Violence is the natural next step of academic intolerance

Jonathan S. Tobin

Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and the founder of Turning Point USA, speaks with former U.S. president Donald Trump at the Turning Point Action Conference at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., on July 15, 2023. Credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons.

Whenever I watched one of Charlie Kirk’s viral videos depicting his events held at various colleges around the United States, I always had the same thought. By plunking himself down in the middle of university campuses under a banner that proclaimed “Prove me wrong,” he was taking an awful risk.

The prevailing culture of academia in recent years has been one in which many faculty members and students took the position that speech with which they disagreed was a form of violence. Given Kirk’s willingness to engage with students who didn’t share his views about abortion, gun rights or Israel, it wasn’t hard to imagine the sometimes-angry responses to his comments overflowing into something other than political discourse.

I’m far from the only one who must have thought that. And tragically, those concerns were justified this week when the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative activist group, was fatally shot by an assailant who has yet to be identified or caught by the authorities. Though shootings and even political violence are far from rare events in 2025 America, his assassination at what could be deemed a safer place at Utah Valley University has nevertheless shocked the nation.

A Rorschach test

His murder has been something of a Rorschach test for politicians, pundits and social-media posters. While most agree that this is a compelling reason for everyone to stop demonizing their political foes, we already know that won’t happen. If two attempted assassinations of President Donald Trump last year haven’t prevented his opponents on the left from continuing to smear him as another Hitler—and therefore logically fair game for violence—what makes anyone think that the gunning down of a young man who leaves behind a wife and two small children will sober anyone up?

Let’s leave aside the question of which side of the political divide is more responsible for the situation. It is patently obvious that both extremes are capable of disturbing the peace. Yet after so many years of alleging that the political right is the main, if not only, threat of domestic terrorism, many on the left only seem capable of admitting this obvious fact if they also demonize conservative victims like Kirk.

That was exactly what The New York Times did in an article about Kirk’s beliefs, in which they falsely accused him of supporting conspiracy theories about illegal immigrants rather than voicing concerns shared by a majority of Americans, and even accused a strong supporter of Israel and friend of the Jewish community of antisemitism. Even less temperate leftist posters on social media just doubled down on the old smears by calling Kirk a Nazi, while a not inconsiderable portion of the crackpot far right started floating farcical accusations about Israel being responsible for the murder.

Regardless of who the murderer turns out to be, relitigating these charges is pointless. What should be the focus of a national conversation is the fact that this tragedy took place on a college campus and that the victim was someone whose mission in life was to promote free speech in venues where that has gone out of fashion.

Indeed, Kirk was something of a purist when it came to speech. He even voiced concerns about the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on campus antisemitism because he opposed any limits on discourse. But, of course, contrary to the assertions of the president’s critics, the target of his efforts is not speech but illegal behavior, in which pro-Hamas mobs took over parts of campuses and sought to intimidate Jews. And if any moral were to be drawn from Kirk’s death, it should be to remind us that the willingness of so many academic institutions to tolerate and even encourage this sort of violence is about more than the feelings of Jewish students. It is a fundamental threat not just to free expression of political discourse but also an inevitable harbinger of far worse.

Challenging ‘safe places’

Kirk’s “Prove me wrong” events are now being widely described as provocations by those who opposed his stands. To the political left, the open expression of anti-abortion, anti-open borders, pro-guns and pro-Israel advocacy on campuses remains an affront to their sensibilities and academia itself, where such views are rarely heard. But that was the point. Kirk’s goal was not merely to promote the ideas he believed in, but to puncture the widely accepted notion that institutions of higher learning should provide “safe places” in which no one should be forced to deal with views that contradicted their own.

Charlie Kirk debating with a college student on April 23, 2024. Credit: Shoot for the Stars via Wikimedia Commons.

The problem is not just that this has created a generation of “snowflakes” too sensitive to debate ideas. The whole point of this notion is not safety but authoritarianism.

Treating ordinary political discourse as a form of violence to be feared is a mandate for silencing opposing views. And whatever anyone may have thought about Kirk’s opinions or his campus roadshow, his plucky glee for engaging those who disagreed with him—and who returned his replies with patent liberal nostrums—was the essence of democracy.

