An Opening for
Nonviolence
You can get more
information about the book, including the
Table of Contents and the bios of the co-authors, at this
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entire book can be ordered from AFSC using this order form.
The 14 members of the
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whole text
of the book. However Tony Bing, a former Director of Peace
and
Global Studies Program at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana and
co-clerk of
IQWP, was the principal author of Chapter 10, and is therefore listed
as such
at the head of the text that follows.
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In addition to Tony Bing
the other members of the IQWP were: Kathy
Bergen (
An Opening for
Nonviolence
By Tony Bing et al.
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attribution to “Tony Bing and the International Quaker Working
Party on
“Nonviolence takes a sustained
discipline and planning. At this time in
our history, we hear a lot of Palestinians, especially those who were
engaged
in armed struggle, serious fighters, saying nonviolence is the way;
teach us,
we need to know more about it.”
—Jonathan
Kuttab, Palestinian lawyer and nonviolence organizer, 2002
“There is nothing
surprising in a Muslim or a Pathan like me subscribing to the creed of
nonviolence. It is not a new creed. It was followed 1400 years ago by the Prophet
all the time he was in
— Badshah Khan (the “Gandhi of
the Pathans”)
While we were in Palestine/Israel we met numerous individuals with long and rich experience in nonviolent organizing and nonviolent activism. It is important for us to restate this fact since during the lengthy period of violence that has engulfed Israelis and Palestinians since September 2000 the nonviolent approach to seeking justice and peace has often seemed to be a distinctly “minority view” in both communities.[1] It did indeed seem undeniably true during our visit—as it has been since then—that in each community there still is a sizeable number of people who actively express support for the use of armed force in order to attain highly valued social goals, and that the Palestinian and Israeli advocates of a nonviolent path have often felt isolated and discouraged.
Nevertheless, we have three solid reasons for stating our continuing faith that a strong and hopeful nonviolent movement may yet re-emerge in Israel/Palestine. These are:
The
issue of violence and nonviolence in
For both Israelis and Palestinians the dominant national discourse has often been one in which, precisely because of the need both peoples have felt to escape from a troubling legacy of past weakness, ideas and representations of weapons have a notable popular potency. Guns, armies, and fighting men have been given a particular role in the venture of nation-building, or nation-reconstitution-- by both national leaderships. From this point of view, adoption of the tools of violence can be seen as often having a strongly expressive function, expressing the much-appreciated fact of escape from a time of past weakness, or the possibility of escape from continuing weakness. Some months after our trip, one of our group members wrote:
We must address respectfully the perspective of a humiliated and almost helpless people who turn to or support violence as a means of regaining their self-respect and self-determination; as an attempt to protect their families and friends; as a protest and a refusal to go on passively accepting the endless bludgeoning without letting their oppressors know that they cannot continue without suffering consequences.
Some
of the acts of violence committed in
We
heard this instrumental view of violence expressed most forcefully by
Sondra
Baras, the community activist in [the
We did not meet IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon. But the interview he gave to Ha’aretz in August 2002 (that we described briefly in chapter 4) revealed a lot about what this authoritative leader of Israel’s military saw as the reasoning behind Israel’s use of force against the Palestinians. Significantly, in that whole lengthy interview, which was conducted in Hebrew with an Israeli journalist, Ya’alon did not once mention the idea that the intention of Israel’s military actions against the Palestinians was the interdiction, pre-emption, or direct prevention of Palestinian acts of violence against Israelis, though these are the reasons Israeli leaders routinely give to foreign audiences for the IDF’s proactive operations in the occupied territories. Nor did Ya’alon describe the Israeli army’s use of violence as aiming directly at modifying any other aspects of the Palestinians’ behavior. Instead—like masters in the world of judo to whom he referred in the interview, and also (paradoxically) like many of the smartest practitioners of nonviolence—he stressed that the main aim of the forceful acts undertaken by the IDF was to change the mindset of the opponent.
As we noted in chapter 4, Ya’alon
described the contest with the Palestinians as an “existential” one for
The
key point here is the staying power of the Israeli
society. That is the most important factor that is being put to the
test at
this time and will continue to be put to the test in the near future.
