The Strategic Logic of Nonviolence
Jonathan Zasloff writes about a national liberation movement that didn’t resort to indiscriminate killing to achieve its goals:
The ANC maintained a strict policy of nonviolent protest for nearly 50 years, until the 1961 Sharpeville Massacres. Even after the founding of Umkhonto We Sizwe, the vast majority of its targets were government installations and military outposts. Its record was hardly perfect, including the infamous “Magoo’s Bar Bombing” and similar incidents in the mid-80’s, but overall, the ANC was highly disciplined and refrained from hitting civilian targets. Indeed, Umkhonto We Sizwe started a landmine campaign in the mid-80’s, but ended it because of too many civilian casualties. Overall, the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that the rare soft target attacks were the outcome of either misunderstandings or rogue operators among MK agents.
And of course there’s the civil rights movement in the United States. And it’s worth emphasizing here the extent to which strict adherence to non-violence was important to helping the movement Martin Luther King led to get what they wanted. When people who you regard as being “on your side” start killing people for what you deem a reasonable cause, you tend to look on the killing in an understanding light. But when you don’t regard those people as “on your side” then things like firing rockets at populated areas or dropping bombs on schools begins to look monstrous. And when you’re faced off against monsters, the last thing you want to do is give them any room to breath. The white south resisted desegregation pretty fiercely, but resistance would have been much fiercer if the civil rights movement had been killing tons of people and stoking fears that empowering blacks would lead to massacres.
Much the same applies to the South African situation. At a certain point, it became clear to the apartheid leaders that there system was untenable. But they were still more interested in the upholding the interests of white South Africa than in abstract considerations of justice. The fact that ANC behavior didn’t imply that the organization was led by cold-blooded killers made it much easier to contemplate handing power over to them. In Israel, decline in political support for wild “Greater Israel” notions has been swamped by the way Israeli discourse has become dominated by fear that any easing up on the Palestinians will endanger Israeli lives — a fear that’s hard to assuage driven by how violence-obsessed the Palestinian movement has been.
174 Responses to “The Strategic Logic of Nonviolence”
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January 7th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
BINGO!
Hamas and by extension the Palestinians are not going to get much traction because they are seen as a bunch of homocidal maniacs (rockets, mortars, suicide bombers, etc.)
January 7th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Nonviolence only works when there’s some minimal commitment by the dominant group to the rule of law. It doesn’t work against tyrannies, and it isn’t promising even against rule-of-law powers when the setting is outside the metropolis. (India was an exception precisely because the British embraced a unitary notion of rule of law throughout the Empire.) Gaza and the West Bank aren’t Israel and what happens there isn’t subject to Israeli laws–or, more importantly, Israeli understandings of right and wrong.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Should the Palestinians start “necklacing” each other, in tribute to the ANC? Would a Palestinian state be as much of a clusterfuck as post-Apartheid South Africa?
January 7th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Fred makes a valid point that I was going to bring up, the ANC, whether you parse bullshit by separating “indiscriminate” from discriminant or ANC policy from alledged “rouge operators” the crimes committed are no less horrifying.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
My way of understanding these things is to assume that, unless substantial evidence exists to the contrary, the outcomes that get created are the outcomes desired by those with the power to make decisions.
The outcome in the Israeli/Palestinian fiasco has been decades of violence with essentially no progress whatsoever towards peace, and the entrenched power of militariest elements in both Israel and Palestine. The actions of both Israel and Palestine seem to have logically and predictably led towards this outcome. I therefore presume, sans substantial evidence to the contrary, the the political authorities that influence Israel and Palestine foreign policy desire, in some way, to continue the political status quo.
In other words, Hamas, in some organizational sense, knows they aren’t going to “win” anything for the Palestinians. But they are going to win substantial domestic political power and consolidation for Hamas. The interests of political elites aren’t necessarily the interests of their constituents.
I… could probably say similar things about Israel.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Look it’s not complicated. If the primary Palestinian effort is non-violent protest, they would get a favorable settlement (either two-state or one state, depending on what they want). Their moral cause would be so strong that it would result in international (and internal Israeli) pressure to find a peaceful solution.
I hope for once, we can look at this situation without the ethical cloud of who is RIGHT and who is WRONG. As Ezra Klein implied, the Palestinians and Israelis have such non-overlapping agendas and concerns, they can basically defend their own immoral actions with logic, or attack any action by the other side as morally unjustifiable with equally compelling logic.
One must focus on the reality of the situation: the Palestinians are a subjugated people who will never be a credible threat to the existence of Israel, whose primary force for change is the moral strength of their cause.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
It’s a stretch to cite Indian independence as an unqualified triumph of nonviolence. The Indian independence movement succeeded largely because Britain was exhausted by the Second World War, and in no position to fight another war. (Indian independence, of course, smoothed the way for idependence movements in the African colonies as well).
Likewise, South African apartheid fell as a result of several separate assaults. Some of them were nonviolent, others (like the war against SWAPO in Namibia and the Cuban Army in Angola) were military, and some (like the ANC struggle) combined both approaches. Again, hardly a ringing endorsement of pacifist, can’t-we-all-get-along rhetoric.
Fred,
Namibia appears to be doing fairly well, after having experienced a freedom struggle more violent than South Africa, so it seems unlikely that all black-on-white struggles have to end up in miserable chaos as a general principle.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I’ve always understood the Palestinian plan to be:
1. Adopt violent policies to the extent that you prevent peace, and in particularly the establishment of an inferior Palestinian state.
2. Have lots and lots of Palestinian babies.
3. When the numbers are on your side, shift to a policy of peaceful resistance— in pursuit of voting rights as full Israeli citizens.
4. Once voting rights are in place — and they will be — peacefully vote the Jewish state out of existence.
I doubt that most Palestinians are consciously following this strategy, but that doesn’t make it any less inevitable.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
If Jordan were pressured to become a democracy (perhaps as a constitutional monarchy, so the current “king” and his retinue could still enjoy a cossetted lifestyle), it would become a Palestinian state. After all, most of its population is Palestinian, and the country occupies 75% of Britain’s original Palestine mandate.
The situation in Gaza shows that there is no room for a Palestinian state west of the Jordan. Let all the Palestinians move to Jordan and be compensated for doing so; let them have the right of self-determination in Jordan; and they’ll have their own state three times the size of Israel.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Even the Indian independence movement involved some amount of violence, but yeah I think it would be an extremely useful model for the Palestinians. Poll after poll shows that the Israeli public is very leery of the occupation – if Palestinians only gave civil disobedience a chance (even if it means absorbing the occasional violent slaughter a la what happened in Amritsar at the hands of the British) I think it would be far more effective than the puny Qassam/Grad rocket attacks that really don’t do anything.
On that topic, Israel could also learn from modern India on how not to ridiculously overreact to small threats.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Nonviolent resistance isn’t merely a protest gained at winning public sympathy (and, thus, putting pressure on a publicly accountable government). It’s primarily a means of disrupting a system founded on exploitation. The exploited group simply says, “We’re not participating in this system any more,” and prepares itself to accept whatever consequences follow.
So, the Civil Rights movement made Jim Crow unworkable — African Americans demonstrated that they would no longer participate in the system. That left the white majority with 2 alternatives: carry out a war against African Americans, or reach some kind of compromise. “Segregation Forever!” was simply an impossibility, since African-Americans were no longer willing to be segregated and had organized ways of effectively resisting and of withholding their participation in Jim Crow society.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Hector,
Namibia may be doing “fairly well” (from a sub-Saharan African perspective), but this is mainly do its low ratio of population to mineral deposits.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
You folks are of course forgetting the that non-violence and Islam (at least its dominant strains) don’t go together at all. Arab Muslims are a largely an insecure people, who are quick to violence against perceived slights because of that. In that, they are similar to inner-city African Americans.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Jim W,
Israelis giving up settlements may help somewhat but would not be nearly as significant in accelerating peace as if the Palestinians give up violence and their threats to Israel’s existence (and the deep level of denial and skewed mentality that corresponds to their belief that they could actually destroy Israel).
I have no idea how to engender this change in Palestinians mentality and leadership and therefore agree with you that war is going to continue for the forseeable future.
As Matt would say, US policy does clearly favor Israel (and that also is not going to change in the forseeable future), so this conflict will be an ongoing strategic problem for us.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Actually, if you want to use that analogy, then this characterization of Arab Muslims would make them quite analogous to Southern conservative whites, who are quite often not only quick to vengeful violence, but engage in huge amounts of domestic abuse, oppose modern non-clerical education, use bellicose rhetoric, frequently back the notion of an anti-modern separatist movement, and back fundamentalist religious initiatives over secular democracy.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Matt, I’m disturbed by your sloppy reading of history.
The resistance to Apartheid in South Africa was hardly nonviolent. As Fred points out, ‘Necklacing’ was a pretty healthy and widespread phenomenon, and apparently endorsed covertly at high levels within the organisation. There were numerous instance of armed or violent resistance, including full scale riots. And in the context of South Africa, we should not overlook the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe situation which was part and parcel.
As for the American civil rights movement, you’re carefully ignoring Malcolm X, Black Muslims, and inner city race riots. The issue of resistance and types of resistance, including violent resistance was a live debate in the civil rights movement. There were certainly groups which preached forms of violent resistence, there were groups and incidents which practiced it, and the threat remained strong in the minds of many. As for King himself, he was more than prepared to break the law, and he believed that unjust laws must be disobeyed and broken.
I also think you’re ignoring the real Martin Luther King in favour of some Disneyized verion. I’d refer you to the letter King wrote to the Birmingham clergy when he was in prison. Essentially, the Birmingham clergy, composed of men of goodwill, liberals and moderates, men of peace and compassion had asked King for patience, they said that now was not the right time, that things would change.
King basically told them off and said that they were worse than the blatant racists. That their liberal moderation was nothing more than cowardice. It’s a little more complicated than that, and its phrased gently, but it’s also unstinting.
The argument you make, and the argument I am seeing is the clailm that if the Palestinians only embraced nonviolence, all would be well.
I dunno. Seems to me that the historical record shows long periods where the Palestinians embraced nonviolence and got butkus.
The Palestinians were displaced to refugee camps by 1948 at the latest. Did they immediately start blowing things up? Nope. It took fifteen to twenty years for Palestinian terrorism to start up. Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza in 1967… How long before the first Intifada? Another twenty years. That’s not a solid record of hellraising.
I find the notion that if the Palestinians only embraced nonviolence, everything would just sort itself out to be fundamentally naive. It certainly isn’t born out by the experiences with the American civil rights movement or South Africa.
Rather, I would say the real lesson of both of these is that non-violence should be an option on the table. It should be an avenue that the oppressed offers to the powerful to sit down at the table. It just can’t be the only option.
Let’s face it, if King’s followers politely obeyed all laws, sat at the back of the bus, stayed out of restaurants with ‘no n*gg*rs allowed’ signs, etc., we wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have today.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
The one problem with non-violence is it only works if the opposing side has some conscious and set of morals. I think the last few days have shown us that Israel, the IDF, and the Israeli Knesset have no conscious and no morals. I mean what other excuse can you have for them when they kill 40 children at a UN school where there were NO militants.
They (Israel Zionists and its supporters) are savages bent on violence, death, and destruction towards the Palestinians. You can see the whites of their eyes light up when the subject turns to dead Palestinian civilians, their passions flare up and it must be fueled with the blood of Palestinian children. I watched Aaron Cohen (former IDF) on Fox News last night and you could see his blood boil and his eyes flare an intense white when the talk turned to killing Palestinian civilians and children. You could tell this man wanted blood, he wanted death.