But the intolerance he fought represented more than a plague destroying the free exchange of ideas on which genuine scholarship thrives. It’s also a license for violence.

Current campus culture, rooted in the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), is not only a Marxist inversion of equal opportunity that seeks to perpetuate and widen racial divides and destroy the foundation of Western civilization. It’s also a permission slip for discriminating against any idea or group of people that falls outside of the protected classes of victims it claims to champion, as seen in the two years since the Hamas-led Palestinian attacks on Israel, Jews and Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023. It works to legitimize the cause of destroying Israel and the genocide of the Jewish people.

Even a cursory reading of history leads one to the inevitable conclusion that ideas drenched in Jew-hatred lead to violence against Jews. An uptick in antisemitism started internationally in the wake of Oct. 7. And since January in the United States, instances of violence against Jews include the firebombing of pro-Israel marchers in Boulder, Colo.; the murder of two young Israeli embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C.; and an arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s Harrisburg residence, where his family slept on the first night of Passover.

The cost of intolerance

Just as the impact on Jews is but a sidebar to the threat that DEI and other toxic left-wing ideologies pose to America as a whole, so, too, is intolerance for supporters of Israel and Zionism, merely a warning that anyone who dissents from the prevailing orthodoxies on campuses is also in danger.

As Americans learned in the 1960s, when intolerant radicals found themselves stymied by their failure to convince the majority of people to agree with their ideas, some inevitably resorted to violence. The Weather Underground might have represented only a fraction of those who protested against the Vietnam War more than half a century ago. These days, however, the political culture, coupled with the internet and social media, all work to mainstream extremist thoughts in ways unimaginable in previous generations. The disturbing online reactions to Kirk’s death, similar to the December 2024 assassination of an executive of the United Health Care insurance company and attempts on Trump’s life, illustrate how this normalizes toleration and even support for violence.

In the bifurcated political culture of 2025, we already know that most Americans have stopped listening, watching or reading views with which they disagree. That leads some to conclude that anyone they don’t like is Hitler—someone who should be silenced, if not jailed or subjected to violence. That’s more than a threat to politicians and activists. It can also put a target on the back of anyone who seeks to express their views about the subjects that Kirk spoke about in the public square.

Put into perspective, that makes it clear that his killing isn’t just one more sign that vocal advocacy can be a dangerous profession. It’s also a warning that society is heading toward a reality in which all those who speak up for any cause that falls out of favor with the chattering classes, like that of Israel and opposition to antisemitism, can no longer think of themselves as safe from violence.

That makes the cause of free speech that Charlie Kirk championed, as well as the need to stop demonizing our political foes, not merely a matter of civility in public discourse. It’s a matter of life and death for American democracy.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, which are available on all major audio platforms and YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.

Following Charlie Kirk’s Death, Jews Should Be at the Forefront of Defending Free Speech

Jonathan Sacerdoti

A memorial is held for Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed in Utah, at the Turning Point USA headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, US, Sept. 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin O’Hara

There was a time, not long ago, when disagreement was something that Americans believed in. Not just tolerated, not just endured, but believed in. Debate was seen as the crucible of truth. A clash of ideas, a testing of convictions, a sign of a free people confident enough to confront each other with words. That time is receding fast. What is rising in its place is something far more dangerous.

Three events. Three different places. Three separate incidents of death.

On a university stage in Utah, Charlie Kirk is shot in the neck while speaking. On the steps of a Jewish museum in Washington, DC, two young diplomats are gunned down after a reception. On a pedestrian mall in Boulder, Colorado, a group of elderly Jews are attacked with fire while marching for hostages. They come from different places, but they belong to the same pattern: violence aimed not only at people but also at the ideas they represent. Together, they form a portrait of a society fraying at its edges, where ideological rage no longer waits for permission to act.