That is
what the campaign is about. When the Palestinians initiated the [second
intifada], their evaluation was that
Because
of this latter fear, he said,
Fourteen
months later, Ya’alon had apparently changed his mind on some of these
issues. After a briefing he held with
Israeli journalists at the end of October 2003, Ya’alon was quoted as
having
told them that
Such
an admission, coming from the IDF’s topmost commander, was intriguing
and
possibly very significant. Back in
August 2002, however, Ya’alon was still making clear that, in
After
the Six-Day War, we succeeded in burning into
the regional consciousness the fact that it is impossible to destroy
On
the Palestinian side, we did not meet with anyone of the command
stature of
Ya’alon. However, as recounted in
chapter 6, those of us who went to
Berqawi
accused
We asked how this change might be brought about.
“Well,
there is no end in view right now,” he said.
“But it remains true that no one can prevail by military
force—on either
side… The Palestinians cannot declare a war on
He
said he favored an outcome “built on the political basis of
coexistence—one in
which we share the land in equality. Not
by separation or occupation. Neither
side should oppress the other. This
outcome offers the best future for
“Every
person loves life!” he said. “But the
martyrdom fighters have come to their decision to make these actions
after they
have faced such deep brutality from
He
remained convinced that once the conflict had been resolved,
“Palestinians and
Israelis can be friends, can live together.”
He noted that many Palestinian activists had good relations with
peace
activists in
We
suggested that, on the contrary, the bombers’ actions weakened the
peace forces
in
“But
they keep the focus on the root causes of the conflict!” he countered. “Only by addressing those causes can we bring
an end to the bombings. It’s just like
in
Later, he indicated that he, like Moshe Ya’alon, judged the conflict to be at its core, a battle of wills.
We need to make the Israelis know that the Palestinians will persist in our struggle. That there is no military ‘answer’ to their problems. That no purely military ‘victory’ is possible. The Israelis must come to see this reality and therefore to give up their reliance on force. After all, the Palestinians are not asking for much. Just for life, and a Palestinian state.
He
also seemed to confirm the judgment expressed by Ya’alon had expressed,
that
the successive withdrawals that
Where the views that Berqawi shared
with us differed significantly from what Ya’alon said in the interview
was that
while Berqawi expressed his support for a future of coexistence and
equality
with the Israelis, Ya’alon did not say anything clear in the interview
about
the longterm relationship he sought with the Palestinians.[4] In Berqawi’s view (which we do not share) the
use of violent means to change the mindset of Israelis would not
seriously
complicate the subsequent establishment of cordial relations.
Roots
of Palestinian Nonviolence
There
is much in the heritage of Palestinians that has always emphasized the
seeking
of alternatives to violence. The
well-known Islamic and Arab practice of sulha
is a traditional form of community mediation of disputes, providing a
centuries-old alternative to feuding and the pursuit of campaigns of
revenge. Then in the twentieth century,
the Palestinians adopted many practices of nonviolent community
organization in
their resistance to the colonial regime that
Resistance
to British rule came to a head with the “Arab Revolt” of
1936-39 which spread throughout nearly all of Mandate Palestine. Numerous Palestinian organizers showed great
creativity and courage during that revolt, which started out with what
has been
called “the longest nonviolent commercial strike in history.” Increasingly, though, as the revolt
continued, tactics of nonviolence gave way to armed struggle; in the
end, the
British were able to break the revolt, killing or jailing many of its
leaders
and outlawing a broad range of Palestinian community organizations. That defeat left the Palestinian community
significantly weakened when, in the 1940s, it found itself faced with a
new and
more tenacious threat from the new waves of Zionist immigrants fleeing
the
wreckage of Hitler’s
In
the years after the Palestinians of the West Bank
and
Sumoud
involved, on occasion, making non-trivial concessions to the power of
the
occupying force—as, for example, when administrators of the growing
universities had to work with the occupation authorities to get the
endless
“permits” required by the authorities if the administrators were to
implement
their growth plans. Sumoud
seemed, on the surface, to be quietist from the perspective
of overt politics. But deeper down, it
was “political” at the level where it really counts—in terms of
building the
robustness of community institutions, along with the self-confidence of
community members.