Non-violence will never work with his kind – we must have the USAF bomb the IDF back to the stone age. We must have the US Navy sink every boat in the Israeli navy’s fleet. We must have the USAF destroy the Knesset. We must have the US Army stand up for the Palestinian civilians. Once Isreali’s capabilities are destroy they will have no time to focus on killing more Palestinian civilians. Israel will be forced to give back some of the stolen land once the Israeli’s strategic force becomes equal to the Palestinians and then peace can be negotiated.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
You folks are of course forgetting the that non-violence and Islam (at least its dominant strains) don’t go together at all. Arab Muslims are a largely an insecure people, who are quick to violence against perceived slights because of that. In that, they are similar to inner-city African Americans.
Go away, you horrible troll.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Fred,
You folks are of course forgetting the that non-violence and Islam (at least its dominant strains) don’t go together at all. Arab Muslims are a largely an insecure people, who are quick to violence against perceived slights because of that. In that, they are similar to inner-city African Americans.
I’m curious, Fred. Do you speak Arabic? Do you read it? Have you studied the Koran? Are you familiar with Arabic poetry and literature? Are you a regular watcher of Al Jazeera? Which Arab countries have you lived in, and for how long? Which cities or towns?
I dunno Fred, you’re making some pretty broad damning statements. Might be good to demonstrate to the crowd that you actually have some experience to back it up. Otherwise, some might call ya a racist, and make it stick.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
I should add that (besides a Palestinian movement to non-violence) there is one other viable way to bring peace to the Israeli-Palestine conflict. That is that the Israelis (with the US de-facto assistance) would systemicically murder every Palestinian man, woman and child.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I normally like the blog format and think it can impart useful information, but this is really too complex an issue to be summarized so quickly. If we want to do a very quick analysis with a dependent variable of “obtain independence” no Palestinian strategy to date has been successful, including periods with a great deal less violence than we see now. The First Intifadah came about in large part due to the frustration of Palestinians in the occupied territories both with the PLO as leaders in exile and in response to the neglect of the issue by Israel.
The other reality is that from a domestic politics perspective, peace isn’t good for several of the elites present. In other words, I agree largely with Patrick. There is insufficient incentive for the elites on either side to move to peace. Elites that have tried to move to peace have not fared well because both sides are sufficiently factionalized that domestic opponents know they torpedo their domestic rivals by provoking violence. Hence we get Hamas trying to bring on Israeli response, just as we had Sharon visit the Dome of the Rock after Camp David II. Hamas reinforces the “weakness” of Fatah; Sharon undercuts Barak.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
January 7th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Skeptic –
The Palestinians were displaced to refugee camps by 1948 at the latest. Did they immediately start blowing things up? Nope. It took fifteen to twenty years for Palestinian terrorism to start up. Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza in 1967… How long before the first Intifada? Another twenty years. That’s not a solid record of hellraising.
Up until 1967 the current West Bank and Gaza were parts of Jordan and Egypt respectively and did not rely on terrorist tactics. In this time Israel and its neighbors did not have peace treaties and were under constant treat of war. The Palestinians did not carry out terrorist attacks because the State Army’s were relied upon to attack Israel.
I personally am a supporter of Israel but I strongly agree with MY on this issue. I have long believed that a strong non-violence movement in the Palestinian territories would bring about a quick end to the ongoing conflict. What many of the commentors here don’t realize is that the vast majority of Israelis do not want to continue occupying Gaza and the West Bank. The political leadership there is unwilling to upset the far right in order to remain in power. Palestinian leadership that was truly non-violent would give the Israeli political leadership no choice but to come to a peaceful resolution. Any moral ground they have for occupying the Palestinian people would disappear and a change would be forced by the majority of Israelis that favor it. The only thing stopping this from happening now is that the majority of Israelis are afraid of their safety.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
There have been more than enough non-violent demonstrations against Israeli occupation. Typically the IDF shoots tear gas to disperse the crowd and the crowd starts throwing stones.
Ultimately, the problem the white south african rulers had was their attempts to come off as a besieged minority struggling to maintain its identity in a predominately black continent came off as absurd to the rest of the world.
Likewise, most of the world sees israeli attempts at coming off as a the main victims as absurd. However, in the US, among a significant but influential section of jewish jewry and a large faction of christian fundamentalism, the idea of maintaining a jewish state despite the presence of a pre-established indigenous population comes off not only as right, but a divine/ethnic duty.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
The ANC was operating under very different circumstances than the Palestinians. As Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli analyast has written, “The apartheid regime was completely isolated, considered a pariah by the international community. But Israel receives massive, unshakable support from a unified Diaspora Jewry and American aid, and – as a result of guilt over the Holocaust and anti-Semitism – is not the object of effective sanctions.”
The ANC knew that they could exert pressure on Afrikaners through non-violent means (e.g. international boycotts & sanctions), whereas any kind of sanction/boycott against Israel is condemned. I think one major reason why Palestinians support armed resistance, including attacks against civilians, is a conviction that peaceful resistance won’t get them anywhere.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
You must keep in mind that the Palestinians are coming at this from the other direction. The starting point was not an oppressed population ruled by a minority. The starting point was armed conflict between 2 military powers. When open conflict failed, they were reduced to guerilla warfare. When that failed, they resorted to terrorism. Terrorism worked.
Without terrorism, Israel would have continued its policy of settlement. Little by little, the West Bank and Gaza would have become land that Israelis were born on and lived on all their lives. In a couple of generations, Palestinians asking for Gaza would be like Indians asking for Manhatten. Asking the Palestinians to give up on terror is asking them to give up the only thing that has worked for them.
For non-violence to work, people need to be able to make a nuisance of themselves. They need to make their plight known to potential sympathetic observers with the power to affect their situation. That might be an option for Arab citizens of Israel fighting for some cause within the Israeli power structure, but it was never an option for those in the occupied territories. What lunch counters would they sit at? What buses would they boycott? For them, non-violence was a guarantee that they would eventually be completely expropriated.
The only way that non-violence could have worked, is if the Israelis granted citizenship to all residents of the occupied territories, and the Palestinians accepted the offer. Then, the Palestinians would have become the lower class which performed menial jobs for an Israeli elite. From that position, they could non-violently wield leverage. Not exactly the first option most people would choose.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
“As for Rich’s comment, are there specific examples of nonviolent resistance movements that have failed, where you think a violent resistance movement would have done better?”
I am sure there are examples that could be come up with, though I am disinclined to look, but it seems to me that a resistance movement that didn’t use violence and just got it’s people locked or “disappeared” wouldn’t make big headlines. Violence makes headlines, successful or not. And success makes headlines, whether violent or not, but non-violent failure would usually be a tiny footnote, right?
So, I’d bet there is a historical bias here in the wider knowledge of the number such failed movement.
But Tibet still comes to mind as a failure, and I get the picture that their diaspora helped spread knowledge of that. They are non-violent, right?
January 7th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
“What would non-violent Palestinian resistance actually look like?”
Unfortunately, I think it would look a lot like what happened during the ceasefire. A slow-motion starvation caused by economic blockade, with the rest of the world not even noticing. The Palestinians already engage in peaceful protests along with violent resistance. The peaceful protests don’t make it on TV, the violent acts do. I think the problem here is that the world is very tired of this conflict and would like to forget about it. If nobody is getting killed violently, the world can forget. And when the world forgets, Palestine starves. Think about it, how often did Gaza make the news during the ceasefire? How often did we write about the plight of the Palestinians? Nonviolence works only when the cameras are rolling, and they don’t roll in Palestine without violence.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Skeptic,
Muslims aren’t a race, idiot.
Scottynx,
The Tibetan independence struggle was violent at times, I think in the 1950s. They were squashed pretty brutally, of course, as all enemies of Mao (violent or not) tended to be.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
King basically told them off and said that they were worse than the blatant racists. That their liberal moderation was nothing more than cowardice. It’s a little more complicated than that, and its phrased gently, but it’s also unstinting.
…
Let’s face it, if King’s followers politely obeyed all laws, sat at the back of the bus, stayed out of restaurants with ‘no n*gg*rs allowed’ signs, etc., we wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have today.
I think you’re missing the crucially important middle ground between doing NOTHING, and doing something with VIOLENCE. That being the whole subject at hand: in-your-face — but non-violent — civil disobedience.
That also may explain the apparent lack of results from the early period of the Israeli occupation, or from quiet periods since then. I’m not particularly familiar with all the details of the history here, but it’s easy to imagine that the period before the violent resistance started was not actually a period of non-violent resistance, just a period of relative inactivity. There’s a very big difference.
It’s also insufficient to simply offer your opponents “the option” of non-violence. (I don’t really even know what that means. Like a cease-fire?) It’s crucial that a strong segment of the movement — the main segment of the movement, at least in perception — be seen as very fundamentally committed to a turn-the-other-cheek philosophy. It undermines the strategy to make implicit threats about resorting to violence if you don’t get your way, or being too closely associated with any violent fringe groups.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Non-violence may take time to work (especially for it to be seen as credible) but it would work for reasons outlined by Jon. I also do not think that I am being naive in believing that Israel would face similar international isolation to that of the Afrakaners in the face of non-violent protest. As stated before, the Palestinian belief that they could possibly threat Israel’s existence by violent means is so disconnected with the reality of their situation that it is laughable and depressing at the same time. It turns out that non-violent protest really is the rational option for a peaceful solution, one that I believe would be favorable to them. The only other option being the genocide of the Palestinians.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Discipline and pragmatic Non-violence can be useful, depending on the morals, strategic placement, and outlook, of one’s enemy.
But, as has been stated above – sure didn’t do much good for the Dalai Lama, or the early 90’s China protests.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Skeptic,
As for the American civil rights movement, you’re carefully ignoring Malcolm X, Black Muslims, and inner city race riots. The issue of resistance and types of resistance, including violent resistance was a live debate in the civil rights movement. There were certainly groups which preached forms of violent resistence, there were groups and incidents which practiced it, and the threat remained strong in the minds of many. As for King himself, he was more than prepared to break the law, and he believed that unjust laws must be disobeyed and broken.
I would agree with you that Matt is simplifying the civil rights struggle to edit out the violent, not so lovey-dovey parts, e.g. the Student Nonviolent Committee which felt it had to drop the nonviolent part.
On the other hand, which part of the civil rights movement did more to advance the cause of African-Americans? (I’m aware that the civil rights struggle cannot be neatly split into violent and nonviolent parts, but humour me.) Which did more to claim the moral high ground? Which convinced more whites that the status quo was plain old wrong? Which did more to alleviate fears that taking the foot of the collective neck of the Negro was not an invitation for insurrection?
With regards to your point about Martin Luther King and the Birmingham letter, I am surprised. Proponents of nonviolence and the moral heroism of Dr. King frequently point to the Birmingham letter. Although Dr. King advocates that African-Americans not obey just laws, he never counsels violence, which I think is crucial to Matt’s point. Deciding that you’re not going to move to the back of the bus is nowhere near blowing up pizza stores or firing rockets.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
There have been more than enough non-violent demonstrations against Israeli occupation. Typically the IDF shoots tear gas to disperse the crowd and the crowd starts throwing stones.
This, obviously, is not a non-violent demonstration.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Matt was a child when all this was happening, so he’s pretty ignorant about the history. So he’s giving you the Bono Version of South African history.
Mandela was never opposed to violence in principle. That, in fact, is what kept him in prison (actually, in a three bedroom house on a prison grounds) throughout the 1980s. The apartheid government repeatedly offered to release him if he would forswear violence. He would not, so he stayed in detention.
There wasn’t much violence against whites in South Africa during the apartheid era because the whites were heavily armed and willing to use guns. I recall several prominently played stories from the 1980s in the U.S. press about how blacks were about to rise up and overthrow whites based on incidents in which black mobs surrounded whites. The stories always ended disappointingly for the newspapers, however, when the white man would pull out a pistol, fire in the air and mob would run away.
There was horrific black-on-black violence )”necklacing” in South Africa leading up to 1994 as the ANC and the Zulu party maneuvered for power.
