ANYBODY watching the recent evacuation of Israeli settlers from their homes in Gaza would have thought they had been living there for generations. The international media covered the event as though it was a major tragedy unfolding. The weeping and beating of breasts made it seem that some great disaster had struck.

Indeed, Israeli hawks predicted that the withdrawal could trigger a civil war, or a mutiny within the Israeli defence forces. In the event, the settlers were removed, and Apocalypse did not befall Israel. However, if removing 8,000 settlers was so traumatic for Israeli society, and so politically sensitive for the Sharon government, how much more difficult will it be to remove a quarter of a million Israeli citizens from the West Bank?

For precisely this reason, Sharon has announced that the major settlements will stay, and only some ‘unauthorized’ sites will be cleared. Actually, none of these settlements (some of them now substantial towns) are authorized under international law. And certainly the construction of new homes there has been specifically deemed illegal.

It has long been official Israeli policy to create ‘facts on the ground’ that would make it possible to hang on to large swathes of the West Bank irrespective of any peace deal with the Palestinians. Over nearly four decades, a creeping annexation has seen large, flourishing communities of Israeli colonists develop across the occupied areas of Palestine. These settlers were encouraged to move from their homes in Israel through subsidized housing and tax breaks. Many of them have grown up in the West Bank, and consider it their home. Much of this expansion took place when Sharon was housing minister.

The construction of a monstrous wall to include many of the larger settlements into Israel creates yet another ‘fact on the ground’. Although the Israelis call it a security barrier, it is in reality another nail in the coffin of a peaceful, equitable peace settlement. It is not a secret that Sharon’s decision to pull out of Gaza has more to do with the need to deflect criticism than any sympathy for the Palestinians living on that tiny strip of land.

Given the widespread cynicism about Sharon’s intentions, it is no surprise that Hamas has announced that their armed struggle against the occupation will continue. This party has claimed credit — and not entirely without reason — for the Israeli pullout from Gaza. Their deadly suicide-bombing tactics have caused hundreds of casualties in Israel and the occupied territories, and Sharon finally felt that tying down large contingents of troops to protect 8,000 settlers was not worth it.

The other benefit for Israel was the goodwill it has garnered by pulling out of occupied land. This is not unlike rewarding a crook for handing back stolen property. The world has seen how difficult it has been for Tel Aviv to remove its settlers, and will therefore not expect a major withdrawal from the West Bank in the wake of any peace agreement.

Given these unilateral steps by Israel to hang on to large chunks of Palestinian lands, resistance is inevitable and entirely legitimate. Years of fruitless negotiations have convinced many Palestinians that the Israelis want to annex their lands, and use talks to drag things along as they continue their construction and expansion.

So is armed struggle the only way to get justice? Earlier in Lebanon, Hizbollah fought a long war of attrition before the Israelis pulled out of the occupied southern areas. And now, Palestinians see their foes withdrawing from Gaza, and perceive it as a victory for the intifada.

Other armed groups are conducting armed operations against different regimes. The Chechens are engaged in a merciless campaign against Russia. The Tamils have fought an unending civil war against the government in Colombo. Shining Path have waged a long underground struggle in Peru.

In all these asymmetrical battles, insurgents, rebels or freedom fighters — call them what you will — resort to terrorism. The late and much-missed Eqbal Ahmed called terrorism a weapon of the weak, and so it is. But faced with the power of the state, what options do they have?

Many countries have adopted a policy of not negotiating with terrorists. And yet they have given in under pressure, or at least come to the negotiating table. Many countries that are today respectable members of the international community were created through violence and terror. Israel is a case in point.

Often, westerners make the mistake of seeing what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan as straightforward terrorism. In actual fact, much of the violence is directed towards foreign occupiers and their collaborators. When France was occupied by the Nazi army, the Resistance conducted a bitter campaign of sabotage and guerilla warfare that targeted German troops and their French civilian supporters. The Resistance was hailed for its heroism, despite its many excesses.

So where does one draw the line between legitimate freedom struggles and unwarranted terrorism that civilized people must condemn? Obviously, every group feels its aspirations are lawful and its methods justified. Nevertheless, as moral beings, we need to choose between right and wrong. To my mind, people are entitled to fight to free their land from foreign occupiers. But when faced with a legally constituted government, they should normally use constitutional means to press their demands.

Recently, a friend equated the London attacks with allied bombing in Iraq in which thousands of civilians have died. But there is a clear difference here: in London, the suicide bombers set out with the clear aim of killing innocent civilians. The civilians killed in Iraq were not deliberately targeted. And in Britain, dissenters have a number of legal and peaceful ways of making their opposition to the Iraq war known to the government.

There has been much talk of ‘state terrorism’, and this has been used to justify endless violence. Indeed, Israel’s resort to disproportionate force to put down the intifada has often been cited as a reason for the spate of suicide bombings that have shaken Israeli society. Clearly, Israel bears some of the responsibility for the violence that erupts periodically as a result of its long occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Similarly, Russia has to shoulder a major part of the blame for the ongoing civil war in Chechnya.

Far too often, it is the overbearing, undemocratic behaviour of nation-states that triggers a strong reaction, often resulting in counter-terror. So perhaps the answer to the turmoil the world is in today is for our rulers to mend their ways.