For many years after 1967, the
Palestinians of Gaza and the
What followed were primarily the
classic techniques of nonviolent activism: boycotts, tax refusal,
silent
vigils, non-cooperation, civil disobedience, parades, strikes, fasts,
and other
forms of protest. Underground organizers
linked in a shadowy body called the Unified National Leadership of the
Uprising
(UNLU) issued periodic leaflets giving instructions for
territories-wide
actions. For example, on the 9th day of
each month, there was a total strike, to mark the events that had
started the intifada. The
fully mobilized population followed
UNLU’s instructions enthusiastically.
There were some compromises with nonviolence, including fairly
extensive
throwing of stones against (mainly) Israeli troops, and some assaults
with
Molotov cocktails. But for the most part the first intifada
was an attempt to carry out a campaign of nonviolence in
the Gandhian tradition, drawing from a vision articulated by community
leaders
like Jad Isaac and Ghassan Andoni (whom we met with in, respectively,
Bethlehem
and Beit Sahour), and by Mubarak Awad, a native of Jerusalem.[6]
A vivid example of the ingenuity of
Palestinian nonviolent resistance in this period was their manner of
displaying
their national colors. One of the thousands of outrageous
regulations
that the Israeli military authorities had imposed on the Palestinians
outlawed
any public display of the Palestinian national flag.
During the intifada, however, residents of
remote Palestinian villages would defiantly
tie the black, red, white, and green flag to the top of their minarets;
residents of refugee camps would toss makeshift flags attached to small
counterweights over the many utility lines that criss-crossed their
alleys;
townsfolk would come out at night and proudly paint it on their walls. Nearly every time, Israeli troops or
squads
of border police squads would go in to try either to remove the
offending
emblem themselves or, as part of their continuing battle of wills with
the
populace, force the Palestinians living nearest to those subversive
patches of
color to erase them themselves.
Palestinian artists—who had always been drawn to the use of this
particular color combination!—stepped up their use of it in their
paintings.
Women of all ages stepped up the wearing of the national colors in
their dress.
In late 1989, the
One of the notable centers for
Palestinian nonviolent organizing has for many years been the West Bank
town of
For six years, 1987-93, the Israeli
authorities— who deployed one of the world’s most technologically
sophisticated
and best-funded armies—were unable to break the back of the intifada. The Palestinians built on the dense network
of community-based organizations that they had created since the late
1960s to
sustain an organizing structure throughout the territories that openly
defied
Shunning the Israeli-controlled
courts, the Palestinians made widespread use of the
traditional Arab conflict-resolution
mechanism, sulha, to address a range
of internal civil and political disputes.
Use of this inclusive, reconciliation-based approach to
resolving
internal conflicts further strengthened the community.
There were Medical Relief Committees that
organized
community-based health services in remote areas. There
were Women’s Committees that helped
Palestinian women work together to survive the terrible rigors imposed
on their
families and to break down traditional gender discrimination that
existed in
Palestinian society. There were
Agricultural Relief Committees that organized actions such as Jad
Isaac’s seed-distribution
network and supported agricultural and “Victory garden” ventures
throughout all
the Palestinian areas. Groups like the
In addition, many of the
organizations named above participated in joint actions alongside
Israeli and
international counterpart groups. These
joint actions were a particular feature of the first intifada.[8] In both the Israeli and Palestinian
communities, participation in them posed a deep challenge to previously
prevalent norms that refused to grant recognition to members of the
“other”
nation as co-equal members of the human family.
By the time the first intifada broke out in
1987, the Israeli
peace movement already had its own impressive history.
In the development of the State of Israel,
there have always been a number of Jewish Israelis who worked for
understanding
and trust between Arabs and Jews. Though
their numbers have often not been large, these women and men have
carried a lot
of moral weight with their Jewish neighbors.
Most Israeli nonviolent activists have not been absolute
pacifists. (People like Nathan Chofshi,
Amos Gvirtz,
Joseph Abileah, and a handful of others were notable exceptions to this
rule.) In the deeply challenging days of
the 1930s, people like Martin Buber argued against Mahatma Gandhi that
nonviolence would not have worked against Hitler in Nazi Germany. But inside Mandate Palestine in that same
exact period, Buber—along with Hebrew University President Judah
Magnes—was
active in groups like Brit Shalom and the Ihud that were working for
Jewish-Arab coexistence there. Indeed,
Buber and Magnes testified before the United Nations Special Committee
on
Palestine (UNSCOP) in favor of the creation of a binational state in
which
Arabs and Jews could live in peace as equal partners.
