“Resistance.” “Intifada.” “By any means necessary.” Across Western anti-Israel demonstrations, the words are frequently defended as expressions of liberation and human rights. But the organizations that built the modern ideology of “resistance” use the same vocabulary very differently. Iran, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah openly connect it to armed struggle and the elimination of Israel, while some Western activist organizations have explicitly embraced their terminology, celebrated their attacks and praised their fighters.
Walk through an anti-Israel demonstration in New York, London or on an American university campus and certain words appear again and again.
“Resistance.”
“Intifada.”
“Globalize the intifada.”
“Resistance by any means necessary.”
Supporters often argue that these expressions simply mean opposition to Israeli policy or support for Palestinian liberation.
But there is another question that deserves considerably more scrutiny:
What do the movements that popularized the modern ideology of “resistance” themselves mean by the word?
The answer is remarkably clear.
Iran and the organizations it supports across the Middle East have spent decades describing themselves as the Axis of Resistance. Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah routinely use “resistance” to describe armed operations against Israel. Hamas has used the same language for October 7 th. And Iran’s leadership has simultaneously promoted the slogans “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
In May 2026, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei went even further. In an official message published by his office, he declared that “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” should become common slogans of Muslims and what he described as the oppressed around the world, particularly young people. In the same address, he praised the “Resistance Front” stretching from Iran through Lebanon and Palestine and explicitly linked it to Hamas’s October 7 operation.
That context matters when the vocabulary of “resistance” travels thousands of miles from Tehran, Gaza and Beirut to American campuses.
What the Axis means by “resistance”
The “Axis of Resistance” is not a label invented by Israel.
It is the name used for the Iran-backed network encompassing groups including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis and armed Iraqi factions. Its members define themselves principally through confrontation with Israel and American influence in the Middle East.
And the rhetoric surrounding that resistance is hardly ambiguous.
Iran’s leadership has repeatedly endorsed “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
The Houthi movement’s notorious slogan goes further: “Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews.” Its founder reportedly explained the reference to Jews using explicitly antisemitic conspiracy rhetoric.
Hezbollah’s former leader Hassan Nasrallah repeatedly described Israel’s elimination as an objective. Palestinian Islamic Jihad has declared armed jihad the necessary path to what it calls the liberation of all Palestine. These organizations may differ ideologically and strategically, but they share a vocabulary.
The word at the center of that vocabulary is resistance.
Hamas tells us what “resistance” means
Perhaps the clearest evidence comes from Hamas itself.
Hamas’s 1988 founding charter contains unmistakably antisemitic passages and frames jihad as the solution to the conflict with Israel. Its 2017 political document softened the language by asserting that its conflict was with Zionism rather than Jews because of their religion.
But it did not abandon armed struggle.
The 2017 document explicitly calls armed resistance Hamas’s “strategic choice” and rejects attempts to disarm the movement.
Then came October 7, 2023.
Hamas leaders themselves repeatedly placed the attack inside the vocabulary of “resistance.”
Mohammed Deif appealed to what he called the “forces of resistance” throughout the region as the operation began. Ismail Haniyeh described Hamas’s forces and other participating factions as “the Resistance.” Hamas official Ghazi Hamad subsequently said the attack would be repeated.
This creates an important problem for Western activists who insist that “resistance” necessarily means peaceful opposition.
Hamas itself does not define it that way.
Neither do Palestinian Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah.
For these organizations, “resistance” is not merely a protest slogan. It is the political vocabulary through which armed struggle is legitimized.
And what does “intifada” mean?
There is a genuine linguistic argument here.
The Arabic word intifada broadly means an uprising or “shaking off.” It is not inherently a synonym for terrorism, and the First Intifada included strikes, boycotts, demonstrations and other forms of civil resistance.
That distinction should not be erased.
But neither should history.
The Second Intifada became a period of extensive organized violence against Israelis, including more than 100 suicide bombings and numerous other attacks. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were major perpetrators. Hamas itself spoke during that period of escalating the “blessed intifada” alongside jihad and resistance.
So when protesters today demand that the intifada be “globalized,” Jewish communities have an obvious reason to ask exactly which part of that history is supposed to become global.
Major Jewish organizations including the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee interpret the slogan as invoking the violence associated with the Palestinian intifadas.
Supporters dispute that interpretation. Some, including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, have argued that they understand “intifada” simply as an uprising against oppression and a demand for Palestinian rights.
That disagreement is real.
But it does not end the investigation.
Because some of the organizations using this language in the West have told the public exactly what kind of resistance they support.
