PA highlights "big difference" between "terrorist" car ramming attacks in Europe and "resistance operation" car ramming attacks carried out by Palestinians

Headline: "Between resistance and terror…"

Excerpt of an op-ed by Anwar Rajab

"Since we are living in a world that no longer views violent resistance as a basis for solving political disputes, and as we will not achieve our goals without the popular and official support of the international community - and also in light of the success of the terrorist organizations in spreading their terrorist activity throughout the world - this has created an opening for Israel, the US, and others to attempt to create confusion between resistance and terror.

The Palestinian leadership has invested exhausting efforts in the halls of the UN, its institutions, and its committees, and particularly in those related to the struggle against terror, in order to prevent these attempts. However, we do not know whether or not we as Palestinians will be able to continue this success in the future, if we take into account the vagueness of the distinction between acts of terror and acts of resistance in Western public opinion, which confuses between the truck driven by the terrorist in Paris (sic., attack was in Nice, France) who rammed into and killed dozens last July (i.e., Bastille Day attack, 84 murdered), or the one driven by the terrorist in Berlin a number of days ago who rammed into, killed, and wounded dozens of German citizens (i.e., truck ramming attack, 12 murdered), and the several car ramming operations that have led to the killing and injury of Israelis.

Despite our understanding of the big difference between these two - particularly in light of the fact that these Palestinian 'operations' are individual and not organized acts that come in response to the terror of the occupation and its arrogance – we must at the same time understand that there is a difference between the fact that international law gives us legitimacy for armed resistance (see note below –Ed.), and international society and Western public opinion showing understanding for the use of this legal right and its consequences, due to the confusion between the sights, their vagueness, and the mixing up of the meanings.

In light of this, we as Palestinians must reexamine our experience of struggle and its means with a critical and realistic eye in order to correct our mistakes and errors, and to learn from our historical experience and that of the peoples who succeeded in liberating themselves before us. At the very least, we must be brave enough to examine the period after 2000, whose main headline was 'the armed resistance,' and to examine the result of three wars that Israel has waged against the Gaza Strip since 2008, far from the comparisons, details, statistics, and numbers whose result will certainly not be in our favor. We must honestly say that the balance of gain and loss is not measured by the extent of the damage caused to the other side as much as it is measured by the extent of the losses and disasters caused to us and the extent of the damage and setback sustained by our national cause…

Therefore, we find ourselves before a purely national question, which is: Why should we not adopt peaceful popular resistance ‎(term refers to events that include violence against Israeli civilians such as rock-‎throwing, stabbings, and even shootings -Ed.) as a strategic option for achieving our national goals of liberation and independence, far from the destructive chauvinistic trends?"

Bastille Day attack 2016 – a truck ramming attack for which ISIS claimed responsibility, in which 84 people were murdered and about 300 wounded in Nice, France, on July 14, 2016. French-Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31, committed the attack, plowing a 19-ton truck into Bastille Day crowds and opening fire before being shot and killed. Some guns as well as fake weapons and grenades were found in the truck.

Anis Amri -- a terrorist of Tunisian origin who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, ran a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, on Dec. 19, 2016, murdering 12 people and injuring 48. He was killed in a shootout with police in Italy on Dec. 23, 2016.

UN Resolution 3236 - PA leaders and officials have legitimized Palestinian violence by quoting UN resolution 3236 which "recognizes the right of the Palestinian people to regain its rights by all means." The PA interprets "all means" as including violence against civilians, but has chosen to ignore the continuation of the resolution which states that the use of "all means" should be "in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations..." The UN Charter prohibits targeting civilians, even in war. Chapter 1, Article 1, opens by saying that "international disputes" should be resolved "by peaceful means."

The terms “all means,” “all means of resistance,” “all forms,” are ‎used by PA leaders to include using all types of violence, including deadly terror ‎against Israeli civilians such as stabbings and shootings, as well as throwing rocks and Molotov Cocktails.

The terms "peaceful uprising/resistance,” and “popular uprising/resistance" are used by PA leaders at times to refer to peaceful protest and at times to refer to deadly terror attacks and terror waves. For example, ‎Mahmoud Abbas defined as “peaceful popular” the murderous terror during the 2015-2016 ‎terror wave (“The Knife Intifada”), in which 40 people were killed (36 Israelis, 1 Palestinian, 2 Americans and 1 Eritrean) and hundreds wounded in stabbings, shootings, and car ramming attacks. Abbas said: "We want peaceful popular uprising, and that’s what this is." https://palwatch.org/page/9276