All those early “pioneers” of the
Jewish/Israeli peace movement left a rich legacy of pro-coexistence
activism in
favor of coexistence to the many Israeli peace groups that have
functioned
throughout the long period of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and
Peace Now and the other Israeli
peace groups had their finest hour in 1982, when they
led the movement of Israelis who opposed
their government’s push into
By the time the first intifada started in 1987
these groups
already had a lot of organizing experience and a lot of strategic
clarity in
their view of the role of the Israel’s military. They
also had a rich experience of having
organized joint actions with Palestinian counterparts.
Some notable joint Israeli-Palestinian
campaigns were the “Campaign for Abu Ali Shaheen” (1984), the Ramya
Committee
for Solidarity (1991-92), the “Committee in Solidarity with
The spirit that had motivated all those earlier
joint
actions for peace has been kept alive in present-day organizations like
Bat
Shalom, Ta’ayush, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Israeli-Palestinian
Center for
Research and Information (IPCRI), the Israeli Committee Against House
Demolitions (ICAHD), Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, the Coalition
of Women
for a Just Peace, and Gush Shalom. On a
parallel track, the spirit behind such earlier Israeli military refusal
organizations as Yesh Gvul has been kept alive by groups like New
Profile,
“Courage to Refuse, the Shministim of high-school-aged draft resisters,
and the
group of Israeli Air Force reserve pilots who in September 2003
declared their
conscience-based objection to participating in airborne extrajudicial
killings
of Palestinian suspects. In addition, a
range of Israeli human rights organizations like B’tselem have—as we
have noted
throughout this report--continued to shine a light of conscience on
developments in the
Despite
the significant skills and experience that members of the Palestinian
resistance
movement and their supporters among the Israeli peace movement
demonstrated
during the first intifada, they did
not achieve the result they both desired: the ending of the occupation. What happened? This
question is an important one that
requires considerable additional study.
We can surmise, however, that the reasons for the intifada’s
failure to “shake off” the occupation included the
following:
Palestinians
Debate Nonviolence, 1993-2003
In the years following
the
adoption of the Oslo Accords, it became clear to many of the organizers
and
theorists of the Palestinian nonviolent movement that the
Jonathan
Kuttab is one such theorist/organizer.
(In addition to his work as a lawyer, Kuttab had helped to found
a
number of nonviolence-based institutions including the Mandela
Institute for
Political Prisoners.) “We gained many
things with the nonviolent activism we used during the first intifada,” Kuttab told us when we met
with him in
It was
that activism that brought
about
Who am
I
talking about? Successive Israeli
governments, and the
Essentially,
at
He
said that he and many others had, in the early years after
For
example, on the question of
settlements. We had always previously
stuck to the international-law position that the settlements were
simply
illegal. But then at
The
The
intense disappointment that Kuttab expressed in the “fruits” of
It
is also worth recalling that back in December 1992, Israeli Prime
Minister
Yitzhak Rabin had tried to expel more than 400 accused leaders of the
Palestinian
Islamic organizations to
By
early 1996, the Palestinians’ disappointment in
In
late February of 1996, organizers from the Muslim militant groups Hamas
and
Islamic Jihad launched a new offensive, sending suicide bombers into
civilian
areas of
Many factors, therefore, combined to ensure that when the second intifada broke out in September 2000 the conditions for nonviolent organizing were very different from those during the first intifada. These factors included: the near-unanimous Palestinian disappointment in Oslo, and frequently therefore, by association, in the nonviolent tactics that had brought Oslo into being; the enhanced level of organization of Palestinian militant groups; and the presence in Gaza and the West Bank of substantial numbers of weapons brought in originally for use by the PA’s police force.
There
was another important difference, too.
