Supporters of Palestine are constantly asked to condemn Hamas as terrorists and I’ve yet to hear anyone to refuse to do so, but the same people refuse to condemn IDF as a terrorist organisation.

The Oxford Dictionary defines terrorism as

1. the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

But who decides what is lawful? Is violence and intimidation against civilians acceptable if a national government declares it to be so? Craig Murray and Kit Klarensburg have been detained at UK airports on suspicion of terrorism, despite any evidence that they had ever engaged in or advocated terrorist activities. This harassment of two civilians, aimed at intimidating future whistleblowers, would meet the definition of terrorism but for one point – it’s lawful, and that’s what has to change!

Many Israeli civilians were killed on October 7 but we have no way of knowing how many were killed by Hamas and how many by IDF. We have a statement from Hamas, which is more credible than the Israeli account although Western media ignore it.

https://skwawkbox.org/2024/01/24/uk-exclusive-hamas-issues-statement-about-events-of-7-october-raid/

Hamas deny deliberately targeting civilians and this is supported by witness testimony, but we know that IDF had been attacking civilians long before 7/10. The two Israeli newspaper reports said the Hamas fighters reached the area of the Nova music festival without any prior knowledge it was taking place, whereas the Israeli helicopter opened fire indiscriminately on both the Hamas fighters and the participants in the festival. 

Israel is an occupying power with state of the art armaments, which they sell to other belligerent nations as “battle tested”, whereas Hamas have only what they can scrape together. It’s David and Goliath in reverse.

Just like the French resistance in WWII Hamas have to fight with whatever weapons they have and use unconventional tactics. Their purpose is not to terrorise but to resist terrorism. In fact the Israeli propaganda machine is terrorising Jews by persuading them that Hamas want to murder all Jews so they have to kill all Palestinians, even babies, to make sure they don’t kill them. This cannot by any stretch of language be construed as self defence!

It hasn’t gone unnoticed that those designated by the USA as terrorists, such as Houthis, are the ones who are actively upholding the ICJ ruling to prevent genocide while Western governments are facilitating it by providing arms to Israel while denying humanitarian aid to Gazans who have nowhere else to go. And those who refuse to believe what they see with their own eyes are as guilty as those committing atrocities!

Why is Julian Assange incarcerated in Belmarsh and facing deportation? It’s revenge for exposing warcrimes of course but it’s more than that. It’s intended to intimidate journalists worldwide to refrain from criticising US policy. I’m pleased to see that the best journalists, such as Chris Hedges and Jonathan Cook, aren’t intimidated and don’t call Hamas terrorists but resistance fighters.

Does this mean that intimidation is Ok if the US government does it? That depends on what you understand as ‘lawful’. The penal colony of Guantanamo Bay exists solely to enable the US government to carry out activities that would be illegal on US soil, and the UK government is complicit in this – most notably by making the Chagos Islands available for extraordinary rendition. Guantanamo is rented from Cuba who want the land back but are powerless to evict there unwanted tenants. Impoverished by the US blockade, they nevertheless refuse to accept the payment.

Cuba is still designated as a “terrorist state” by the US despite the fact that they send medical aid to anywhere in the world where it’s needed, not military aid to prop up its own hegemony! A motion to end the US blockade of Cuba has been proposed annually at the United Nations for three decades with the same too nations voting against it – the USA itself and Israel! The UK usually abstains – the sycophantic Westminster government, like most Western “democracies”, is afraid to do anything of which Uncle Sam would disapprove.

I’m forced to the conclusion that, in practice, “terrorism” is whatever the USA and Israel say it is. By any objective standards, they’re the worst terrorists on the planet!