When the ambiguity disappears
The strongest evidence does not come from guessing what an anonymous protester thinks.
It comes from organizations speaking for themselves.
In the immediate aftermath of October 7, National Students for Justice in Palestine distributed organizing material describing the attack as a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance.” According to the material documented in the research, it also invoked “armed confrontation” while praising the resistance and its “martyrs.”
Within Our Lifetime declared on October 7 that Palestinians had a right to resistance “in all its forms” and added: “By any means necessary.”
Samidoun celebrated the offensive in similar language, describing Palestinian “resistance forces” breaking through the Gaza perimeter and launching their attack. Its leaders have separately praised the military wings of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and the PFLP.
And Samidoun is particularly important because this is not merely an allegation from Israel or a Jewish advocacy organization.
In October 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department formally designated Samidoun, describing it as a front and international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Treasury said the PFLP uses Samidoun to maintain fundraising operations in Europe and North America. Canada simultaneously listed Samidoun as a terrorist entity.
Here the chain becomes difficult to dismiss as linguistic coincidence.
An organization operating inside the Western protest movement uses “resistance” rhetoric, celebrates armed Palestinian factions and is then officially identified by the United States as serving a designated terrorist organization.
That is substantially different from an uninformed protester carrying a sign.
The language crossed the Atlantic. So did the ideology.
The broader pattern is also revealing.
The PFLP publicly praised American campus organizations including Students for Justice in Palestine. Iran and Hamas publicly welcomed the wave of Western campus protests. Meanwhile, demonstrations in the United States have featured combinations of “resistance is justified,” “globalize the intifada,” praise for Hamas’s “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation and, in documented cases, Hamas imagery.
The evidence does not establish that Iran or Hamas commands the American protest movement.
Nor does it prove that everyone marching in a pro-Palestinian demonstration supports terrorism.
What it establishes is a rhetorical and ideological feedback loop.
Iran calls its network the Resistance.
Hamas calls October 7 resistance.
PIJ calls armed jihad resistance.
Hezbollah calls its military struggle resistance.
Western organizations then describe October 7 as Palestinian resistance, praise the same organizations and demand that the “intifada” spread globally.
At some point, claiming that the identical vocabulary has no relationship to the ideology behind it becomes increasingly difficult.
The dossier’s evidence chain is strongest at the organizational level: Iran and its proxies share the terminology; groups such as Samidoun and NSJP reproduce it in the West; and Iranian and Palestinian militant organizations publicly welcome those Western movements in return.
Words do not exist outside their history
None of this means that every college student shouting “intifada” secretly wants Jews murdered.
There is no evidence capable of proving such a sweeping claim, and making it would weaken rather than strengthen the argument.
Words can carry different meanings for different speakers. “Resistance” can describe peaceful civil disobedience. Intifada can simply mean uprising. Credible reference sources acknowledge those meanings, and some activists explicitly reject violence when explaining their use of the terminology.
But context matters too.
If someone says “resistance” while praising October 7, the ambiguity largely disappears.
If an organization calls October 7 a victory for the “resistance” and simultaneously demands armed confrontation, it has told us what it means.
If activists celebrate Hamas, PIJ or Hezbollah while chanting for resistance, there is no need to invent an interpretation for them. Their own words provide one.
And when protesters call to “globalize the intifada,” Israelis and Jews are not irrational for remembering what an intifada actually looked like rather than accepting a sanitized dictionary definition stripped of its historical context.
The question Western activists must answer
The central issue, then, is not whether every person who says “resistance” consciously means “Death to America” or “Death to the Jews.”
The evidence cannot establish that.
The more serious question is why parts of the Western anti-Israel movement have adopted the political vocabulary of organizations that openly advocate Israel’s destruction, why some of those groups explicitly celebrate their violence, and why the language is so often defended as harmless after its original users have repeatedly explained what they mean by it.
Iran’s leadership does not hide its objectives.
The Houthis do not hide their slogan.
Hamas does not hide that armed struggle is part of its definition of resistance.
PIJ does not hide it.
Hezbollah did not build its identity around peaceful protest.
And several Western activist organizations have not hidden their admiration for those movements either. The research supports that conclusion far more strongly than a blanket allegation against every person at every protest.
When “resistance” is used alongside praise for Hamas, October 7, armed confrontation or the Axis of Resistance, the speakers should be judged by the political meaning they themselves have chosen to attach to the word, not by the sanitized meaning offered afterward.
That is where the evidence is strongest.
And that is precisely where the claim that this is merely innocent protest language begins to fall apart.