Since the black takeover, crime has soared, with rape being particularly virulent. Black women have been the principle victims, but hundreds of white farmers have been murdered and their lands stolen. Much of the white population has fled overseas to escape the violence, such as Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee, now in refuge in Australia.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
“The only way that non-violence could have worked, is if the Israelis granted citizenship to all residents of the occupied territories, and the Palestinians accepted the offer. Then, the Palestinians would have become the lower class which performed menial jobs for an Israeli elite. From that position, they could non-violently wield leverage. Not exactly the first option most people would choose.”
Not the first option, indeed. But it’s becoming a real one. Many Palestinians are now pushing for a one-state solution under Israeli rule and with full citizenship for the Palestinians. But the Israelis know that if they accepted that solution, Israel would soon become a majority Arab country. Israel would never do this. So they play this game of saying Palestine isn’t part of Israel but is simply controlled by Israel. That allows them to gobble up the prime real estate in Palestine for ’security’ reasons and push the Palestinians onto more and more marginal land.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
If Matt wants an example of the effectiveness of nonviolence, he should look at the Tibetans. A top-down commitment to nonviolence has done wonders for the Dalai Lama’s speaker’s fees, but done very little for achieving autonomy for Tibetans. The Palestinian political class has achieved far more autonomy through using violence to publicize their cause than have the Tibetans through using nonviolence.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
The other issue no one has mentioned yet is the extent to which the Palestinian identity is defined by opposition to Israel and Zionism. This is its distinguishing feature, and, if the conflict with Israel were to end, so would the Palestinian identity. What else sustains it? Palestinians don’t have a language or religion that is unique to them and different from other Arabs. The struggle gives militants’ lives meanings. It’s much easier to shoot a rocket at Israel while letting UNRWA cover your room and board than it is to figure out how to make sure the recycling gets picked up on Tuesday, and deal with all the other boring stuff that having an independent country entails.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Just to clarify my above statements:
I agree that the best course for Palestinians at this point is to renounce violence, accept the modified 1967 borders and get on with their lives. I just don’t see how any Palestinian leadership that could conceivably come to power would hold that view. Even if they did, I can’t see how they could be expected to enforce such discipline on their people.
In a sense, Israel is the one who needs to engage in nonviolence. Black protesters did not react violently to the police even after unjustified beatings. They protected themselves. If Israel simply protects itself without lashing out in retributive violence, they may eventually gain a Palestinian negotiating partner amenable to peace and capable of enforcing it among its own people. This wouldn’t entail complete cesssation of violence. If they see a guy lugging a rocket to the border, shoot him, like they’ve been doing for the last few years.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Jim W,
My point is that this desire for meaning helps drive Palestinian attacks on Israel, precisely because such attacks will perpetuate the conflict and not solve it. To assume that groups such as Hamas actually want peace is to miss the point.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Nonviolent resistance wouldn’t work for the Palestinians for the same reason it wouldn’t have worked for the Native Americans in the 19th century.
Just like the 19th century American settlers, the Israelis want the land without the people. Nonviolence won’t stop them from getting that. There’s an important difference, though: the U.S. settlers always vastly outnumbered the Indians, while things are leaning the other way in Israel.
Incidentally, nonviolence wouldn’t have worked in India if the UK hadn’t been broke and exhausted following WWII. Nor would it have worked in the American South if the Federal government hadn’t been willing to use force on recalcitrant Southerners when needed. Nonviolence has always relied upon the threat of violence in the background to work. Maybe not as morally uplifting as the tales told to schoolchildren, but practical.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
You must keep in mind that the Palestinians are coming at this from the other direction. The starting point was not an oppressed population ruled by a minority. The starting point was armed conflict between 2 military powers. When open conflict failed, they were reduced to guerilla warfare. When that failed, they resorted to terrorism. Terrorism worked.
I think this is a very good point.
Non-violent movements are not actually just created out of thin air by charismatic leaders. Historical mood is key. The S. African, Civil Rights era and Indian independence movements were all essentially very late rebellions against an already long established but unjust status quo. They started in a condition of abject defeat, perhaps with little hope of reaching the eventual goal in their lifetimes, or ever. One can see how it would not only be easier to preemptively caution against violence in those circumstances, but possibly even easier to recruit followers. The violent groups tend to remain on the fringe, or are at least easier to push there.
For the Palestinians, however, the wounds from the first battles are still very fresh, not yet even healed. And the defeats have not even been accepted yet. The dominant mood in the Palestinian resistance still seems to me something more like apopcleptic, impotent rage.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Actually I am pretty sure that if all the Zionists and the settlers packed up and left, the Palestinian refugees were given back their land, and the IDF stopped attacking Palestinians, then Hamas would be embrace peace. Actually I am positive that Hamas would want peace under that scenario.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
You must keep in mind that the Palestinians are coming at this from the other direction. The starting point was not an oppressed population ruled by a minority. The starting point was armed conflict between 2 military powers. When open conflict failed, they were reduced to guerilla warfare. When that failed, they resorted to terrorism. Terrorism worked. Without terrorism, Israel would have continued its policy of settlement. Little by little, the West Bank and Gaza would have become land that Israelis were born on and lived on all their lives. In a couple of generations, Palestinians asking for Gaza would be like Indians asking for Manhatten. Asking the Palestinians to give up on terror is asking them to give up the only thing that has worked for them.
The thing with nonviolent resistance is that it takes some discipline. It doesn’t happen overnight. You can’t hold a protest, have it broken up, and then decide terrorism is the only option. Nonviolent resistance requires you to make your opponents look bad. It also helps if your opponents are made to feel bad as well.
You raise some interesting points that I think scratch at one of the main misunderstandings here. Israel is now (at least, two weeks ago) prepared to give up the Occupied Territories, divide Jerusalem, etc. This was definitely not always the case. I think it is a mistake, though, to credit this change of heart to terrorism.
A lot has changed since 1967. While I doubt the Israelis planned from Day 1 to use Gaza and the West Bank to form a Palestinian state, I think they were planning on trading them for peace to either Egypt or Jordan. (Of course, many in Israel hoped to annex the territories and settle them with Jews. Israeli opinion and planning on this is widely considered to have been haphazard, ad hoc, divided and pretty stupid. Israeli policy towards settlements has always been somewhat ambivalent for these reasons.) It is important to note that Israel did not annex Gaza, the West Bank or the Sinai like it did the Golan Heights. I think this indicates they weren’t planning on keeping them.
On the other hand, they weren’t planning on creating an independent Palestine, either. At the time, the Palestinians were not themselves amenable to a two-state solution and Israel was still technically at war with all of its neighbours, and would fight the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Well, two peace treaties later, Jordan and Egypt relinquished any claim to the Territories and Fatah, the Palestinian Nationalist Party, under the leadership of Arafat decided to take to the two-state solution. Al this took time.
By the time of the First Intifada and the subsequent Oslo Accords, things had cleared up somewhat. It was now obvious that Fatah was gunning for a two-state solution and that Israel wasn’t going to keep the territories or return them to Jordan. This understanding is the basis of the peace process. While terrorism was certainly a part of the First Intifada, so was a great deal of nonviolent protest and the solidification of a type of Palestinian Nationalism that wasn’t (nominally, at least) entirely inimical to the notion of the continued existence of Israel. If you remember, Arafat’s decision to recognize the existence of Israel was very controversial among Palestinians. It’s very hard for the Israelis to negotiate without that premise of two states.
At the point we are now, the Israelis have already pulled out of Gaza. They did this for a variety of reasons, e.g. the demographic problem of keeping Gaza, the greater ease with which they imagined they could retaliate, to gain bargaining leverage. Ehud Olmert came to office fully committed to negotiating a withdrawal from the West Bank. (He’s also negotiated with Syria.) If you’ve been listening to his rhetoric as of three weeks ago, it’s pretty clear that he wants to implement a two state solution and make real peace in the Middle East.
My point is that terrorism didn’t cause these ‘advances’. The shifting geopolitical realities did. As things sorted themselves out, and various options were cut off, it allowed some things, that we now take for granted to emerge. Among these, are the Palestinians not returning to the control of their neighbours, not seeking to eliminate Israel and not seeking a bi-national solution.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
But we know what Palestinian nonviolent resistance would look like: the West Bank. Yes, we can argue all day about the settlements, etc., but I don’t think anyone would disagree that the Palestinians in the West Bank are now much better off than those in Gaza. (And yes, a large part of this is because they were in much better shape to start with during the Fatah/Hamas split. But we certainly don’t see the IDF bombing targets in Bethlehem.)
January 7th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I think the problem isn’t that non-violent protests wouldn’t get attention, or wouldn’t have an impact on Israel. If you got a few hundred people on the West Bank to physically block some of the settler only roads, that’d be shutting things down and getting attention.
The problem is that (IMO) the Palestinians don’t think that it would change the settlement policy, and the Israelis wouldn’t believe that the change in tactics wasn’t anything more than buying time to stock up on the fireworks.
Israel has to show movement on removing the West Bank settlements, and the Palestinians have to show that they are giving up on violence; and it has to happen at the exact same nanosecond because neither side trusts the other enough to take the first step. And a pony.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
@scottnyc
Using Tibet as an example is stupid. Non-violence doesn’t work against totalitarian regimes, but has quite a strong record against (nominal) democracies.
@Skeptic
Posts 34 and 37 do a good job of refuting your ramblings in post 19. Nonviolence is not the same thing as passivity.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
In response to other comments,
It is completely inane to compare the Israeli-Palestine conflict with Native American situation. Three centuries separate those conflicts and all the advances in technology, policy and, dare I say, morality, that has occurred in that time. Most obviously, there was no such thing as international pressure in relation to the Native American ‘genocide’.
If you look at internal Israeli politics, I think you would find Israel is ‘broke and exhausted’ by this conflict similar to the UK in India and ready to relinquish significant goals to achieve peace.
As Matt pointed out, the whole point of non-violence is to align the goals of the subjugated with the oppressor in the realm of what is morally right. Obviously, one has to believe in the common humanity of your enemy for this enterprise to be successful, but I do not see that the Palestinians have any choice (if they want peace).
January 7th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
What else sustains it? Palestinians don’t have a language or religion that is unique to them and different from other Arabs.
Americans don’t have a language or religion that is different than the English. Neither does Canada, or Australia or New Zealand.
Spain is not that different culturally from Bolivia or most South American Countries.
You have to get past this notion that there’s a one state per ethnicity rule. It’s not supported by anything and is counterproductive.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Mandela and the ANC never eschewed violence, as some posters have pointed out. Mandela bore his imprisonment with grace and fortitude, and was a big enough person not to let hate overwhelm him. This allowed him to take “yes” for an answer when Botha finally cracked. He was then able to use his supreme moral force to ensure that the violent fringes of the anti-apartheid movement did not sabotage the agreement that followed.
If one was to transport S. Sailer back to 1784, his attitude would be that of a Tory who has fled the American colonies for the safer and more settled life in England.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
A Palestinian version of the ANC would have been in favor of a secular state uniting Gaza, Israel proper, and the West Bank, with one man one vote.
And it would have used plenty of violence, principally against Palestinians favoring a two state solution, but also somewhat ineffectually against the Israelis, though only after considerable Israeli provocation.
In other words, except for the secular part, a Palestinian version of the ANC would look alot like Hamas.
There is also an argument that Israel today looks alot like what South Africa would have turned out to be if the United Party had never left power, or if the National Party had come to power but mostly continued Smuts´and Herzog´s policies.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
What would non-violent Palestinian resistance actually look like?
Isn’t this pretty obvious? It would consist of long lines of obviously unarmed Palestinians slowly walking through a checkpoint, or along an “Israeli only” road. Or sit-ins of some kind at illegal settlements. Or peaceful roadblocks against settler transports and military vehicles. Or…probably a thousand other things.
And the first few dozen times, they probably get tear gassed or shot. But they don’t throw stones, or rockets, and they keep it up. And cross their fingers that moderates in Israel, and around the world, start paying attention.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
“I also considered the case of Tibet, but does anyone really think they would have been better off violently opposing China?”