As of this writing, no suspect has yet been identified in Kirk’s killing, and no motive has been confirmed. But what cannot be denied is that a political figure was assassinated mid-conversation, on an American campus, in front of an audience, most likely for expressing mainstream views. This is not simply a personal loss or a moment of partisan outrage. It marks a rupture in the civic fabric — a killing carried out in the middle of a public forum, aimed not just at a man but at the act of speaking itself. It challenges the very assumption that we are still living in a society where speech, even if heated, is protected by something more than law, but by convention, by principle, by shared civic belief.

In Washington, the suspect, Elias Rodriguez, reportedly shouted “Free Palestine” as he opened fire on a young Israeli couple walking home from a diplomatic event. In Boulder, suspect Mohamed Soliman allegedly hurled homemade Molotov cocktails at Jewish activists, setting them alight while yelling the same phrase. These slogans are ideological claims made through violence and are attempts not to argue but to silence.

The American left and right are bitterly divided over many things. But this is not about left or right. It is about something deeper: whether one believes that speech is violence, or whether one still believes that speech is how violence is restrained; whether one thinks disagreement is dangerous, or essential; whether one can look at a speaker on stage and say: “I oppose everything he stands for, but he must be allowed to speak.” Like many of my contemporaries and friends who speak publicly on campuses, TV screens, and even in town squares, who write internationally on political and social issues, and who debate daily with those we disagree with, I know the importance of listening to others and protecting their safety even when their views and ideas are at odds with mine.

Charlie Kirk was many things: bold, intelligent, ideological. He was also a man who invited his opponents to challenge him, live, unfiltered, in public. He believed in the premise that truth emerges when ideas are contested openly. That belief cost him his life, and his murder cost us all something of our human civility.

When we are told that certain views are so harmful they cannot be spoken, that some identities are so vulnerable they cannot be criticized, that public speech must be constrained in order to protect public “safety,” we are being fed a logic that inverts liberty. And when taken to its limit, as it was on that stage in Utah, it replaces conversation with bloodshed and fear.

Jews, perhaps more than anyone, understand this pattern. It is one we have seen too many times before. The weaponization of ideology, the demonization of speech, the targeting of people for their beliefs. When Jewish people are firebombed in broad daylight in an American city for showing solidarity with those brutally kidnapped and tortured in captivity, something vital has already broken. When diplomats are murdered on American soil for the simple fact of being Israeli, that line is not being tested. It has already been crossed.

And when a public figure is murdered — possibly for his ideas, his religion, his support of Israel, or simply his refusal to remain silent — the connections become harder to ignore. The principle is the same: the belief that violence is a legitimate answer to speech, that murder is a form of rebuttal. This mindset is not formed in a vacuum. When university students chant for “intifada” and endorse “resistance by any means,” they help cultivate a culture in which violent responses to speech are seen as justifiable. The issues may differ, but the logic is the same: disagreement becomes a pretext for force.

This is not only a fight for Jews. But Jews have been among the first to suffer, and they know too well the pain that Charlie Kirk’s wife, children, fans, and followers are feeling. All decent people feel that pain now, not because they knew him, but because they see the absurdity of killing a man dedicated to the idea of open debate, free thinking, and listening to each other’s opinions.

The rest of us cannot respond with fear of speaking up. That is how terror and violence win. Charlie’s voice may have been silenced, but his message and his ethos must not be killed as well. While we cannot be parents to Charlie’s children, nor his wife’s partner and support, we can and must redouble our dedication to debate, discussion, and civility, to become the manifestation of his belief in reason, analysis, and discussion. Let us insist that America remains a place where people may speak, protest, argue, offend, and yes, even be wrong, without fearing that the price will be death.

Jonathan Sacerdoti, a writer and broadcaster, is now a contributor to The Algemeiner.

Posiedzenie Ligi Arabskiej w Kairze.

Arabowie nie są zaintersowani rozbrojeniem Hamasu

Khaled Abu Toameh

Liga Arabska, reprezentująca 22 państwa arabskie, 30 lipca wezwała wspieraną przez Iran palestyńską organizację Hamas do złożenia broni i rezygnacji z kontroli nad Strefą Gazy. Hamas odrzucił to wezwanie. Jak zareagowały kraje arabskie na odmowę Hamasu? Zamiast potępić Hamas za śmierć i zniszczenie w Strefie Gazy, potępiły Izrael.

