Following the Hamas attacks of October 7th and the subsequent Israeli siege of Gaza, the ongoing conflict in Palestine has been widely recognised as a major humanitarian crisis. As a result, the world has shifted its eyes to the Middle East once again, with discussions of terrorism, occupation and even genocide being brought back into mainstream political discourse. As the world becomes increasingly polarised on the issue of Palestinian independence and the indiscriminate use of violence from both sides, the line between terrorist and terrorised grows progressively blurrier. Simultaneously, demands for Palestinian independence are being suppressed under the pretence of international law, and the West remains reluctant to recognise the Palestinian right to land. The question, then, is this: why is the world so hesitant to empathise with the Palestinian struggle, and what can this reluctance mean for the remaining occupied territories and unrecognised states around the globe? Is there hope for liberation movements to gain traction in the international community or has the notion of anti-colonialism truly died with the end of the 20th century?

Part I: An End to Colonialism?

From the perspective of most political and historical commentators, we now live in a post-colonial age. Empires have fallen, imperialism is no longer the main measure of political power, and overseas territories – with the exception of some islands remaining in the possession of former colonial powers – are no more. Indigenous peoples in colonial states such as Australia, the US, and Canada have finally had their land rights recognised (see Mabo v Queensland, Australia) and have gained significant cultural protection, while there is hardly any armed conflict centred on the rights of indigenous minorities of modern Western states. All of this has created the appearance of living in a world free from ‘classical’ colonialism.

Consequently, it is no surprise that the idea of a “liberation movement” has lost its significance, and more so its emotional appeal with most individuals of this generation. The anti-colonial liberation movements which would amass the empathy and support of much of the Western powers during the 20th century have no contemporary equivalent – or do they?

Terrorists and Freedom Fighters

Since October 7th, the Israel-Hamas conflict has brought the notion of “occupation” back to the political forefront after almost 30 years. It is an imperative historical and political admission, for the argument of this article, that the state of Israel is engaged in a continuous occupation of Palestine, while simultaneously being a self-declared settler colony. Additionally, it is recognised by the UN as well as multiple humanitarian NGOs that Palestinians in Israel-occupied territories are currently living in an apartheid state of systemic discrimination and prosecution, while Israeli settlements are continuously expanding the state of Israel into East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Michael Lynk, UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Palestine, has recently called out the ‘deeply discriminatory dual legal and political system that privileges the 700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in the 300 illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank’. 

Despite this widely accepted state of affairs, however, the Palestinian struggle for independence is still condemned as driven by religious extremism and terrorism. On October 7th 2023, the word ‘terrorism’ made headlines in the West once again, after it was popularised by the United States to justify their invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the war which followed. This has led to overwhelming public political support in favour of Israel, with extremely few political figures acknowledging the historical oppression of Palestinians outlined above (as proven by the recent UK Parliament vote on calling for a ceasefire).

The first question that must be examined, then, is whether the violent attacks of Hamas on October 7th are sufficient justification for abandoning the Palestinian cause. To reach a conclusion on this, political analysts have rightfully drawn comparisons between Palestinian military operations against Israel and the anti-colonial movements of the past that had amassed international empathy and political support.

Many relevant examples can be found in “The T-word: Conceptualising terrorism” by Annette Hübschle, in which she lists several military resistance movements that were supported by the West as ‘liberation movements’, despite committing violent acts that could also be equated with terrorism.

“The Western world used the concept to refer to struggles for independence and self-determination by various nationalist/anti-colonialist groups that emerged in Asia, Africa and the Middle East during the 1940s and 1950s. This form of revolutionary terrorism was also referred to as ethno-nationalist/separatist terrorism. Kenya, Cyprus, and Algeria are just a few countries that owe their independence, at least in part, to nationalist political movements that employed ‘terrorism’ against colonial powers.”

