If the title sounds like an extreme claim to you, it may be worth asking yourself how deeply pro Palestinian propaganda has already embedded itself in public discourse.
The alleged Palestinian “right to self defense” is constantly repeated and used as a shield to shift the focus entirely onto Israel’s response instead of examining what Palestinian organizations themselves are doing. Because self defense is viewed as a fundamental moral value in the West, it becomes easy to manipulate emotions and distort reality.
It is true that the right to self defense exists under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. However, that article applies only to member states of the UN. The Palestinians are not a UN member state. In practical political terms, they are not even a unified state population, but rather the populations of two separate political entities that are geographically and politically divided.
Ironically, this creates a one sided situation that is often ignored. The UN can criticize Israel, sanction Israel, or pass resolutions against Israel. But not against “Palestine” in the same legal sense. As long as there is no sovereign Palestinian state, Palestinian actors can exploit international structures while avoiding many of the same legal mechanisms themselves.
Many people then turn to Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, which affirms the right of peoples to self determination. Article 1 states that this also applies to conflicts “in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination, alien occupation, and racist regimes in the exercise of their right to self determination.”
At first glance, this appears to support the claim that Palestinians may engage in armed resistance against occupation.
But what is often ignored is that this is not simply the granting of a right. It is also the imposition of obligations.
The same legal framework requires that any resistance movement comply with the laws of armed conflict. In other words, even groups claiming to fight for self determination must follow the rules commonly referred to as international humanitarian law or the laws of war.
Those laws prohibit, among other things:
• Deliberate attacks on civilians
• Kidnappings and hostage taking
• Rape and sexual violence
• Public humiliation or display of prisoners
• Terror attacks
• Concealed weapons during combat
• Fighters disguising themselves as civilians
• Misuse of protected symbols such as the Red Cross
• Indiscriminate attacks
• And more
By these standards, nearly all attacks carried out by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Houthis violate international law rather than being protected by it. There are rare exceptions, such as direct attacks on military targets. However, even those exist within the context of a conflict initiated through unprecedented massacres targeting Israeli civilians.
Every rocket fired indiscriminately at Israeli cities constitutes a violation of the very laws that are so often invoked in the name of “resistance” or “self defense.” Even rockets that happen to strike military sites by chance are not automatically lawful.
Not only social media activists but also journalists repeatedly claim that Palestinian violence is protected under international law. Some may genuinely believe this. But the reality is that very little of what organizations like Hamas actually do is legally protected under the laws they claim to invoke.
Those who insist otherwise are often not guided by legal principles, but by personal ideology, selective morality, or political narratives shaped by propaganda. One of the oldest tactics in warfare is for aggressors to successfully present themselves as victims while simultaneously rewriting history.
What Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad practice is terrorism. These organizations are internationally recognized terrorist groups that skillfully market their ideology to Western audiences. Anyone attempting to frame their actions as legitimate “resistance” is either knowingly serving Islamist extremism and antisemitic violence aimed at Israel’s destruction, or has already fallen for the propaganda.
Palestinian factions repeatedly violate the very international laws they weaponize rhetorically against Israel, while showing little concern for applying those same standards to themselves.
Like a magician distracting an audience with one hand while hiding the trick with the other, public attention remains fixed on what Israel does or is accused of doing, while the crimes that triggered the conflict fade into the background.
We are dangerously close to forgetting.
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