Na początku tego roku wysoki rangą przedstawiciel Ligi Arabskiej, Hossam Zaki powiedział, że oddanie przez Hamas władzy nad Strefą Gazy byłoby w interesie narodu palestyńskiego. Jak zwykle, Hamas odrzucił to wezwanie. Od tego czasu – jak i wcześniej – Liga Arabska wielokrotnie potępiała Izrael za walkę z organizacją terrorystyczną odpowiedzialną za inwazję na Izrael z 7 października 2023 roku, która była najgorszą zbrodnią przeciwko Żydom od lat 40. XX wieku.

Co najmniej 1200 Izraelczyków i cudzoziemców zostało zamordowanych, tysiące odniosło rany, a 251 osób zostało uprowadzonych do Strefy Gazy jako zakładnicy. Hamas nadal przetrzymuje 48 zakładników; przypuszcza się, że żyje tylko 28 z nich.

Liga Arabska nie zwołała nadzwyczajnej sesji w celu omówienia lekceważącej odpowiedzi Hamasu wobec swoich arabskich braci. Odrzucając wezwanie do rozbrojenia i oddania kontroli nad Strefą Gazy, Hamas pokazał, że nie ma najmniejszego szacunku dla państw arabskich i muzułmańskich, w tym Arabii Saudyjskiej, Jordanii, Egiptu, Zjednoczonych Emiratów Arabskich, a nawet Kataru.

Hamas nie ma powodu, by spełniać żądania krajów arabskich i muzułmańskich. Nie boi się ich nawet w najmniejszym stopniu. Spędzają oni większość czasu na potępianiu Izraela i nie wywierają żadnej presji na tę organizację terrorystyczną, by zakończyła wojnę, uwolniła zakładników, złożyła broń lub zrezygnowała z władzy nad Strefą Gazy. Kraje arabskie, takie jak Katar, wciąż goszczą większość przywódców Hamasu – wielu z nich to miliarderzy, którzy nadal kierują zniszczeniem Gazy z luksusowych hoteli i willi w Dosze. To właśnie Katar, podczas całej rzekomej „mediacji” administracji Trumpa, wielokrotnie instruował Hamas, by dalej atakował Izrael i nie rozbrajał się (przykłady: tutaj, tutaj i tutaj).

Nawet po przyłączeniu się do apelu Ligi Arabskiej o zawieszenie broni, katarscy dziennikarze rządowi wzywają Hamas do porywania kolejnych izraelskich żołnierzy, do „[w]alki z Żydami i ich zabijania”, oraz twierdzą, że „zwycięstwo dżihadu w Gazie zakończy syjonizm”. Po wejściu w życie zawieszenia broni w styczniu 2025 roku, katarskie media rządowe ogłosiły je „miażdżącym historycznym zwycięstwem” Hamasu, „poważną porażką” Izraela, i porównały do traktatu z Hudajbijji – „który Prorok Mahomet podpisał ze swoimi wrogami z plemienia Kurajszytów” na dziesięć lat, ale „który złamał po około dwóch latach”, po czym zdobył Mekkę.

Iran finansuje Hamas na poziomie szacowanym na 100 milionów dolarów rocznie.

Przywódcy państw arabskich, którzy publicznie nie krytykują Hamasu, najwyraźniej obawiają się, że mogliby spotkać się z gniewem ulicy arabskiej, gdzie Hamas i inne ugrupowania islamistyczne nadal cieszą się dużą popularnością. Niektórzy arabscy przywódcy już są nazywani zdrajcami przez Arabów ze względu na swoje bliskie relacje z Izraelem i USA.

Niestety, można bezpiecznie założyć, że większość arabskich przywódców niespecjalnie przejmuje się cierpieniem narodu palestyńskiego, zwłaszcza mieszkańców Strefy Gazy. Przez ostatnie dekady większość państw arabskich ograniczała swoje wsparcie dla Palestyńczyków do pustych deklaracji i sloganów.

