The Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ATCA), passed by Congress and then signed into law by President Donald Trump last year, has just come into force. This allows Americans to sue those receiving foreign aid from their country in US courts over alleged complicity in “acts of war”. The Palestinians have declined further US funding, at the request of the Palestinian Authority, worried about legal jeopardy.

This is a perversely ironic twist. Instead of the Palestinians complaining about the US cutting off funds, they are being forced not to accept such aid. The reason: The fear of being slapped with anti-terrorism lawsuits in US courts.

Aside from the fact that only a handful of Americans have ever been harmed in the battle between Palestinians and Israelis, the bigger question is why the Palestinians should be fearful of this US piece of legislation. The Palestinians are not terrorists. They are fighting to recapture their stolen land. Does that constitute terrorism? It is often argued that terrorism is in the eye of the beholder, that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” The Palestinians do not practice terrorism. They have political objectives which include self-determination in and sovereignty over Palestine, the liberation of Palestine and recognition of a Palestinian state, either in place of both Israel and the Palestinian territories or solely in the Palestinian territories.

Israel typically labels acts of Palestinian armed resistance, including against its occupying military forces, as “terrorism”. But through the years a number of prominent Israeli writers, peace activists, politicians and retired Shin Bet officers have not hesitated to attribute Palestinian counter-attacks as an understandable reaction to Israeli occupation and repression. None other than former Prime Minister Ehud Barak himself once admitted, “If I were a Palestinian, I would join a terrorist organization”.

Israel has been engaged in terrorism since its creation in 1948. It has systematically assaulted a civilian population that was non-combatant but was forced to fight. The Israeli army operates as an agent of terror, running a military occupation regime in the territories that denies millions of people their basic rights, bringing upon Israelis a bloody war.

The Israeli nation today rests on the foundations of oppression and injustice. Far from defeating so-called terrorism, the prevailing policy — killings, closures, checkpoints — is creating a climate in which the Palestinians have no recourse other than to fight back.

Since the Palestinians have no chance of defeating the Israeli armed forces, their main alternatives have been negotiated political settlement and resistance. Yet, all negotiations or Palestinian offers to negotiate have gone for naught, overwhelmingly because no Israeli government has been prepared to agree to end the occupation.

For that reason, the political path to a settlement is all but dead, leaving only non-violent resistance, including the BDS movement, as an alternative. In fact, at various periods, the Palestinians have tried non-violent resistance, civil disobedience and political protest. But all of these efforts have been suppressed or violently crushed by Israeli forces.

As was witnessed in Gaza last year, the Israelis have no inhibitions when it comes to using force against unarmed protesters, and they make no distinction between violent and non-violent demonstrations.

The Israeli mythology of the innocent peaceful state surrounded by a sea of hostile adversaries is widely accepted in the US, although the truth should, or at least might lead the American Jewish community to rethink its views and, in turn, make it politically feasible for the US government to end its nearly unconditional support of Israeli policies in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Current US attitudes and policies have precluded the US government from serious and sustained pressure on Israel, in the absence of which there is next to no chance of a fair settlement of the conflict.

The word “clarification” in ATCA is apt. It should be clarified that Israel, not the Palestinians, is practicing terrorism.