"I burst open the lock to the theatre with the butt of my machine gun. You can’t separate armed resistance from cultural resistance"

​

ZAKARIA ZUBEIDI

LEADER OF AL-AQSA MARTYRS BRIGADE 

& CO-FOUNDER OF THE FREEDOM THEATRE

​

       Whatever tactics Palestinians use to fight for liberation - from boycotts to strikes, creative protests to civil disobedience, cultural resistance to armed resistance - they are met with slander and violent repercussions.  

Often embedded in racist and Islamophobic stereotypes that Palestinians are terrorists, inherently violent and have genocidal intent, there is a constant requirement to denounce other Palestinians and their resistance tactics in order to be palatable and acceptable internationally. Demanding that Palestinians or any oppressed people, negotiate their narrative is per se, racist. Furthermore, it erases both the historical and present reality of violent Israeli military occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid and the right under international law to resist Israeli occupation under Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions. 

​

DO PALESTINIANS HAVE THE RIGHT TO RESIST ACCORDING TO THE UNITED NATIONS?

(SOURCE: Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East)

​

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has explicitly affirmed the right of Palestinians to resist Israel’s military occupation, including through armed struggle. This right was affirmed in the context of the right to self-determination of all peoples under foreign and colonial rule. Some of the most relevant UN resolutions on this matter include:

​

• UNGA Resolution 3314 (1974) affirmed the right of self-determination, freedom, and independence for all “peoples under colonial and racist regimes or other forms of alien domination,” and affirmed the “right of these peoples to struggle to that end and to seek and receive support.”[1]

• UNGA Resolution 37/43 (1982) reaffirmed the “inalienable right” of the Palestinian people “and all peoples under foreign and colonial domination” to self-determination. It also reaffirmed the legitimacy of “the struggle of peoples for […] liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.”

​