Na początku sierpnia Liga Arabska zwołała nadzwyczajną sesję w Kairze, aby omówić izraelskie plany przejęcia kontroli nad Gazą jako element nacisku na Hamas w celu uwolnienia zakładników i zakończenia jego rządów nad całą Strefą Gazy. Przywódcy arabscy, ignorując odmowę Hamasu wobec ich apelu o rozbrojenie i ustąpienie z władzy, zamiast tego określili izraelskie plany jako „rażący akt agresji” i zażądali pilnej presji międzynarodowej na Izrael, by ten zaprzestał działań zbrojnych przeciwko tej organizacji terrorystycznej. Można by się spodziewać, że przywódcy arabscy będą wściekli na Hamas za odrzucenie ich apelu. Byłoby to jednak błędne założenie.

Jeśli 22 państwa arabskie i muzułmańskie nie mają odwagi, by sprzeciwić się Hamasowi, jak można oczekiwać, że odegrają jakąkolwiek rolę w zakończeniu wojny w Strefie Gazy? Egipt i Katar to jedyne dwa państwa, które bezpośrednio negocjują z Hamasem w sprawie potencjalnego porozumienia o zawieszeniu broni i uwolnieniu zakładników. Pozostałe państwa arabskie postanowiły się nie angażować.

Przywódcy Hamasu regularnie odwiedzają Kair w celu rozmów z egipskimi urzędnikami na temat sytuacji w Strefie Gazy. Egipcjanie jednak nie wydają się wywierać na Hamas realnej presji. Podobnie Katar jak dotąd nie zdołał zmusić tej organizacji terrorystycznej do złożenia broni i rezygnacji z władzy nad Strefą Gazy. Jak wspomniano wcześniej, dziennikarze katarskich mediów rządowych wciąż aktywnie zachęcają Hamas do kontynuowania wojny.

Podobnie jak reszta krajów arabskich, Egipt i Katar nie sprawiają wrażenia szczególnie zaniepokojonych odmową Hamasu wobec apelu Ligi Arabskiej. Gdyby oba państwa rzeczywiście chciały wywrzeć presję na Hamas, przynajmniej zagroziłyby deportacją jego przywódców i ich rodzin oraz zamrożeniem ich kont bankowych. Nic takiego jednak się nie wydarzyło – przywódcy Hamasu nadal prowadzą wygodne życie w Dosze i są serdecznie przyjmowani za każdym razem, gdy przylatują do Egiptu.

Przywódcy Hamasu po prostu nie czują żadnej presji ze strony Arabów, by zakończyć wojnę w Strefie Gazy. Najprawdopodobniej dlatego są zdeterminowani, by walczyć do ostatniego Palestyńczyka. Ze swoich bezpiecznych domów i biur w Katarze i Turcji przywódcy Hamasu nadal gloryfikują palestyński „opór” i grożą Izraelowi kolejnym terrorem.

Najszybszym sposobem na zakończenie wojny byłoby domaganie się – z konsekwencjami w przypadku opieszałości – by państwa arabskie, zwłaszcza Egipt i Katar, przyjęły naprawdę stanowczą postawę wobec Hamasu. Administracja Trumpa jest prawdopodobnie jedynym podmiotem, który może wywrzeć presję na Egipt i Katar, aby zmusiły Hamas do uwolnienia zakładników i złożenia broni. Przywódcy arabscy, w końcu, nigdy nie słynęli ze współczucia wobec tych, którzy ośmielili się im przeciwstawić lub ich obrazić.

Khaled Abu Toameh – urodzony w 1963 r. w Tulkarem na Zachodnim Brzegu, arabski dziennikarz, któremu wielokrotnie grożono śmiercią. Publikował między innymi w “The Jerusalem Post”, “Wall Street Journal”, “Sunday Times”, “U.S. News”, “World Report”, “World Tribune”, “Daily Express” i palestyńskim dzienniku “Al-Fajr”. Od 1989 roku jest współpracownikiem i konsultantem NBC News.

