Those who oppose armed resistance oppose any form of resistance, not only armed resistance. They are opposing even peaceful and nonviolent resistance. You know me, I’ve been an advocate of and an activist in nonviolent resistance all my life. But I say what international law says. I’m defending the right of the people under occupation to resist in all forms. International law says that people under military occupation, wherever they are, have the right to resist occupation in all forms, including military forms, as long as they respect international humanitarian law.

[Zionism’s régime] is not only arresting people engaging in armed resistance. It is arresting people who are even engaging in verbal resistance and other peaceful kinds of resistance.

And by the way, Hamas stuck to nonviolent resistance for at least five years between 2014 and 2019. The [Zionist] response was severe violence against the peaceful marches that were organized in Gaza and in the West Bank.

It is very important, especially for younger people here, to understand that the oppressor, the colonizer, the aggressor, always tries to prevent the people under oppression from their right to resist injustice. Frantz Fanon spoke about the right of the people who are oppressed to practice violence against the oppressor’s violence, but what we see here is an even worse situation, where the oppressor is trying to prevent Palestinians from resisting in any form.

If you engage in military resistance, they will accuse you of terrorism. If you do peaceful resistance, they will accuse you of violence. If you do verbal resistance, they will accuse you of provocations or incitement. If you are a foreigner supporting the Palestinian cause, you will be accused of anti-Semitism, and if you are a Jewish person supporting Palestinian rights, you will be called a self-hating Jew.

It’s a whole battery of ideological and tactical slogans that are used by the [Zionist] establishment to deny the people the right to resist. It’s just another way of dehumanizing Palestinians. On October 7, the first [Zionist] line was to dehumanize Hamas and immediately dehumanize Palestinians in general. That’s why Gallant called us human animals. And the goal is to justify the killing of civilians and the killing of children. Because, for them, we are not human beings.

[…]

There is hope in people’s resilience. There is hope in people’s resistance. I believe in the younger generation in Palestine. I think they are showing fantastic models of resilience and resistance. I’m not talking only about military resistance or even civil resistance. I’m also talking about this fantastic movement among a younger Palestinian generation worldwide, especially in countries like the United States and [those in] Europe, where you have a whole new generation of Palestinians who are regenerated and reenergized.

I think that October 7 reenergized a whole Palestinian generation everywhere. And I think this opens the road for a new kind of Palestinian unity around a unified project that includes all Palestinians wherever they live, whether in Palestine or outside Palestine.