Similarly, Western powers have historically supported liberation movements in countries which could become their allies, while condemning those that did not suit their interests. The Greek Revolution of 1821, which was the result of a decades-long armed struggle between guerrillas and the Ottoman Empire, was treated favourably by the West, all of whom turned a blind eye to the atrocities involved. Despite Greek guerrillas being responsible for a number of massacres, and crimes against unarmed Turkish settlers, the West provided military aid which was vital to the creation of a Greek state, as intellectuals and political leaders sympathised with the Greek cause. This was also the case with demands for self-determination by the occupied peoples of Eastern Europe after the First World War, as the Austro-Hungarian and the German Empire were divided by Western mandates into multiple new countries. Coincidentally, it was one of those mandates that also first recognised the Palestinian call for independence and recognised the right of Palestinians to their land. Later, Irish and Cypriot nationalists fighting for independence from Britain were deemed terrorists, while Islamist militias in Afghanistan during the 1970s were celebrated as ‘freedom fighters’ despite their religious extremism. 

Additionally, many of the liberation movements that are now viewed positively could be characterised as terrorism if each conflict’s political and historical background were ignored. From the Haitian Revolution of 1791 to the more recent liberation of Africa and Southeast Asia from European rule, guerrilla groups and organised violent resistance have always been the primary tools of liberation movements. Had armed resistance not been employed, the worldwide colonialist system may have still been in place. The most striking example is the fight of the African National Congress (ANC), the party led by Nelson Mandela against the apartheid South African regime. Despite Mandela now being a widely respected and praised anti-colonial figure (and apartheid universally condemned), the ANC was a CIA-recognised terrorist organisation up until 2008, with Mandela on the global terrorist watchlist. While apartheid was a recognised international crime, with South Africa essentially employing terrorist tactics and committing crimes against humanity against its own citizens, organisations such as the CIA instead used the term to describe those resisting the state.

The Case for Palestine

This dichotomy between terrorist and terrorised is more apparent than ever in Palestine, where the violent Hamas attacks of November 7th can be compared to the brutal suppression of Palestinians and their enclosure in the Gaza Strip. Former PLO chairperson Yassir Arafat explained this perspective in his address to the United Nations General Assembly in November 1974:

“The difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which each of them fights. For whoever stands by a just cause and fights for the freedom and liberation of his land from the invaders, the settlers, and the colonialists, cannot possibly be called terrorist.”

Multiple anti-colonial and liberatory movements that once amassed international support and empathy would be deemed ‘terrorist’ today. Additionally, resistance groups which were labelled ‘terrorists’ in the past have been shown, in retrospect, to amass overwhelming public support for their struggle. Therefore, one must treat the outright classification of violence within a state as ‘terrorism’ with caution, especially when this description is coming from an occupying power. 

 It is on this point that the world’s reaction to the Palestinian conflict departs from the norms of international political thought. A conflict almost identical to the widely supported anti-colonial struggles of the 19th and 20th centuries is being stripped of its context by the media. The direct result of this depiction is that Palestinians are portrayed as “the attackers, the invaders, the occupiers, and not a people engaged in a decolonial struggle”. But why is that?

The Palestinian Exception

The first explanation would be that the brief hiatus of popular anticolonial struggles after 1989 and the end of the Cold War has desensitised Western nations to the concept of wars of liberation. There is simply no perception of this war as part of a larger, anti-colonial resistance, as the world has widely accepted the end of colonialism as an empirical fact. Thus, we are left to perceive this conflict as a war between two equal sides. In doing so, we fail to consider the lived experience of Palestinian people under Israeli occupation, and we do not acknowledge the decades of political conflict that led to the creation of Hamas (whose original supporter was, ironically, Israel itself). By referring to the events of October 7th as an unprovoked attack, the media has contributed to the misrepresentation of the reasons behind Palestinian resistance and significantly distorted the moral criticism that can be made upon both sides. 

Secondly, the rhetoric power of terrorism has been engraved in the minds of Western citizens since the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent US invasion of Iraq, to the extent that escaping this narrative is nearly impossible for Palestinians. Following the subsequent terrorist attacks in London and Paris, Europe has also been engulfed in a wave of anti-terrorism, which has made us susceptible to the outright rejection of liberation struggles as a concept. Rather, political violence of all sorts, irrespective of the result, is labelled as terrorism and condemned by the world. 