Israeli Military Expert: Doha Strike Was Backed by US and Qatar Coup, Will Bring Hostage Deal Closer

Debbie Weiss

A damaged building, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders, according to an Israeli official, in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Israel’s unprecedented strike on Hamas leaders in Doha this week was not a rogue act of military aggression, but rather the outcome of quiet coordination between Qatar and the US that could bring a hostage deal closer, Israeli intelligence expert Eyal Pinko said on Wednesday.

The strike, which officials have said was planned months ago, came a day after 10 Israelis were killed by Hamas in Gaza and Jerusalem. Four were soldiers who died in an attack on an Israeli tank in northern Gaza. The separate shooting attack in Jerusalem, in which six Israelis were killed and several more wounded, was the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” Pinko, a national security expert who served in Israeli intelligence for more than three decades, said in a press briefing.

Pinko contended that while Qatar publicly condemned the attacks, it also enabled them. “I am sure they were involved and the attack was coordinated with the [Qataris],” Pinko later told The Algemeiner. 

The most recent round of negotiations to secure a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal were nothing more than a “deception” by the US and Israel designed to gather Hamas leaders in one place “in order to set the timing to eliminate them,” he said. 

Pinko said the strike should also be seen in light of US President Donald Trump’s impatience with the stalled hostage talks, arguing it showed Trump was on board with assassinations of Hamas leaders despite public declarations that he was “very unhappy” with the attack. He also pointed to Trump’s comments from last month, in which the US president predicted the Gaza conflict would reach a “conclusive ending” within two or three weeks.

Qatar, which has long hosted Hamas’s exiled leadership, benefits strategically from replacing the terrorist group’s leaders loyal to Iran with figures it can trust, Pinko maintained. Doha holds billions of dollars belonging to Hamas officials and has no interest in letting Ankara or Tehran displace it as the group’s patron. The timing of the attack is also significant, Pinko said, coming in the wake of Israel’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear program over the summer. “Iran is in a very bad situation. Qatar can easily overcome Iran,” he said.

Pinko further argued that the strike may serve to bring forward the release of the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza since Hamas itself was no longer a coherent negotiating partner. The terrorist group operating in Gaza had become fragmented, “divided into five families that are fighting each other” and sometimes giving the impression that “they hate each other more than they hate Israel,” Pinko said. Recent talks proved “there was no longer a decisionmaker in Hamas,” and this disarray had allowed Hamas leaders to drag out the process with unrealistic demands. Removing those figures, he argued, would leave room for Qatar to install leaders who could cut a deal. “This will make the negotiation process much faster,” he said.

Pinko’s assessment stands in stark contrast to the fears of some of the families of the remaining 48 hostages held in Gaza, who said in a statement they had “grave fear” the Doha strike could sabotage the chances of bringing their loved ones home. 

He placed the operation in a wider context, linking it to the revival of the Abraham Accords and US efforts to build a trade corridor from India through the Gulf to Israel and Europe as a counterweight to China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative, ending with Gaza as a key trade hub. “Trump is very serious in making the northern part of the Gaza Strip as [having] US autonomy. That will be the end of the American belt and road initiative to compete with the Chinese,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called on Qatar, which “gives safe haven [and] harbors terrorists,” to expel them or bring them to justice, adding that if they don’t, “we will.”

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, for his part said his country would retaliate over the strike, and accused Netanyahu of “wasting” Qatar’s time in negotiations and “leading the Middle East to chaos.”

Pinko called out Doha for its “duplicity” in pretending to be a peacemaker on the one hand, while “fueling Hamas and hatred” in the US and Europe, on the other. 

“They are against Israel in their DNA. They don’t want Israel to exist,” he said. “So Gaza and Hamas are a very important asset for them.”

Some critics have denounced the Doha strike as a violation of international law, but international law experts note that Article 51 of the UN Charter recognizes a state’s inherent right to self-defense and that this right is not confined by geography if attacks are directed from outside its borders. The so-called “unwilling or unable” doctrine holds that if a host country does not act against militants on its soil, the victim state may use proportionate force.

The US relied on this doctrine when it killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in a 2011 operation that was widely hailed by Western governments and the UN, whose then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said at the time that he was “very much relieved by news that justice has been done” and called it “a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism.”