Decades ago, it was agreed that Resistance and armed rebellion against a settler colonial occupation and apartheid power is not just recognised under international law. It is enshrined specifically as a right for the oppressed, never to be denied.
In accordance with international humanitarian law, wars of national liberation have been expressly embraced, through the adoption of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (pdf), as a protected and essential right of occupied people everywhere.
This runs counter to what London, Washington and Tel Aviv would have you believe. Proscribing the Resistance factions as “terrorist” groups immediately distracts people from their real role in liberating Palestinian territory from the Zionist occupier and its Western backers.
Prof. Tim Anderson:
The colonial powers almost all abstained on the 1960 Declaration on Decolonisation, the lead principle of which (the right of a people to self-determination) entered the twin covenants of the International Bill of Rights. After that the hegemonic powers tried to deny (but could not block) UN declarations and conventions on the right to resist colonialism, occupation, and apartheid. The result is that today most anti-colonial resistance groups are banned as “terrorist”, but only in the hegemonic regimes.
International law clearly supports the right to resist (further, Palestine and Lebanon as recognised nations enjoy the UN chartered right to national self-defence) while the Anglo-Americans and their collaborators live in denial. This hegemonic denial of the right to resist (including the legitimacy of Palestinian insurrection) creates a culture which confuses and must itself be resisted. Proponents of resistance education should inform, encourage and build confidence in support of legitimate popular resistance.
Anderson advocates unequivocal support for the Resistance despite the threats that confront those who do:
Self-determination is not a posthumous medal for helpless victims, it is a great right that must be fought for and taken from the imperial and colonial forces which try to deny and block self-determination. This is not well recognised in colonial cultures, which embed paternal myths.
Yet it is well recognised by anti-colonial leaders, like the great 19th century Cuban patriot Jose Marti who said in 1880, “You take your rights, you do not beg for them. You do not buy them with tears but with blood.”
While the Palestinian cause is popular in Western countries, this support begins as sympathy for the victims and is often simply an abstract call for an end to the violence. To take a further step and support the Palestinian and regional Resistance implies confronting Western regimes which have tried to ban and criminalise all Resistance groups.
Hellbound and Down 