147 attacks. The majority of attacks were Molotov Cocktails-a total of 139 compared to 135 in August and only 75 in July. In addition, there were also 53 pipe bombs compared to 39 in August .27 in the previous month. September also saw four stabbing attacks compared to only one in September… There were also four assaults and four vehicular ramming attacks. September was also a deadly month, with 14 Israelis injured and two were killed. …”15 Israelis were injured during the attacks in August, both civilians (settlers from 1967), and troops. …”Over 100 Palestinians have been killed and over 1,500 have been arrested and security forces have focused on the northern part and cities like Jenin and Nablus. But despite the high number of arrests, the increase in shooting attacks has become a major source of concern for the Israeli army.”[i]
The Palestinian freedom fighters are called terrorists by the Zionists and their allies. The American imperialists and the Zionist state terror, on the other side, is called “self -defense”. This is mockery even of the bourgeois law known as International Law.
The US State department, in its official definition of terrorism states: “The term terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.”[ii]
Thus, Palestinian shootings of Zionist soldiers or armed settlers are not terrorism. Further- more, the Palestinian right of self- defense includes military acts of self-defense (i.e., the right to resist an aggressor, defend one’s territorial integrity, etc.) as well as UN Security Council sanctioned Chapter VII actions (the war making powers of the UNSC, as employed in South Korea or in Bosnia-Herzegovina). However, among these legal forms of violence there is also the right to use force in the struggle for “liberation from colonial and foreign domination”. To quote United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/33/24 of 29 November 1978:
“2. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, particularly armed struggle;”[iii]
Clearly the Palestinians by themself with their poor weapons cannot defeat the monstrous Zionist apartheid state. However, as part of the Arab and Iranian revolutionary armed struggle it is possible to defeat the Zionists and all the reactionary Arab and Iranian local ruling classes who serve either the Western imperialists, like the USA and NATO – or the Eastern imperialists, like Russia and China.
Down with the Zionist Settlers, the Colonialist Apartheid State!
Down with the Reactionary Regime in Iran!
All the Imperialists are our Enemies!
For Palestine – Red and Free from the River to the Sea!
[i] Close to 50% rise in shooting attacks in West Bank, By Anna Ahronheim, The Jerusalem Post, October 3, 2022, https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-718827
[ii] Terror as Strategy and Relational Process, https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/socioterrorII.pdf
[iii] Palestine: Legitimate Armed Resistance vs. Terrorism, By John Sigler, The Electronic Intifada, May 17, 2004, https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-legitimate-armed-resistance-vs-terrorism/5084