Israel says its three-week assault on the Gaza Strip was an act of legitimate self-defense in response to years of Palestinian rocket attacks.

VOA: standard.2009.10.16

Unless and until President Obama gives comprehensive and tangible expression to America's commitment to Israel-- in terms of reliable military assistance, unstinting diplomatic support and wide latitude to act in its self-defense-- the forces that have been unleashed by him and others will assuredly translate in due course into war.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: How wars begin

For a slave to lift his hand "against the sacred temple of a white man's body, " even in self-defense, was an act of rebellion.

NPR: A Radical History of the Underground Railroad

The PCOM was born in the late 1930s as a desperate act of self-defense by West Texas cotton farmers, who at the time could hardly give their seed away.

NPR: Texas Cotton: 'Farmer Profits at Every Step'