In a recent pronouncement, the Iranian foreign minister re-emphasized the Islamic regime’s mandate for the Palestinians to continue their “resistance” against Israel.
The term “resistance” is used to sound like a noble pursuit, but in this context, it has long been a euphemism for something far more sinister: Terrorism.
What Palestinian leaders, like Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, refer to as resistance is, in reality, a call for violence and bloodshed targeting civilians. The devastating effects of such venom are observable as each call for resistance translates directly into murderous acts of hatred.
Statements such as “resistance in all forms, by all means,” are not calls for peaceful protests or diplomatic efforts. They are calls for assaults, stabbings, hostage-takings and rocket launchings, plain and simple. The message is clear, the only option is to fight Israel by all means, no matter the consequences for innocent people on all sides. It is a rallying cry for those who claim free-speech protections to morph their civil disobedience into physical attacks, assaults and unfettered violence.
Let’s be clear: Resistance that targets civilians is terrorism. Calls for a “holy war” against Israel tacitly endorse the murder of innocents. When Palestinian and radical Islamic leaders glorify attacks like Oct. 7 claiming them to be justifiable resistance, they are applauding, incentivizing and instigating each act of terror. And when leaders who are supposed to represent their people in pursuit of peace use their platforms to advocate for violence, they make peace impossible.
This rhetoric of violence is not confined to the Middle East. On college campuses and in communities across America and throughout the world, we increasingly hear the chant: “When people are occupied, resistance is justified.” While this phrase might sound like a defense of oppressed peoples, its meaning becomes aborted and hijacked when we examine how it’s being used. The “resistance” in this chant is not a call for peaceful protest or civil disobedience—it promotes, attempts to justify and encourages further violent actions endorsed by the Palestinian and radical Islamic leaders who are determined to destroy Israel, America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East, often referred to as “Little Satan.” When these slogans are shouted in support of groups that engage in terror, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in their targeting of Israeli civilians and state infrastructure, Jewish students know that they themselves are being targeted and threatened, which is part of the intended purposes of the haters.
The resistance mantra is cloaked in the language of human rights advocacy, while it ignores the reality of the violence being perpetrated in its name. When resistance means the murder of innocent civilians—whether in Hebron, Tel Aviv or at a music festival—it is no longer about freedom; it’s about terror. The moral justification implied by “resistance” is rendered meaningless when it involves bombings, rocket attacks, rape and the abduction of civilians. These are not acts of a people striving for liberation—they are crimes against humanity and specifically against Jewish human rights.
The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks are a grim illustration of this. More than 1,200 people, including civilians, were brutally murdered. Entire families were wiped out, and children were left orphaned. Yet, in the aftermath, when we hear student groups making statements such as “we support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” it must be understood that those groups are justifying the murder of innocent people, the beheading of children and the rape and torture of civilians.
As such, the normalization of terrorism through the lens of resistance must be rejected at every level. True liberation movements, like those of Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr., rejected violence as a tool. They understood that meaningful, lasting change comes through peace, dialogue and nonviolence.
By contrast, when Hamas supporters justify resistance in the form of terror, they are rejecting peace in favor of war, and setting the stage to blame Israel for the suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis that Hamas causes. As young people across America chant slogans of justified resistance, they unwittingly lend moral support to Hamas, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, and its use of terrorism as its method of choice.
It is essential to confront this dangerous narrative head-on. Resistance that involves murdering civilians is not justified—it’s terrorism, and it should be condemned and fully rejected by all. There can be no moral equivalence between the struggle for rights and the slaughter of innocents.