There are two issues here. The first is obvious: China will always crush any dissident movement whether violent or not. The Tibetans are mostly being non-violent now, and monks are still being tortured and Tibet is still being ethnically cleansed. From a strategic standpoint, non-violence isn’t working for the Tibetans.
The second issue is harder for Westerners to grasp. It has to do with the preservation of Tibetan culture. His Holiness knew that any violent uprising would take a very long time to succeed, if it even could succeed. In that process, Tibetans would cease to be the peaceful, non-violent culture that they are. In essence, the process of fighting a war would destroy their culture just as effectively as Chinese aggression.
Ultimately, His Holiness made the only decision that would at least preserve some of Tibetan culture. He went to India, where China can’t touch him. It worked, Tibet really does still exist in India (I’ve seen it on many refugee camps). And the Tibetans have learned a valuable lesson: a culture isn’t a geographic location, it is a people and their ideas.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I think the problem isn’t that non-violent protests wouldn’t get attention, or wouldn’t have an impact on Israel. If you got a few hundred people on the West Bank to physically block some of the settler only roads, that’d be shutting things down and getting attention.
When widespread nonviolent protests happen in a relative vacuum they do get noticed. When the most visible Palestinian resistance movements are the ones firing rockets, kidnapping and shooting people, people not riding the bus doesn’t get that much attention. At this point, however, the Palestinians have our attention. If they renounced terror, we wouldn’t forget them, and the Israelis could still be put on a withdrawal schedule.
Israel has to show movement on removing the West Bank settlements, and the Palestinians have to show that they are giving up on violence; and it has to happen at the exact same nanosecond because neither side trusts the other enough to take the first step. And a pony.
The problem is that Israel hopes to ultimately keep some of these settlements after negotiations. The Jerusalem question is intrinsically bound up in this as well. I suppose they could begin withdrawing from settlements they have no intention of keeping, but
a) it would be very hard to justify this at the moment to Israelis, much less settlers
b) the withdrawal from Gaza would be peanuts compared to this in sheer headaches. The Israelis don’t want to deal with that inevitable civil war until they know there’s a deal.
Still, not a bad idea, it could work. The Israelis did withdraw from some West Bank settlements in Northern Samaria at the time of the Gaza withdrawal.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Fraud: Palestinians don’t have a language or religion that is unique to them and different from other Arabs.
Not that you’ve bothered looking. Palestinian Arab culture is sufficiently distinctive for certain elements of it to have been appropriated by back-to-the-land Israelis. So do fuck off, you miserable little bigot.
Jon: I have long believed that a strong non-violence movement in the Palestinian territories would bring about a quick end to the ongoing conflict.
Well, that’s nice of you. I mentioned Beit Yaroun last night, where the anti-tax protest was designed with an eye on American resistance. Yitzhak Rabin chose to starve out the town, then steal property in lieu of taxes. The US vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning it.
Any strong non-violence movement in the territories would inevitably be spun by the well-honed Israeli PR efforts in the US, so that you’d either not know about it, or be told that the non-violent protesters were actually Iranian-backed Hamas operatives. If Palestinians blocked a settler road, Mark Regev would be explaining to Wolf Blitzer that the IDF had no choice but to run them down with tanks, and Blitzer would nod gravely.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Two things: Non-violent resistance works only if it gets support from outside. Eventually those who opposed apartheid in South Africa did, but a long time they didn’t and couldn’t achieve much. Same in US South. Only when the central government weighted against the segregation did it fall. Before that, non-violent resistance just got you killed.
Secondly, I’m reminded what I once read about the Sharpeville massacre. That non-violent resistance doesn’t work against those who are ready to shoot unarmed protesters. You can protest as long as you wish, from decade to decade, but ity doesn’t lead anywhere without support.
And Palestinians who use non-violent methods don’t get any support from Western countries. Hague ruled against the illegal wall that butchers the West Bank, but what have Western countries done? They have refused to do anything to support the decision and in fact criticized it, and have done zilch to oppose the wall. Thus showing that political methods don’t work.
Same goes with the peaceful way Abbas government has taken now. It hasn’t got any rewards for it that would support it among the Palestinians. Just more settlements. Again it shows that non-violent ways don’t work – which Israeli polls show, by the way. The higher the amount of violence againat Israel,
and the greater it’s casualties, the more open they are to the pre-1967 borders. The more peaceful things get, the more reluctant they are to support this, instead wanting more land from the West Bank.
In the end, the only way to achieve peace in Palestine is to force Israel to withdraw from the occupied areas, release prisoners and help to settle the refugees. Showing endless support for Israel and making demands for the Palestinians just creates a situation where Israel’s leadership and majority of the population see endless occupation and some violence preferable to peace which would mean the end of the plans for Greater Israel.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Any strong non-violence movement in the territories would inevitably be spun by the well-honed Israeli PR efforts in the US, so that you’d either not know about it, or be told that the non-violent protesters were actually Iranian-backed Hamas operatives. If Palestinians blocked a settler road, Mark Regev would be explaining to Wolf Blitzer that the IDF had no choice but to run them down with tanks, and Blitzer would nod gravely.
pseudonymous,
I think you’re conflating Israeli circa the First Intifada with Israel 2008. The Israelis have different goals, as do the Palestinians.
Secondly, I think there’s a difference between one town, Beit Sahour, deciding to do something nonviolent, and a whole country getting involved in nonviolent protest.
I understand you have a negative view of Mark Regev and the Israeli PR machine, but there are limits to what they can do. A sit-in, especially in sight of the press (which is lacking in Gaza, disturbingly) could not be spun as an attack.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
The Jew’s current occupation of Judea will end at some point as has happened each time they’ve had control in the past. At some point they will be expelled, it is inevitable. Jews in Judea causes too many problems, the Romans realized this, the WWII victors didn’t and we’ve been paying for it ever since. Maybe not in our lifetimes but it will happen, I’d give Israel less than 200 years.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Those who sit-in could be just shot. It has been done before.
And everything can be spun as attack.
Very few people in Western countries and none in their leadership is troubled when unarmed protesters get wounded in Bi’lin.
Also, Tibetans have resisted Chinese rule violently. Not that they shouldn’t still.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
“Actually I am pretty sure that if all the Zionists and the settlers packed up and left, the Palestinian refugees were given back their land, and the IDF stopped attacking Palestinians, then Hamas would be embrace peace. Actually I am positive that Hamas would want peace under that scenario.”
Peace in this world means no glory, and no paradise in the next.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Another difference folks are forgetting between South Africa and Israel. The blacks in South Africa had strong allies in leftwing South African Jews. The Palestinians used to have strong allies among leftwing Israeli Jews, but they have long since alienated them. Even leftist Israeli intellectuals were in favor of the invasion of Gaza this time.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
I understand you have a negative view of Mark Regev and the Israeli PR machine, but there are limits to what they can do.
Got any specific examples drawn from the recent past you’d like to share?
the press (which is lacking in Gaza, disturbingly)
And American news organisations portray that as if there’s nothing they can do about it, except give pieces to camera in flak jackets in the spots prepared for them.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
“The Jew’s current occupation of Judea will end at some point as has happened each time they’ve had control in the past.”
If we were to use history as our guide, the Palestinians will never have their own country in what his now Israel, because they never have.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
“Got any specific examples drawn from the recent past you’d like to share?”
He’s got those examples right where you’re keeping your list of respected historians and archaelogists who deny the presence of Jews in ancient Israel, you lying blowhard.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
There’s been a nonviolent resistence movement in Burma/Myanmar for decades now. They don’t seem to be getting anywhere.
And in terms of “how differently the world would treat the Palestinians if they were nonviolent,” does anyone remember Rachel Corrie? She was not treated as a nonviolent protester, but as a terrorist stooge, either misled or in favor of the violence.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Raimo, not that you aren’t trying…
but this thread is full of the stupid. It’d kill ya if you stay.
aside from you and a few other solitary people who know history, you are all stupid ignorant fools!
So help me god, hear this fucking few points.
1) Nonviolence is not about nicety-nice. As the solitary poster mentioned above, it’s about making systems expensive. Not about convincing people that you’re right and just to ask for your rights.
2) Nonviolence is a feature of geopolitics. England had a problem with American settlers being all genocidal and all, since that left native americans allying with the French. The US elites had a problem with Jim Crow because it was seriously weakening US hard and soft power. Nonviolence merely helped to accellerate a policy already set by other white people.
3) Israel arrests nonviolent leaders quite a bit more aggressively than they do violent palestinians, as the Barghoutis certainly knows.
4) Nonviolence only works if people are motivated to accomodate the protesting party. That’s what the tactics are *for*. England didn’t want to fight another Sepoy Rebellion. South Africans got tired of the isolation. What lever do the palestinians have of even ensuring that they aren’t killed?
5) Violence works.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Back to the inner-city African-American versus Palestinian comparison, here is another similarity: both have macho cultures where gayness is ostentatiously mocked and attacked but both have significant incidences of homosexuality, nonetheless, on the “down low”. Non-violent protest among Palestinians would be as difficult to imagine as non-violent protest among today’s African Americans (not the more docile black majority of MLK’s day).
Today’s African Americans, like today’s Palestinians, are thin-skinned, quick to resort to violence, slow to take any responsibility for their own circumstances, and are intolerant of overt homosexuality while many of them engage in it covertly.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Got any specific examples drawn from the recent past you’d like to share?
Examples of Israelis intentionally committing atrocities and then claiming that they were acting in self defence? First they have to intentionally commit atrocities.
I can provide you, though, with Israelis accidentally killing civilians who posed no threat and apologizing for it with egg on their faces. Somebody mentioned Rachel Corrie, for example. Nobody’s claiming that she was a terrorist. The typical spinning of the Israeli PR types like Mark Regev is not that the civilians that Israel kills are civilians, but that if you’re shooting at terrorists in a densely populated civilian area, this stuff happens.
There are instances of settlers committing crimes against Palestinians and being arrested for it.
There’s currently a dispute with regards to a UN school that Israel fired upon. The Israelis maintain that they were fired upon from the school. The UN is investigating. We’ll see.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
The typical spinning of the Israeli PR types like Mark Regev is not that the civilians that Israel kills are civilians, but that if you’re shooting at terrorists in a densely populated civilian area, this stuff happens.
Sorry, should read:
The typical spinning of the Israeli PR types like Mark Regev is not that the civilians that Israel kills are terrorists, but that if you’re shooting at terrorists in a densely populated civilian area, this stuff happens.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Why are you race-baiting, Fred? What possible purpose or cause do you think you’re advancing with gross stereotypes?
January 7th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
“Israel arrests nonviolent leaders quite a bit more aggressively than they do violent palestinians, as the Barghoutis certainly knows.”
Barghouti is in jail for murder. So much for non-violence.
“Violence works.”
Violence is a tactic. It works when applied well and in the right situations. The violence of Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israel hasn’t seemed to work.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
It’s not like MLK wasn’t the only one talking about civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. There were many other people, especially in big Northern cities, espousing a more radical agenda and a much different view of violence. Not to bring up a sore spot around here, but King national stature grew from him ultimately being the Third Way. Between revolution and repression, there was the granting of political rights to blacks. King wasn’t really talking about redistributive economic change. He had only started to address that when he was murdered.
I suppose if one was interested in a one-size-fits all analysis, I think the first intefada did move the ball forward for the Palestineans. It’s pretty much agreed upon that the Palestineans should have their own political entity, if only so they can’t birth Israel out of being a Jewish state. But this always broke down on economic questions like right of return. That failure ultimately weakened anyone that could have been a middle ground partner.
It’s fairly simplistic, I know.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
“Why are you race-baiting, Fred? What possible purpose or cause do you think you’re advancing with gross stereotypes?”
