Take the distinction between terror and resistance. One question that arises is the legitimacy of actions to realize "the right to self-determination, freedom, and independence, as derived from the Charter of the United Nations, of people forcibly deprived of that right...particularly peoples under under colonial and racist regimes and foreign occupation." Do such actions fall under terror or resistance ? The quoted words are from the the most forceful denunciation of the crime of terrorism by the UN General assembly, which stated further that "nothing in the present resolution could in any way prejudice the right" so defined. The resolution was adopted in December 1987, just as officially recognized international terrorism reached its peak. It is obviously important. The vote was 153 to 2 (with a single abstention, Honduras), hence even more important.
The two countries that voted against the resolution were the usual ones. Their reason, they explained at the UN session, was the paragraph just quoted. The phrase "colonial racist regimes" was understood to refer to their ally, apartheid South Africa. Evidently the US and Israel could not condone resistance to the apartheid regime, particularly when it was led by Mandela's African National Congress, one of the world's "more notorious terrorist groups," as Washington determined at the time. The other phrase, "foreign occupation," was understood to mean Israel's military occupation, then in its twentieth year. Evidently, resistance could not be condoned in that case either.
Chomsky, Noam, Hegemony or Survival, Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2004, Pg 190