Thirdly, Palestine is simply unfortunate enough to be on the wrong side of Western interests.  While the division between the West and Palestine could be attributed to cultural or religious differences, that cannot be the case: the West has supported Islamist militias in both Afghanistan and Iraq before, when doing so served their interests. What is different in the case for Palestine, then, is the unique diplomatic bond between Israel and the United States, that has permanently placed Palestine on the opposing side of NATO’s interests.

The rhetoric around Palestine has been distorted in both international diplomacy and amongst Western observers. It is these changes that have altered our perception of the conflict and have led Dr Angela Davis to warn, in her latest book, that “the important issues in the Palestinian struggle for freedom and self-determination are minimised and rendered invisible by those who try to equate Palestinian resistance to Israeli apartheid with terrorism.”

Part II: The Future

What does the worldwide lack of empathy for the Palestinian struggle, and the lack of acknowledgement for its anti-colonial purpose, mean for the remaining occupied territories of the world? Examples of current wars of liberation and movements for self-determination include demands for an independent Kurdistan/Rojava, occupied Tibet, the almost-dying Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Catalonia, the Free Papua Movement, and most recently Bougainville, which made headlines in 2019 after their independence referendum led to an agreement with Papua New Guinea. Is there hope for these regions to be recognised and supported, or has the notion of independence wars and liberation movements withered away from the public eye following the end of the Cold War?

The wave of Western political support for Israel contradicts international agreements on the right to self-determination for Palestinians and all occupied peoples alike. In 1960, the United Nations ratified the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, which characterises foreign rule as a human rights violation and affords all peoples the right to self-determination against colonialism. Following this was a UN General Assembly Resolution in 1990 which recognised the Palestinian people’s right to armed struggle, and in Clause 2, reaffirmed the “Legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence […] and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means”. There is, therefore, international diplomatic precedent supporting occupied peoples’ rights to armed and violent struggle. This is hardly reflected in the position of the world’s superpowers today. 

In the worst-case scenario for minorities demanding recognition, the silence of world leaders, including Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, and Ursula Von der Leyen, signifies that the international anti-colonial spirit behind the 1960 UN Declaration does not exist anymore. It means that the international community is now incapable of empathising with, much less supporting, calls for sovereignty from minority populations in any context. Despite the repression that the Kurdish people have faced by the Syrian, Iraqi, and Turkish governments, or the systemic oppression of the Tibetan native population by the Chinese government, the international community has been desensitised to ideas of anti-colonialism in practice, especially when it involves military struggle and violent resistance. Due to the relative stability that the world map has seen, the creation of new territories and countries and the liberation of oppressed peoples are not so easily fathomed. 

From a more optimistic standpoint, the current war may change the perspective of Western democracies on anticolonial struggles. We have already seen calls for support of the Palestinian cause by notable figures, such as Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn and the government of Ireland, whose humanitarian support to Palestine this year surpassed 30 million USD. Moreover, recent condemnations of Israel’s collective punishment against civilians in Gaza signify a departure from the blind and complete support of Israel by Western governments, while Palestinian arguments are slowly coming to the forefront of political discourse through TV and social media. It is perfectly possible, then, that this cruel war opens the eyes of millions who have stayed passive towards anti-colonial struggles and paves the way for the recognition of stateless minorities and occupied territories around the world.

Conclusion

It is intuitive to adopt a pessimistic stance on the future, especially for the peoples of the global South who have lived through the horrors of imperialism and have fought to assert their right to self-determination and dignity. The European Union, NATO and the West’s most powerful nations, invoking the ‘right to self-defence’, have sided and will most likely continue to support Israel’s persecution of Palestinians. The prospect of a liberated Palestinian state is still very far away, while the idea of a united Palestinian state, for both Arabs and Jews, seems impossible to many. However, not all hope is lost. World leaders have become more sceptical of Israel’s military strategies, while support for a two-state solution is growing. As movements in support of Palestinian independence grow, the world is becoming increasingly more open to ideas of liberation and self-determination. With the world turning its eyes to the region once again, support for Palestinian resistance only becomes stronger, and support for a permanent solution is growing day by day.

by Iason Kazazis

Cover Image Source: Protest for Palestine Tunis Kassba 17-05-2021 by Brahim Guedich via Wikimedia Commons