The
fragile case for Palestinian
non-violence By Victor Kotsev
Following the upgrade of Palestine as a
non-member state at the United Nations last month,
and in light of ongoing reconciliation talks
between rival Palestinian factions, many people
pin hopes on the possibility of a widespread
campaign of strategic non-violent activism in the
West Bank - and perhaps even the Gaza Strip. The
methods advocated by the likes of Mahatma Gandhi
and Martin Luther King could undoubtedly
accomplish miracles, not only for the Palestinians
but also for the Israelis. Unfortunately, the
chances of success appear very slim in practice.
The administration of Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas is already using several
tactics from the toolbox of strategic
non-violence, such as a widespread diplomatic
campaign against Israel and various lawsuits in
international courts (termed by the
Israelis "lawfare"). In
response to Israeli retaliatory moves for the
unilateral UN application - including recent
announcements that thousands of new housing units
will be built beyond the pre-1967 Green Line -
officials threaten an even more aggressive
campaign next year.
"2013 will see a new
Palestinian political track," an aide to the
Palestinian president told Associated Press
recently. "There will be new rules in our
relationship with Israel and the world."
Partially inspired by the early stages of
the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia last year,
Abbas and his people talk exclusively about a
non-violent campaign to end the Israeli occupation
and solve the entrenched Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. In theory, this strategy could work
beyond belief: its success would convince not only
the international community to pressure the
right-wing Israeli leadership, but also the
majority of the Israelis themselves to end the
occupation.
According to many committed
peace activists on the ground - a formulation this
journalist has heard repeatedly on both sides of
the separation barrier - the real conflict there
is not between Israelis and Palestinians, but
between those who can live together on both sides
and those who can't. Several years ago, the
prominent Canadian-Israeli peace activist Bernard
Avishai estimated that about two-thirds of
Israelis fell into the former category. [1]
So far, the hardline minority, aided by
the specter of Palestinian and Arab violence (a
remarkably solid ghost for those living in
Israel), has hijacked the political agenda of the
majority - a pattern that recurs time and again in
conflicts around the world.
If only the
Palestinians could demonstrate an iron-clad
commitment to non-violence - unwavering in the
face of repeated provocations, including violent
ones - this would transform the entire political
scene. It is not the kind of behavior normally
expected of human beings: this is why Gandhi and
King, whom the activists aspire to follow, are
considered such rare and unusual leaders. This is,
in large part, why their movements were so
successful.
Some of the territorial
compromises sought by the Palestinians -
especially when it comes to Jerusalem - would be
very painful for the Israelis. In order to sign up
for them, they would need to leave the comfort
zone they have created for themselves (literally
surrounded by a wall) and to confront
non-cooperative elements in their own midst. A
true campaign of Gandhian non-violence could
accomplish that. It could melt even the fears that
militants would use the vantage points which the
major settlement blocks provide and would bombard
from there the densely populated Israeli heartland
within easy reach.
This is the beautiful
vision of hope. Side by side with it, a nightmare
vision also exists - the failure of non-violence
could result in a bloody third intifada
(Palestinian uprising), or even a Bosnia-style
genocidal war. The latter scenario still appears
distant, but the former doesn't. For months and
years pro-Palestinian activists have warned of
violence simmering just beneath the surface; a
recent article by the left-wing Israeli journalist
Gideon Levy documents this, [2] while several
Palestinian intellectuals have shared similar
concerns in private conversations.
Abbas
and others have recently floated a proposal for
peace negotiations. [3] Should these fail to start
or run into a dead end (a likely outcome according
to most analysts), gradual escalations on both
sides could easily lead to a full-blown
confrontation. If they choose to meet this
challenge head-on, the Palestinians would have two
options: asymmetric warfare (as in during the
second intifada in the 2000s) or a popular
non-violent campaign. Given Israel's overwhelming
military superiority, a conventional war is out of
question.
The main difficulty for
non-violence - which Gandhi, Martin Luther King
and a few others have tackled - is maintaining
strict non-violent discipline, even in the face of
violent repression. This, they stipulated,
destroys the moral standing of the enemy and
ultimately leads to victory. On the other hand, if
even a small portion of the protesters resorts to
violence, this is liable to bring the entire
campaign down (an exhaustive discussion of
strategic non-violence can be found in Gene
Sharp's book Waging Non-Violent Struggle).
Despite numerous individual instances of
non-violent action, the overall Palestinian track
record in this respect seems rather poor. The
thousands of missiles fired into Israel and the
many terror attacks of the last years testify to
this; according to a September poll, moreover,
44.4% of the Palestinian public supports terror
attacks inside the Green Line. [4]
Crucially, there is hardly much
Palestinian unity in practice, something that is
indispensable to a successful non-violent
campaign. On the contrary, there is a considerable
level of violence among the Palestinians
themselves, and this bodes very poorly for their
ability to confront non-violently an external
enemy. A few examples:
Currently a small Palestinian civil war is
raging in Syria. [5] On both sides of the conflict
are the same groups which are reportedly trying to
come together in the West Bank and to launch some
form of resistance.
During last month's war in Gaza, Hamas killed
more Palestinians than Israelis, including 7
accused collaborators all of whom had been in
prison since before the operation. In a
particularly gruesome display, militants chained
the body of one of them to a motorcycle and
dragged it around the streets of Gaza. [6] It
would appear that this was a "message" to other
potential collaborators.
During an attempted non-violent march earlier
this year, one of the Palestinian leaders, Mustafa
Barghouti, was injured in an internecine fight.
[7]
Attempts to obtain comments on these
examples from Palestinian activists and observers
largely failed. A sole response came from a
prominent American intellectual and academic, who
declined to be identified. He wrote:
I agree that the chances of success
in using such campaigns, which they have been
conducting for a long time, are slight. But not
for the reasons stated. Rather, because they are
regularly crushed by Israeli force, usually with
Western acquiescence (and from the US, support).
Israel is well aware of the threat of
non-violence, which is why, for example, they
frequently expel its most prominent advocates
without credible charge (as they later sometimes
concede).
It should be noted,
nevertheless, that most successful practitioners
of non-violence welcomed the use of violence by
the enemies they confronted as a sign of weakness
and as a self-compromising strategy. Sometimes
they even provoked it - by strictly non-violent
means.
In a more general situation, it
would be unreasonable to expect of the
Palestinians - or of anybody - to respond to
provocation and to violence in the way Gandhi and
Martin Luther King did. During the more than six
decades of conflict on the ground, both sides have
used violent methods, and some of the settlers -
the so-called "hilltop youth" - have themselves
resorted to tactics that amount to terror.
However, should the Palestinians hope to succeed
in the path of non-violence, they would need to
take up this expectation themselves. If they then
fail to live up to it, the risk of large-scale
bloodletting would be enormous, as would be the
damage to their cause.
Overall, major
transformations in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict can be expected in the next year.
Unfortunately, it seems that the dangers far
outweigh the hopes.
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