It’s not race-baiting. It’s a useful, familiar comparison that clarifies some of the inherent limitations of the Palestinians. One can extend the comparison further and note what has happened when African Americans have won political control of cities (e.g., Detroit, Newark, etc.).
January 7th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
As Che Guevara said, if there’s a democratic government responsive to the franchise in the country in question, violence is not the way to go.
All of these anonymous posters with hard-ons for violence don’t know what they’re talking about.
However if, say, you’re living under a dictatorship, like in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and you’re a persecuted Kurd or come from the majority Shia, there’s nothing much you can do. Even if you rise up violently as the Shia did after the first Gulf War, you get slaughtered.
It’s too bad Palestinians got the corrupt Arafat instead of a Palestinian Mandela and I agree with Patrick @6.
Also, with South Africa the white minority was a minority, like the Sunni of Iraq. With the Israelis and Palestinians, its more like 50-50.
This blog post definitely gets the award for most trollery reaction.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
“I suppose if one was interested in a one-size-fits all analysis, I think the first intefada did move the ball forward for the Palestineans.”
It depends how you look at it. If you mean moving the ball forward in terms of international attention, or in terms of eventually getting recognition and largess from the West for the former PLO (which at the start of the first intifada was exiled to Tunisia), then yes. If you mean in terms of improving the lot of the average Palestinian, then the opposite is the case.
Matt’s too young to remember what life was like for the average Palestinian before the first intifada. It was actually pretty good. They had good-paying jobs in Israel, there were few if any checkpoints, and few signs of “occupation”. In fact, the Palestinians on the West Bank lived better than Arabs most anywhere else in the Arab world. It was the violence of the first intifada which led to the checkpoints, security, the replacement of Palestinian workers by foreign workers, etc. The more severe violence of the second intifada led to even harsher security measures.
The only Palestinians who have profited from this have been the ‘business class revolutionaries’ of Fatah.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Why are you race-baiting, Fred? What possible purpose or cause do you think you’re advancing with gross stereotypes?
Race-baiting makes people feel better about themselves. They can scapegoat the “out” group about whatever problems they have.
If you’re a member of the political elite, you can scapegoat the “out” group and redirect the wider population’s anger about whatever problems the nation faces towards the “out” group.
January 7th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
“Peace in this world means no glory, and no paradise in the next.”
Fred, read the Quran before you claim what it says. Paradise is available to everyone who leads a righteous life and submits to Allah. No violence is needed. In fact, the Second Surah makes it very clear that committing crimes in the name of Allah will bring you eternal damnation.
January 7th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
For those people who paid even the slightest of attention to Fred, I was talking about Mustafah Barghouti, not Marwan.
Not that Marwan’s arrest and trial was all that legit anyways.
January 7th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
“Fred, read the Quran before you claim what it says. Paradise is available to everyone who leads a righteous life and submits to Allah.”
That explains why the 9/11 hijackers hit the titty bar the night before their big day. You can drink booze and ogle infidel women (i.e., live “unrighteously”) as long as you die killing infidels. Any wonder why that path to paradise is more attractive to adolescent Pals than the other one?
January 7th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
I’d have a lot of sympathy for Israel if they were actually doing stuff intended to stop the rockets i.e. house to house sweeps looking for weapons material, installing lots of CCTV & sensor equipment to try to see precisely where the rockets where coming from, etc. But they’re not doing that. They’re just killing Palestinians, and then coming up with elaborate rationalizations\cover stories for why the killing is justified, or why they have “no choice” but to kill.
January 7th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
The real power of nonviolence is not to deter an aggressor, but to unify your allies and potential supporters. It’s often said that Indian nonviolence could only work against the British, but this ought to be turned around–the only thing that would work against the British was nonviolence. Previous waves of violence in India only played in the hands of the Raj–it bolstered the Raj’s moral argument for staying, and allowed them to play one Indian faction against another. It was only because of the inspiring example of the nonviolence movement that Indians were willing to put off trying to kill each other until after the British left.
One might imagine that a seriously nonviolent Palestinian movement, even one that failed to change Israeli policies, might at least have decreased intra-Palestinian violence, which could only help their larger cause. And at some level, international public opinion–especially among Israel’s financial backers and trading partners–is Palestine’s only possible path to victory here. Even breeding their way to a majority isn’t sufficient–it’s not like America is unwilling to support majority-opposed governments elsewhere in that region.
On the other hand, both Israel and Hamas seem to be more motivated by their own internal politics than any sincere attempt to change each other’s behavior, so I’m not sure what point there is comparing Palestinians to other causes practicing nonviolence or restrained violence–even by the standards of violent aggression neither side is being rational here.
January 7th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
“But they’re not doing that.”
How do you know what Israel is currently doing in Gaza?
January 7th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Well the western media is oblivious to what the Israelies are doing in Gaza because Israel has blocked them from entering. hey don’t show what others are reporting on Israel because the US MSM is owned and controlled by Jews.
For a little balance in your life Fred try watching Al Jazeera. You can find it online at: http://english.aljazeera.net/
January 7th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
“How do you know what Israel is currently doing in Gaza?”
I should clarify: I’d have a lot of sympathy for Israel if they were actually doing stuff intended to stop the rockets with minimum bloodshed i.e. house to house sweeps looking for weapons material, installing lots of CCTV & sensor equipment to try to see precisely where the rockets where coming from, fair warning before bombing weapons infrastructure so people could be evacuated, etc.
January 7th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
I’ve read and heard this general argument that if the Palestinians were lead by a Gandhi or a Mandela or a King or some other non-violent figure then the Isrealis would ced independence, a state and so forth for at least a decade. Both Krauthammer and Richard Cohen have made it, for example. I did not find them particularly credible. If the problem were the messenger, shall we say Krauthammer, that would be one thing. But I no longer find the argument convincing. This is not because I do not find non-violent approaches preferable, at least in the abstract; I do and as a practical matter seek always to live that way. I make no defense of violent tactics.
I remember the 1967 War. I watched folks flee across the Jordan on the TV. I remember the Labor government shortly thereafter begining the process of building settlements–facts on the ground just like an earlier set of facts on the ground. I remember watching Begin declare Judea and Samaria part of Isreal. By that point occupation was a matter of policy and consensus, without regard for the presence of a population many of whom has lived in Haifa or Jaffa not so very long before.
In order to hold that non-violence would have lead to some particular outcome–rather than making a dubious argument on the basis of counter-factuals, see the novels of PK Dick or The Yiddish Policeman’s Union for examples of counterfactuals–wouldn’t one necessarily have to claim, if not actually demonstrate, that the policy and concensus of the post 1967 governments was substantially weaker than it appeared at the time? But that consensus and policy wasn’t weaker, and in some ways still isn’t; witness MY’s inclusion of certain of the settlements in the territory to be part of Isreal in the wake of the establishment of a Palestinian state even though the requiste portions of the Geneva Conventions explicitly state otherwise, for example, or the retreat from Gaza which did not include the absence of a cordon and the ceding of control of Gaza’s borders.
I repeat, I do not have a dog in this fight. But I think the problem with this argument of MY’s is not the messenger but rather the message.
Of course things would be different if they were different, but they aren’t (see the end of The Man in the High Castle).
What’s most disturbing for me about MY’s sort of argument is that its a way of claiming but I/we are good people…relax, I think MY is good people and I’ve no interest in seeing members of my family/friends/teachers/coleagues murdered or driven from their homes either. The really disturbing moral problem is when good people do bad things, occupation being a bad thing at least in this case; I’ve come to think the sort of argument MY makes in his post is also a bad thing.
January 7th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
I should clarify: I’d have a lot of sympathy for Israel if they were actually doing stuff intended to stop the rockets with minimum bloodshed i.e. house to house sweeps looking for weapons material, installing lots of CCTV & sensor equipment to try to see precisely where the rockets where coming from, fair warning before bombing weapons infrastructure so people could be evacuated, etc.
That seems to be what they’re doing, more or less. They are searching house to house. They are texting people in houses they are about to destroy. There are some reports that Hamas sends people to these houses after the inhabitants are warned, but I don’t know.
January 7th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
“That explains why the 9/11 hijackers hit the titty bar the night before their big day….Any wonder why that path to paradise is more attractive to adolescent Pals than the other one?”
Ahh, but that isn’t a path to paradise. Islam isn’t a religion where a single act like accepting Jesus erases all previous sins. A righteous man who dies in defense of Islam is guaranteed paradise. But a sinner who does it is simply looked upon more favorably by Allah. And anyone that commits crimes against innocents is clearly a sinner. Even more so if he commits those sins in the name of Allah. Every Muslim I’ve met would agree (and have) that the 911 attackers were committing a very grave (and unforgivable) sin. So grave that going to a titty bar wasn’t going to make it any worse. Obviously some radical clerics would disagree with this interpretation. Usually, they justify a different interpretation by saying that later writings are more important than the Quran, which is rather dubious.
January 7th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
two points:
1) Burma/Myanmar has a nonviolent resistance that is getting absolutely nowhere.
Burma/Myanmar is also a country run by and for its military.
2) Rachel Corrie was run over by an Israeli bulldozer when she tried to stop the demolition of houses in Gaza by Israel. Not only was she noviolent, she was white, blond, and American. Even the Chinese tanks stop before they hit a living person, so I think her death says something about what the Israelis feel like they can get away with.
The key feature to the success of nonviolence is the ideology of the oppressor. If they say they’re civilian, and running the government for the benefit of the governed, you can shame them into submission. If they aren’t running the government for the benefit of the governed, they don’t care. America wasn’t run for the benefit of the Indians, so they could be killed at will until the frontier closed. Then the climate changed, we became the self-proclaimed Leader of the Free World, and our government could be shamed into compliance.
Could nonviolent resistance have ended slavery in the South in the 1860’s? I seriously doubt it.
And whatever the Israelis may say, they are not running that country for the benefit of the Palestinians….
January 7th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
The Afrikaaner elite caved in in the early 1990s because the Berlin Wall came down, discrediting Marxism and wrecking the power of the Soviets, so they could be confident that the ANC now would not take South Africa’s economy down the Cuban path. South Africa is ludicrously rich in mineral wealth so there was plenty of money to bribe the ANC elite with shares and affirmative action jobs into not killing the capitalist goose that lays the golden eggs. Plus, they wanted to make a deal with the statesman-like Mandela while he was still alive, rather than take their chances with the next generation (e.g., Jacob “Bring Me My Machine Gun” Zuma). (Mandela responded magnificently, falsifying the results of the 1994 election to keep his own party from having the uncontrollable 2/3 majority that they actually won at the poll, sharing power with the whites and Zulus.)
Plus, the Afrikaaner elite were rich enough to afford gated communities and private security and immigration to Australia. So, they get to be, instead of outcasts, world citizens of the globalist new order.
Too bad about all those women who got raped, though.
January 7th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
apologies for the double posting, did not see my comment and thought it had not been submitted…
January 7th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
The first intifada was mostly about nonviolence by Palestinians against Israelis. It failed because the rest of the world did not take actions against the Israelis. The ANC, which Matt you’ve seemed to misunderstand, was the violent arm of the South Africa movement. The MDM was their nonviolent. I think both would’ve failed without international support. What the Palestinians need is international support. The first intifada the nonviolent one failed and the second one which was violent failed as well. They need backup.
January 7th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Also, why is everyone acting as if the Palestinians movement has only been violent? Most of it is nonviolent.
One more point: Don’t you think Hezb’allah’s success in ejecting Israel from Lebanon in 2000 would give them an instruction on how violence can be successfully used?
January 7th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
2) Rachel Corrie was run over by an Israeli bulldozer when she tried to stop the demolition of houses in Gaza by Israel. Not only was she noviolent, she was white, blond, and American. Even the Chinese tanks stop before they hit a living person, so I think her death says something about what the Israelis feel like they can get away with.
