On Palestinian "Freedom Fighters"

Apologists for Palestinian terrorist violence against Israelis argue passionately that the ends (Palestinian “independence”) justify the means (murderous attacks upon civilians). Leaving aside ordinary ethical standards—everyday standards by which this argument is manifestly indecent—the ends can never justify means under authoritative international law. Quite the contrary. For more than 2,000 years, binding legal rules of world politics have stipulated that intentional forms of violence against the innocent are always repugnant and always prohibited.

From the standpoint of international law, one man’s terrorist can never be another man’s freedom fighter. Although it is true that certain insurgencies can be judged lawful, these permissible resorts to force must always conform to the laws of war. Where the insurgent group resorts to unjust means, its actions are unambiguously terroristic. It follows that even if Palestinian claims of a hostile “occupation” were reasonable rather than contrived, their corresponding claim of entitlement to oppose Israel “by any means necessary” would remain unsupportable.

International law cannot be invented and reinvented by terrorist groups merely to accommodate their own interests. This is especially the case where terrorist violence purposely targets infants, children, and the elderly. There are fixed and precise standards that must be applied in judgment of all insurgent resorts to violence. These standards are known in law as “just cause” and “just means.” These standards, and these standards alone, allow us to distinguish lawful insurgency from terrorism.

National liberation movements that fail to meet the test of just means are never protected as lawful or legitimate. Even if we were to accept the wholly spurious argument that Palestinian organizations somehow meet the criteria of “national liberation,” it is assuredly clear that they do not meet the standards of discrimination, proportionality, and military necessity—the relevant standards applicable under the laws of war. These standards have been applied to insurgent organizations by the common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and by the two protocols to these Conventions of 1977. They are also binding upon all combatants by virtue of broader customary and conventional international law, including Article 1 of the Preamble to the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907. This rule, called the “Martens Clause,” makes all persons responsible for the “laws of humanity” and the “dictates of public conscience.”

The ends can never justify the means. As in the case of war between states, every use of force by insurgents must be judged twice, once with regard to the justness of the objective (in this case, a Palestinian state built explicitly upon the charred ruins of a dismembered Israel) and once with regard to the justness of the means used in pursuit of that objective. A group of organizations that deliberately targets defenseless noncombatants with undisguised intent to maximize suffering can never claim to be “freedom fighters.” In this connection it is hardly surprising that all Palestinian terrorist organizations (including Arafat’s wing of Fatah) are now forging strong ties to al Qaeda.

Curiously, American and European supporters of a Palestinian state usually presume that it will be part of a “two-state solution,” that is, the new Arab state will exist side-by-side with the existing Jewish state. Yet this presumption is dismissed everywhere in the Arab/Islamic world. Indeed, the Palestinian National Authority’s official “Map of Palestine” includes all of Israel. There are not two states on this map, only one. Palestinian insurgents who resort to terrorism against Israel will never acknowledge that a Jewish state has any right to endure. Why should this be so difficult to understand when even the most “moderate” Palestinians have themselves been so cartographically honest on their own website?

Terrorist crimes, as part of a broader category called crimen contra omnes (“Crimes Against All”), mandate universal cooperation in apprehension and punishment. In this connection, as punishers of “grave breaches” under international law, all states are expected to search out and prosecute, or extradite, individual terrorist perpetrators. In no circumstances are any states permitted to characterize terrorists as “freedom fighters.”

We must always call things by their correct names. Palestinian terrorists are not “freedom fighters.” They are hostes mumani generic, “Common Enemies of Mankind.” Any further linguistic association of murderers with “freedom” will surely undermine the very structure of civilized international relations.

Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Hudson Institute.