The Israelis claim it was an accident, and I’m inclined to believe them. Also, the Israelis never said she was a terrorist or in league with terrorists, rather that the driver of the bulldozer did not see her.
January 7th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
”
The Israelis claim it was an accident, and I’m inclined to believe them. Also, the Israelis never said she was a terrorist or in league with terrorists, rather that the driver of the bulldozer did not see her.”
What the fuck kind of excuse is that?
January 7th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Steve,
I miss you. You never talk to me since I accidentally cum in your beard.
When you talk about the black man, I get so excited. Now you’re gone, all I have is my banjo to strum.
January 7th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
I am sure that argument would hold up well, Im sure it would go something like this …
DA: Why did you murder your ex-wife Mr.Slice?
Jimbo: But it wasn’t murder, I swear! I just didn’t see her in the middle of the parking lot, I was too busy pretending to be a NASCAR driver.
DA: Oh, well I’m inclined to believe you, so your free to go then sir.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Fred,
It wasn’t the cum so much as you sticking your penis in the fondue afterwards.
Still, your tiny appendage proves that you must be very smart, re the inverse correlation between penis size and IQ.
I’m happy to admit that you are smarter than me.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Zaid,
What the fuck kind of excuse is that?
JimboSlice,
I am sure that argument would hold up well, Im sure it would go something like this …
DA: Why did you murder your ex-wife Mr.Slice?
Jimbo: But it wasn’t murder, I swear! I just didn’t see her in the middle of the parking lot, I was too busy pretending to be a NASCAR driver.
DA: Oh, well I’m inclined to believe you, so your free to go then sir.
Why don’t you guys familiarize yourself with the argument? Do you know about the incident, or are you just going on the brief discussion here, i.e. that a woman wanted to stop an Israeli bulldozer destroying a house and the bulldozer plowed her under?
Per Wikipedia, the dispute seems to be this:
The events surrounding Corrie’s death are disputed. ISM eyewitnesses assert that the Israeli soldier driving the bulldozer deliberately ran Corrie over twice while she was acting as a human shield to prevent the demolition of the home of local pharmacist Samir Nasrallah.[11][12] The ISM said she was interposed between the bulldozer and a wall near Nasrallah’s home, in which ISM activists had several times spent the night.[5] The Israeli Government and the IDF denied that version of events and described Corrie’s death as an accident. The official Israeli response stated that Corrie was killed by debris pushed over by the bulldozer, that the driver did not see her, and that the bulldozer was clearing brush and not engaged in a demolition when Corrie blocked its path. Other reports say the Israeli government charged that the house being demolished contained a tunnel used for smuggling weapons from Egypt.[13]
The major points of dispute are whether the bulldozer driver saw Corrie, and whether her injuries were caused by being crushed under the blade or by the mound of debris the bulldozer was pushing. An IDF spokesman has acknowledged that Israeli army regulations normally require that the drivers of the armored personnel carriers (APCs) that accompany bulldozers are responsible for directing the drivers towards their targets, because the Caterpillar D9 bulldozers have a restricted field of vision with several blind spots.[14] However, the Israeli army commander of the Gaza Strip said in an interview broadcast on Israeli television that on the day of Corrie’s death, soldiers had to stay in their armored vehicles and were not able to direct the bulldozer or arrest the protesters, because of the threat of Palestinian sniper fire. He also said that Israeli soldiers may have been handling other ISM activists instead of watching over the bulldozer.[citation needed] In a statement issued the day after Corrie’s death, the ISM said that, “When the bulldozer refused to stop or turn aside she climbed up onto the mound of dirt and rubble being gathered in front of it… to look directly at the driver who kept on advancing.”
The IDF produced a video about Corrie’s death that includes footage taken from inside the cockpit of a D9. It makes a “credible case,” Joshua Hammer wrote of this video in Mother Jones, that “the operators, peering out through narrow, double-glazed, bulletproof windows, their view obscured behind pistons and the giant scooper, might not have seen Corrie kneeling in front of them.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie#Corrie.27s_death_and_subsequent_controversy
January 7th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Richard Blanco:
That stuff about the text messages being sent to inhabitants just doesn’t pass the smell test. That’s bullshit that I first saw in a Krauthammer column.
Just think about it how would they do it?
+ Do they have the number of everybody on each house?
+ Are any antennas still operational?
+ After so many days without power, do their phone batteries still work?
If they are sending text messages at all, these are being scribbled on a 2000lb bomb, too bad they could read them fast enough.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Henry,
Good point. I’ll look into it. On the face of it, though, I would assume the IDF would be able to connect a significant amount of phone numbers to houses, I don’t think it’s secret. As well, there does appear to be electricity in at least some of Gaza. Also, a lot of people are on generators. Regarding antennae, I have no idea how cell phone technology works, but is it possible that the antennae in Israel or something would help?
The Jerusalem Post reports that the IDF has called certain Gazans and told them to leave their homes, but the effort does not seem to be systematic or thorough and it is unclear what method they use to decide which numbers to call, although they claim they target specific regions with calls.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153292011238&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
January 7th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
My larger point was that the IDF does seem to be trying to minimize civilian casualties where possible. Of course, the best way to do that would be to not bomb the place and then invade it, but there you go.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Tell that to the kids at the UN school … oh wait their dead.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Considering the housing demolitions themselves are illegal, where’s the outrage when someone actually gets killed for being a good samaritan?
January 7th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Considering the housing demolitions themselves are illegal, where’s the outrage when someone actually gets killed for being a good samaritan?
What do you mean? If you’re talking about Corrie, there was lots of outrage, both in Israel and abroad. Even if everyone regarded housing demolitions as legal, there would still be lots of outrage about Corrie’s death.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Who was held accountable? Where was the US Congress resolution of condemnation, or do we only write resolutions praising Israel’s carte blanche right to do whatever it wants?
January 7th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Even if everyone regarded housing demolitions as legal, there would still be lots of outrage about Corrie’s death if she were Israeli and killed by Palestinians.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Who was held accountable? Where was the US Congress resolution of condemnation, or do we only write resolutions praising Israel’s carte blanche right to do whatever it wants?
I’m confused as to what you’re asking.
Why would their be a Congressional condemnation if they thought it really was an accident? I can’t think of any other instance where Congress issues condemnations against the accidental killing of activists, especially where the actors involved have apologized.
If you’re asking why the United States Congress didn’t condemn the demolition of houses, I imagine it’s because they either don’t view it as illegal, or they think it’s open to interpretation on Israel’s part.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
“Burma/Myanmar has a nonviolent resistance that is getting absolutely nowhere.”
Is it really getting nowhere? They already chased the Myanmar junta into the middle of nowhere and far away from the real power center of Yangon. It’s hard to see how the junta can effectively rule from the new capital. Sure, they’ll last for a generation or two, but not much longer. Buddhists tend to look at things on a longer time scale, and we need to consider that. But what choice to the Burmese have? If they use violence, they destroy their culture. If they don’t use violence, they are subjugated, but can preserve their culture. But for most Burmese, the cycle of Samsara (cycle of birth and death) is the greater trap. They can escape the junta by not being reborn. If they use violence to crush the junta, they cannot escape Samsara. If you view your existence as a hundred thousand lives, then the Burmese reaction isn’t so crazy. Over time, I think there’s one form of protest that might eventually work there. It’s the “turning over the alms bowl” strategy. In Theraveda Buddhism, the way to correct negative Karma is to give alms to the monks. But the monks have been refusing to accept alms from soldiers. Over time, that will make recruitment of soldiers difficult. I’m sure it’s already hurting morale among the soldiers. I’ll note that the Christian Karen population has taken a very different approach. They fight back, and their villages are wiped off the map a few years after they are built. And then the Karen move further into the jungle. When the Karen are caught, they are enslaved, tortured, raped, or killed (or all four). How’s that working out for them? I’d stick to turning over the alms bowl.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Even if everyone regarded housing demolitions as legal, there would still be lots of outrage about Corrie’s death if she were Israeli and killed by Palestinians.
Even if everyone regarded housing demolitions as legal, there would still be lots of outrage about Corrie’s death if she were an American and killed by Israelis. Which is what happened.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Richard Blanco: my request was for examples of the Israeli PR machine hitting a brick wall in its dealings with the US political media. If there are limits, there will be occasions in the past where leading anchors, editorial boards and politicians have refused to take the spin. That really doesn’t happen, and the flacks — chosen and trained with expertise that I frankly respect — invariably get the benefit of the doubt.
Bigot Fred: He’s got those examples right where you’re keeping your list of respected historians and archaelogists who deny the presence of Jews in ancient Israel, you lying blowhard.
Ah, you deceitful cunt, go back to that earlier thread and read it.
You were claiming that there was archaeological and historical proof that “[t]he Jews had a state there long before Islam even existed” and the “land belong to the Jews” (exact quotes). You got called on it.
OF course, some the most respected archaeologists in Israel won’t back you up, because they don’t mind separating Jewish cultural tradition from archaeological evidence. So you backpedalled and lied about it, because you’re a charlatan as well as a bigot.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:17 am
“I’m happy to admit that you are smarter than me.” (103)
Is that even the real Steve Sailor? Or the real Fred? I hope they were being facetious. Assuming that was real, Steve’s actually a smart guy, but a racist. Fred’s just an idiot. But if Steve thinks Fred is smart, maybe I need to reassess my thinking about Steve.
As for the alleged reverse correlation between IQ and penis size, well, speak for yourself.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:17 am
Pseudomonas,
You are arguing that the ancient Jewish kingdoms didn’t exist, you fruitcake?
January 8th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Richard Blanco: my request was for examples of the Israeli PR machine hitting a brick wall in its dealings with the US political media. If there are limits, there will be occasions in the past where leading anchors, editorial boards and politicians have refused to take the spin. That really doesn’t happen, and the flacks — chosen and trained with expertise that I frankly respect — invariably get the benefit of the doubt.
The assumption implicit in this challenge is that at some point the Israeli PR guys have spun an actual factual atrocity as legitimate self-defense. My position is that this really doesn’t happen – how do I then prove that it does? Lack of evidence for your argument paradoxically proves it.
Look, I would agree that the Israeli PR guys are giving a one-sided viewpoint and leave out a lot of nuance and if they were being honest could be much more equivocal. But I don’t think they’re that much worse than other PR guys. They’re definitely better than Hamas PR guys (faint praise indeed).
People are getting on MSM TV and criticizing Israel’s actions in this conflict. I don’t really watch TV, but I’ve seen videos on the Internet with Zbigniew Brzezinski and the like.
As I said earlier, you may get the proof you want, if an investigation proves that the Israelis fired on a UN school for no reason. I would be very surprised, though, if it turns out they did.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:42 am
Matt,
You do a disservice to Palestinian nonviolent resistance by implying it doesn’t exist. It does, and it goes unreported in the western world, which is a shame considering the degree of difficulty involved. Non-violent resistance is particularly difficult in the occupied territories because there are no economic or visual means by which Palestinians can affect Israelis – nothing that they can do inside the occupied territories will be seen, heard or felt by anyone except perhaps a settler. The wall and the checkpoints and the economic suffocation has as a side effect cut off all routes of empathy between Israel and Palestine, making it impossible for traditional non-violent activities to ever meaningfully take place.
That being said, there are major efforts to non-violently resist the occupation, and though they are largely ignored and often violently put down (protests against the wall were met with serious violence, and let us not forget Rachel Corrie either), they persist. After reading Professor Zasloff’s post last night, I compiled a quick list:
http://veganfishtacos.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/non-violence-in-palestine/
If you can think of some forms of non-violent resistance that would be practical under the conditions that people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip could engage in (and that are currently not taking place), please let me know.
Best,
Rahim
January 8th, 2009 at 12:47 am
Matt,
Two things,
First, as I stated in a prior comment to the post:
Second, if you are so enthralled with non-violence why have you given absolutely no space on any of your blogs to the non-violent movement in the Occupied Territories.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:56 am
Let me go ahead and ask what nonviolent movement without support from the outside ever beat back an occupier? India doesn’t count WW2 forced Britain out more than anything.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:58 am
“Why would their be a Congressional condemnation if they thought it really was an accident? ”
They’d probably say it was an accident because they’d rather throw feces at their mothers than say anything critical about Israel, but whether it is or isn’t, how does it change the fact that the housing demolitions are illegal and that being killed trying to stop an illegal act, well….
January 8th, 2009 at 1:09 am
fostert, I want to partner with you for a bridge investment project in the New York area. I’ll put up the money and you just provide your vaunted ability to know when people are telling the truth and impersonating eachother or not. Of course this is the real Donald Trump. As you know, no one would ever impersonate me or anyone else on the vaunted thinkprogress blogs.
January 8th, 2009 at 1:22 am
This debate should have been over long ago. I thought wrapped it up years ago, when I answered this question, “Why Don’t I Care About the Palestinians?”
January 8th, 2009 at 1:24 am
January 8th, 2009 at 1:30 am
The Derbyshire piece quoted by the obvious not real Derby is hilarious. I’ve been to Hong Kong, my dad goes often for business to HK and China. I’m pretty sure when Hong Kong was owned by the British they granted the people rights, whereas Israelis do not grant occupied Palestinians Israeli citizenship or anything like that.
January 8th, 2009 at 1:54 am
Matt,
Your observations over the Gaza situation the last couple of weeks have been a real disappointment.
20 Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure….but more than 700 Palestinians dead in just over a week, including many children, is on a quite different scale.
The difference with South Africa and the Civil Rights Movement in the US, is that the world supported the oppressed. Now you have even progressives in the US looking for a reason to justify Israel’s naked aggression in Gaza. It is sickening.
It recommend that you read this piece in yesterday’s Guardian by Avi Shlaim.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
To post comments about non-violence and then somehow trying to blame the Palestinians for Israels total over the top aggression. It is sickening!
January 8th, 2009 at 2:24 am
“fostert, I want to partner with you for a bridge investment project in the New York area. I’ll put up the money and you just provide your vaunted ability to know when people are telling the truth and impersonating eachother or not.
I don’t think I’ve ever claimed to know when people are telling the truth. I have no such ability, and I certainly wouldn’t claim it. The reality is that my ability to understand reality has gotten me captured, interrogated, drugged, and beaten. But not killed yet. But then again, those kind of incidents give you a pretty good insight into reality. Here’s a weird thought: when you’re getting the shit kicked out of you, do you try to figure out who’s really doing it? I sure do. I’m not talking about the bullshit thugs who are doing it, I’m talking about who called the order. I live by the fact that things get much more dangerous for people if I die. In other words, I don’t get threatened by people pointing guns at my head. I’ll just walk away, they won’t pull the trigger. They never have. But I always guarantee that their shit won’t get out.
January 8th, 2009 at 2:43 am
Rahim hit the nail on the head here:
The Palestinian situation is very different from India’s or South Africa’s. More power to their non-violent resistance, but the most effective non-violent resistance will come from Israelis. Power to the refuse-niks–they are absent from the news, as well.
If every single Palestinian peacefully protested, would Israel not want their land? This is not a matter of civil rights, it’s territorial.
January 8th, 2009 at 2:43 am
That was sloppy—civil rights, in fact, freedom from oppression is a major issue here; nevertheless the conflict is over land.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:17 am
(as best I can understand, they were mainly achievements of transmission)
Oh, Derbs (if it’s really you), you transplanted Col. Blimp: the Beeb just started a three-parter on the scientific alembic of the Islamic world during the centuries of European intellectual torpor.
Let’s go further: where in the Arab world is there a recent legacy of not being fucked with as part of the Great Game?
The reason you don’t care about the Palestinians is that you’re a colonial throwback of the worst kind. You were so much better as Brigadier Fuzzybasher (ret.) in the Telegraph letters page.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:33 am
Mr Derbyshire,
What are you talking about? IF I remember correctly the Palestinians held elections that Jimmy Carter called the “most free elections he has ever witnessed”, which says volumes given that he was a former President of the United States.
Bear in mind that these elections were held under a colonial military occupation and the results were far more decisive than any US or UK election since Reagan, perhaps even longer.
The outcome was not to the liking of “Western democracies”, so they went about trying to install the losing side of the elections into power. You my friend are an idiot, and a racist.
And by the way I just got back from Hong Kong, I have never been to such a commercial hell, its basically a place for rich people to do their shopping, among other things. Furthermore, the legacy of colonialism is rampant. The city is physically tiered, where the foreigners (Mr Derbyshire and his ilk) live on top of the well do to locals, and the people who do everything in the city live in the far outskirts. Did you ever bother to see where the cab drivers lived Mr. Derbyshire, you know the ones that you pay $3 to drive you around town? Cause they sure as hell cant afford the $4000/month 1 bedroom flats that you stayed in during your formative years. How often did you visit the brothels in Wan Chai, you know where the sailors of these western democracies go for “rest and relaxation”. Is that the Hong Kong that you admire, or are you too classy, were you the type of Eurotrash who would take the short boat ride to Macau for your frills?
January 8th, 2009 at 3:47 am
The assumption implicit in this challenge is that at some point the Israeli PR guys have spun an actual factual atrocity as legitimate self-defense.
No, the implicit assumption is that Israel is peremptorily given the benefit of the doubt in the mainstream US media and political environment in a way that doesn’t extend to other allies, particular those allies in the habit of carrying out airstrikes.
(I’ll note that the IRA retained a slender constituency of support in the American political-media continuum even when it was blowing up mainland Britons and arbitrarily murdering Protestants in NI.)
There is a cosy relationship between the Israeli government’s US media relations department and the people covering and presenting the story to Americans. I’ll state explicitly that this is not a tinfoil “Jews rule the media” thing. But if you see the people delegated to speak for Israel elsewhere, there’s clearly less of a concerted effort. Israel’s target audience is the US: for instance, from his earliest days in Israeli politics, Bibi Netanayhu knew the American media landscape, understood its tropes and spoke its language.
Now, my cynical conclusion from this is that one idea for Palestinians is to try and find people who are able to show up on American TV networks who speak with an accent that doesn’t sound ‘Arab’. Of course, it’s a bit difficult to send kids from Gaza to American colleges.
My position is that this really doesn’t happen – how do I then prove that it does?
Your original position was that “there are limits to what they can do” in terms of mitigating criticism of Israel’s actions. You can argue that it’s a hypothetical question, or that the first intifada is water under the bridge, but if you’re claiming that there are limits, but that there’s never been a moment where those limits have been reached, then it’s an empty claim.
January 8th, 2009 at 4:31 am
“And by the way I just got back from Hong Kong’ (133)
Wow, you nailed Hong Kong better than I’ve ever heard, and better than I could have written. Kudos for that.
January 8th, 2009 at 4:46 am
You are arguing that the ancient Jewish kingdoms didn’t exist, you fruitcake?
Which ones, you backpedalling charlatan? In what form and extent? For what length of time? In what historical context? You’re the one who claimed that “Israel is unique in that it was founded on land that belonged to the Jews”, as opposed to other nation-states founded on conquered land, so you presumably have the evidence to prove it.
If you weren’t such an ugly, twisted fucker, it might dawn upon you that this is irrelevant. The archaeologists who question the historicity of the stories around Moses and David and Solomon don’t question the historicity of the traditions established around those stories. What they do question is your facile Sunday school narrative.
January 8th, 2009 at 5:54 am
British India is not an example that has been mentioned, but the Congress Party led by Gandhi set its face firmly against violence. Given that the local imperial power was a liberal democracy, they quickly gained the world’s sympathy and the sympathy of much of Britain’s public opinion.
True, India-Pakistan did dissolve into communal chaos (over 1 million dead) on Independence, but Gandhi cannot much be blamed for that. It may be in the end the British left TOO hastily, but the Indians and Pakistanis would hardly agree.
Violence has a horrible ratchet effect. A violent organization will rarely abandon it, however unsuccessful – the solution is always more violence.
It did happen in Northern Ireland, where the IRA did give up. But we had to wait a generation. Basically, people who had sworn vengance on their fathers’ graves in the early 1970s realized they would soon be burying their children and grandchildren, or their children would be burying them with the same mouldy old slogans.
It did help that the Republic of Ireland became a stable democracy inside a prosperous EU with no desire to push revanchist claims on Northern Ireland. The prosperity south of the border was a contradiction to the claim that Ireland “needed” unity. However, there is no Arab state to play that stabilising examplar role, not even the Gulf states.
Even then, the peace process was an elaborately choreographied, “one-step-forward, two-steps-back” process with lots of fudged promises, flatulent “peace” rhetoric and downright lies over a 10-year period.
I kept hoping the Palestinians would come to a similar conclusion and realise that if they engaged the Israelis without threats on non-violent moral grounds, they would win the world backing they lack today. Perhaps, the next generation ….
January 8th, 2009 at 6:17 am
Toby,
If you are so hip on Palestinians engaging in non-violence why dont you join them. In fact there is a movement of internationals whose very purpose is just that, its called the ISM. But let me warn you, not one of these faux progressives will give a flying fuck when you get murdered by the Israeli army and certainly not when any non-violent Palestinian organizer gets murdered. To quote Malcolm X, they just want to see the Palestinians “suffer peacefully”. As far as I’m concerned if you are advocating non-violence and are not willing to put anything on the line to assist these people in the face of massive violence, then you are part of the problem. I may be an atheist but I totally identify with Malcolm X on this one:
January 8th, 2009 at 6:53 am
This allowed him to take “yes” for an answer when Botha finally cracked.
Botha never cracked. Mandela was released by De Clerk.
January 8th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Americans don’t have a language or religion that is different than the English. Neither does Canada
Um, yeah. Canada says bonjour…
January 8th, 2009 at 6:58 am
I think pseud in nc has it right, that at this point, a campaign of non-violence would be ineffectual given the media biases at work. For all the talk about Rachel Corrie, the important point to remember is that only DFHs like me are outraged by her death. The masterful PR campaign mounted in the aftermath of her death has it so that those who don’t think she had it coming think, at worst, that it was a tragic mistake. If you can’t get Americans outraged over the death of an American woman, I see little hope for any brown person who stands in the way of a moving vehicle…
January 8th, 2009 at 7:10 am
It is worthwhile reading Eqbal Ahmad* on the issue of non-violence at the outset of the Palestinian struggle (he was a proponent). I wonder how differently things may have turned out if he had won Arafat over on this point. As others have noted, a campaign of active non-violence at this point is likely doomed to fail for want of attention (which is not to endorse the opposite – a campaign of violence).
*If you ever get a chance to listen to some of his old lectures it is to be commended. I remember being astonished by the clarity of a talk he gave once about terrorism, only to be astonished at its prescience when the radio guy said it was a recording from 1997 (ie. well before 9/11 and terrorism was on the radar).
January 8th, 2009 at 7:13 am
“What many of the commentors here don’t realize is that the vast majority of Israelis do not want to continue occupying Gaza and the West Bank.”
No – the majority just want the Palestinians to be locked in a bantustan without having to hear about it.
“The political leadership there is unwilling to upset the far right in order to remain in power.”
This is correct, and has always been correct since Israel was founded and before. And it will remain correct until Zionists are forbidden to stand for office in Israel.
“Palestinian leadership that was truly non-violent would give the Israeli political leadership no choice but to come to a peaceful resolution.”
Bullshit. The Israeli leaders would simply start faking Palestinian attacks. The Mossad tried to set up a fake “Al Qaeda” cell in the occupied territories a while back but their thugs got caught by the Palestinan police.
The Mossad would simply start blowing up their own countrymen and blaming it on the Palestinians if the Palestinians truly renounced all violence.
And it’s highly unlikely that all Palestinians would, anyway. Just one rock thrown at an Israeli soldier is all the Zionist leaders in Israel need to start crowing about “existential threats”.
“Any moral ground they have for occupying the Palestinian people would disappear and a change would be forced by the majority of Israelis that favor it. The only thing stopping this from happening now is that the majority of Israelis are afraid of their safety.”
Again, bullshit. The majority of Israelis do not control their own government, just as the majority of Americans do not control the US government. As long as Zionist freaks are allowed to stand for office in Israel, they will dominate by definition, because power politics is precisely that.
You’re incredibly naive about the people who run Israel.
January 8th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Re: The key feature to the success of nonviolence is the ideology of the oppressor. If they say they’re civilian, and running the government for the benefit of the governed, you can shame them into submission.
It’s not true to say that nonviolence works _as a rule_ against liberal democracies. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. It didn’t work against the French in Algeria, and it didn’t work against the Americans in Vietnam. As has been pointed out, the freedom struggle in South Africa was not precisely nonviolent: it took place in the context of two wars that South Africa was fighting at the time, against SWAPO and against the Cuban army. It only worked in India because World War II had broken the back of the British Empire, and they knew that they would be in no position to put down another uprising the way they had 90 years earlier. To the extent that social justice has made any advances in Latin America over the last half-century, it almost always involved either civil war or the threat of civil war. Even the government of Costa Rica, the darling of liberal progressives in the West, came to power in a civil war and quite thoroughly suppressed the losing side.
Conversely, nonviolent protest sometimes does work against authoritarian governments. It helped to end the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, and to bring down the Polish and Czech governments among others.
As for the references to Buddhist culture in Tibet and Burma, it’s a stretch to say that Buddhist culture is inherently nonviolent. It _can_ be nonviolent, as can Christianity and Islam. But the government of Burma, remember, is an explicitly Buddhist one; and as for traditional Buddhist Tibet, it was a society where landlords could beat their serfs to death without fear of punishment (although, of course, the death penalty was banned on Buddhist grounds).
January 8th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Why do you think the Palestinian movement is ‘violence-obsessed’? The Israelis have nuclear-armed state; perhaps they might be asked to take some responsibility for the current mess. Yet we hear almost nothing but what a terrible bind the Israelis are in having to deal with such evil-doers with some attendant hand-wringing about why they might be making things worse.
I entirely agree with the deeper point about the long-term effectiveness of non-violence. Can we start asking all parties to subscribe to this idea, especially the ones we are intimately associated with and the ones we are arming and providing all the cover for their violent activities. As long as we–the friends with the perspectives–keep ignoring the elephant in the room they–caught up in the mess–can hardly hardly be expected to act any more wisely.
(The reason I keep reading this blog is that I do find on it this kind of analysis.)
January 8th, 2009 at 9:33 am
we must have the USAF bomb the IDF back to the stone age. We must have the US Navy sink every boat in the Israeli navy’s fleet. We must have the USAF destroy the Knesset. We must have the US Army stand up for the Palestinian civilians. Once Isreali’s capabilities are destroy they will have no time to focus on killing more Palestinian civilians. Israel will be forced to give back some of the stolen land once the Israeli’s strategic force becomes equal to the Palestinians and then peace can be negotiated.
You’re going to be waiting a long time if you think that an American attack on Israel is the way to resolve the conflict.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Jannie @128) Thank you for the link to Avi Shlaim.
January 8th, 2009 at 11:21 am
I forgot this little gem…..
Re: Spain is not that different culturally from Bolivia or most South American Countries.
The estimated 85% or so Bolivians of pure or mixed indigenous ancestry would disagree with you quite violently. South American countries derive their cultural identity from a variety of sources, of which the Iberian element is only one element. In several countries Spanish is only one of several official languages, and Christianity has been syncretized with elements of indigenous and African spirituality, while they differ quite strongly from Spain in terms of shared historical experience. It’s a pernicious error to think that, say, Peru is a part of “Hispanic” culture to the same extent that the U.S. is part of Anglo-Saxon culture.
January 8th, 2009 at 11:41 am
There’s a lot here, both good and bad. But rather than reply to everyone, I’ll just point out the lunacies in Derbyshire’s comparison of Gaza with Hong Kong.
Why is Hong Kong comparatively wealthy and industrious? History. Hong Kong was ceded by lease to the British, and became their principal trading post in the 19th and 20th centuries. Since through the 19th century, Britain was the principal trading nation with its commercial fleets, that meant that a substantial portion of all of China’s trade with England *and the entire rest of the world* passed through Hong Kong.
This mean, of course, that the British were highly motivated to invest heavily in Hong Kong, its infrastructure and its people. They were motivated to establish effective administrative and commercial systems there. The British, for their own purposes, established banking, financing and corporate and commercial outposts that essentially transplanted the top tiers of European methods and sophistication into Hong Kong.
It also meant that the citizens of Hong Kong would have the benefit of all this investment, including training, infrastructure, finance and administration, and they had the benefit of massive trade flowing through from which they took their cuts.
When the Kuomintang fell, pretty much the entire chinese wealthy class and entrepreneurial class fled. Many of them fled to Hong Kong. Hence, the Chinese Communist takeover was actually the underlying cause of a boom… in much the same way that Greek scholars and artists and works and wealth, displaced from Byzantium by the Turks ended up in Italy to trigger the Renaissance.
As one of the bastions against Communism, Hong Kong was also the subject of massive infusions of cash and investment from the United States and Britain.
In contrast, Gaza has more in common with the warsaw ghetto, or some of the more destitute American Indian reservations.
People who say ‘well, the Gazans could be like Singapore or Hong Kong’ are simply idiots who ignore the economic and political histories, and very very different circumstances and opportunities.
If you want Gaza to be just like Hong Kong, pump a few hundred billion dollars a year into it for a few decades, and then give it all sorts of preferential rights.
No? Then shut the frog up.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
No, the implicit assumption is that Israel is peremptorily given the benefit of the doubt in the mainstream US media and political environment in a way that doesn’t extend to other allies, particular those allies in the habit of carrying out airstrikes.
Are you sure it doesn’t extend to other allies? I can’t really think of similar examples, but how about the British and the IRA? Did they get the benefit of the doubt? If France was having domestic terrorism problems, would they get the benefit of the doubt? I think so. They’re allies, partly for strategic reasons, and partly because like us, they’re liberal democracies, who we assume tend to think like us, and not kill civilians willy-nilly. I think these are fair assumptions. Of course, you have allies like Pakistan or Saudi Arabia that are not liberal democracies who we probably don’t give the benefit of the doubt to. You can argue that Israel isn’t really a liberal democracy but most Americans think it is and have a high opinion of it. People you like and agree with get the benefit of the doubt, just like we give America the benefit of the doubt and America gives Canada the benefit of the doubt.
Your original position was that “there are limits to what they can do” in terms of mitigating criticism of Israel’s actions. You can argue that it’s a hypothetical question, or that the first intifada is water under the bridge, but if you’re claiming that there are limits, but that there’s never been a moment where those limits have been reached, then it’s an empty claim.
But, again, the lack of evidence for your argument proves it. I’m arguing there are limits to what an Israeli PR man could reasonably expect to do. Making up a fake attack where Israeli soldiers just decided to light up the place in front of reporters would be one where he wouldn’t try, because a) I don’t think they’re especially immoral monsters and b) more to your point, he would know that it wouldn’t take, because there are limits to what you can spin in a democracy with a free press – which both Israel and America have. The fact that no Israeli PR man has ever been so colossally stupid as to try does not prove there are no limits, just that the Israeli PR department is run by smart people. In addition to which, as I’ve said before, the Israelis tend not to commit totally out of wack, unprovoked atrocities.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
For all the talk about Rachel Corrie, the important point to remember is that only DFHs like me are outraged by her death. The masterful PR campaign mounted in the aftermath of her death has it so that those who don’t think she had it coming think, at worst, that it was a tragic mistake. If you can’t get Americans outraged over the death of an American woman, I see little hope for any brown person who stands in the way of a moving vehicle…
OK, first of all, there was lots of outrage about the death, both in Israel and abroad. Just because most people in Israel and abroad decided that the IDF did not decide to deliberately kill a peaceful protester (the killing of innocents being against all their interests) does not necessarily indicate the presence of a masterful PR campaign that pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes.
Secondly, whether you want to say the Israelis hold bigoted or racist opinions of Palestinians is one thing. But there is no reason to think it’s colour based. They’re the same colour as Palestinians – and many of them are darker. Trying to put this in the context of colonialism often does mean that there is a white man keeping a brown man down, but not always. And not here.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
It’s a pernicious error to think that, say, Peru is a part of “Hispanic” culture to the same extent that the U.S. is part of Anglo-Saxon culture.
Agreed, but I was only speaking very generally.
Of course, you would agree that it’s a pernicious error to think that America is part of some monolithic Anglo-Saxon culture. America is much different in many ways, not the least of which, is the sheer ration of non-WASPs to WASPs has always been high.
My point to Fred was that just because a people speaks a language that is the same or mostly similar to those around it does not mean they do not have a right to self-determination and their own nation. You want to argue that Colombia has a vastly different culture than Venezuela? Or Bolivia from Peru? While of course, there are salient differences, I would argue these differences are not much more if at all more salient than the differences between Palestine and Jordan. Colombia and Venezuela used to be part of the same country, Jordan and Palestine used to be part of the same territory. Spain and Bolivia might have been bad examples on my part, but I think the larger point holds true. Do you think that using Fred’s logic Bolivia and Peru or Venezuela and Colombia are not entitled to nationalism?
January 8th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Even then, the peace process was an elaborately choreographied, “one-step-forward, two-steps-back” process with lots of fudged promises, flatulent “peace” rhetoric and downright lies over a 10-year period.
And that proved to be a feature, not a bug, as the late Vincent Hanna always pointed out to those well-meaning mainlanders with their grand schemes on how to change NI in a blink. The most important elements of the NI peace process were the ceasefire, wodges of EU development funding, and time for people to grow comfortable with a new status quo.
Richard Blanco: like I said in my earlier answer, the IRA had more friends in Washington during the 1980s and early 90s than the Palestinians do now, let alone Hamas, which would be the proper comparison.
In the meantime, as House and Senate compete to pass the most pro-Israel resolution, it remains the case that the Israeli government and IDF receives more leeway in the American political-media continuum than in Israel itself.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Re: Of course, you would agree that it’s a pernicious error to think that America is part of some monolithic Anglo-Saxon culture.
Yes, that’s true. America is a multicultural society, and it would be false to say otherwise. However, the United States does have more in common with England than the Latin American countries have with Iberia. In Latin America, Native American and/or African influences on the culture were more prominent than they were in the United States, and even inasmuch as those countries were heavily influenced by Iberia, their histories have diverged quite a bit since then. Spain and Portugal today are pretty well integrated into the modern, post-Enlightenment, liberal culture of Western Europe, whereas much of Latin America really isn’t (thank God, say I).
Bolivia is certainly more different than Peru than Jordan is from the West Bank. The natural environments, the cultural makeup, and the socioeconomic climate are not identical (although of course there is also a great deal of overlap).
I would be more sympathetic to the cause of Palestinian nationalism if A) there were more evidence that prior to 1948, people in the area saw themselves as “Palestinians” as opposed to “Arabs”, “Greater Syrians*”, “Muslims” or other identifiers, and B) if some of the biggest proponents of Palestinian nationalism had not been propounding, at the same time, the idea that all Arabs are One People, who needed to be ruled by One Leader, and that the differences between Arab countries were simply arbitrary colonial impositions that served to keep the Arabs weak and disunited. I mean, really- if you try, at various times, to claim yourself to be the rightful combined president of Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen on the grounds that these are all really One People artificially divided by the West, then it makes no sense to suddenly claim that Palestinians have a cultural identity that is irrevocably different from the Egyptian-Syrian-Libyan-Iraqi-Yemenite identity.
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