In May 2000, 18 years after Defense Minister Ariel Sharon took
When
we met with Jonathan Kuttab, he told us about the potency inside
Palestinian
society of what he called, “the Hezbollah
argument.” He characterized it thus:
“The outcome of the Hezbollah attacks in
Kuttab
pointed out that there were deep flaws in this argument. He noted that
beside
the moral objections to it, there were also practical ones. Crucially, in his view, the “Hezbollah
argument” failed to take into account the distinction for most Israelis
between
Many proponents of a
“Hezbollah-style” strategy in the Palestinian national movement have,
anyway,
overlooked the fact that an important factor in Hezbollah’s success was
its
ability to build vast, interlinked mass organizations inside
Meanwhile, hawkish thinkers inside
When we visited Beit Sahour
in 2002, we heard a sober assessment of the then-current state of the
Palestinian nonviolence movement from Ghassan Andoni, executive
director of the
They react badly when we say, ‘Not with guns!’ We want to find a way of resistance that does not rely on violence.
Some
take
pride in ‘hurting
Also, everyone wants an end soon. They want it now! Violence might pretend to offer them that. But we know that building Palestinian independence is a long-term project. We must not lose patience.
Andoni
talked about the role that international solidarity actions had started
to
play. His organization was then hosting
some of the activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
who had
recently started working in the occupied territories, and had trained
some of
the ISM activists in both Beit Sahour and
“Palestinian society must be organized further in order to reach the mass base,” he told us. “Our education system has been at fault. Our mentality does not see and honor the full range of nonviolent techniques.” He voiced a few words of veiled criticism of the militant Islamic activists:
Some
people now seem to be more
committed to Islam than to
He stressed that this remained a long-term task and admitted that at that point,
Palestinians seem to have lost confidence in themselves, and their sense of community. We need to build all this, and to have a coherent movement. But we’ve lost all sense of trust… We must share the risks, in public actions, and not be abandoned or betrayed. There is so much corruption and self-aggrandizement evident. We need a mass nonviolent movement to strengthen Palestinian society.
I cannot promise that it will succeed on its own. But I doubt we can get to independence without it.
Andoni told us that PCR’s nonviolent approach was not endorsed by the P.A. or by the Palestinian political factions, though some factions had asked for training in nonviolent techniques to explore their use as part of their struggle.
PCR
had recently, he said, had to cancel one big nonviolent action it had
been
hoping to stage along with counterparts from inside
In both
There are,
fortunately, a number of causes for some optimism.
Firstly, it is important to note that
even during the second intifada there have been many
occasions on which courageous
Palestinian advocates of nonviolence have mounted significant,
mass-based
nonviolent challenges to the reality of the IDF’s power.
In
One
longer-lived peace initiative was an
initiative launched by
The
Nuseibeh-Ayalon statement, which was first released on
Another
sustained campaign with profound potential to bolster the move toward
sustainable long-term peace was the “Palestinian National Initiative”,
a
pro-democracy movement that was launched in Ramallah in June 2002 by
three
veterans of the national independence movement:
The
Initiative’s leaders organized a number of grassroots
actions like demonstrations against the Separation Wall that
An additional cause for optimism lies in the continuing creativity and capacity for reflection shown by the nonviolent activists in both communities. We have already written much in these pages about some of these individuals. Another of them—whom we were not able to meet on our trip—is Iyad Sarraj, the executive director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program. In May 2003 he wrote very perceptively that, “There are many lessons learned from the past two years. One is that violence can only breed violence. The suicide bombers of this intifada are the children of the first intifada – people who witnessed a great deal of trauma as children. As they grew up, their own identity merged with the national identity of humiliation and defeat, so they are avenging that defeat at both the personal and national levels.”
In an attempt to help bring this repeating cycle of violence to an end, Sarraj issued a powerful invitation for Palestinians and others to join together to struggle for an ultimate political outcome that would be, in his words, “just, fair, and viable”:
Enlightened
Jews, Palestinians,
and friends of peace and justice everywhere should rise above the ocean
of
hatred and division and be united in their struggle to achieve their
noble
goals. Unfortunately, Palestinians and Arabs have failed to build
alliances with Jews, many of whom object to the occupation of
Palestinian
land. There has been little attempt by Arab politicians and
intellectuals
to understand the Israeli ‘enemy.’ Furthermore, any attempt at the
extension of
understanding and reconciliation has been targeted as the work of a
fifth
column. In the meantime,
The suggestion by Sarraj that Jews, Palestinians, and friends of peace and justice everywhere should work together for their goals is particularly potent, expressed as it is by a person forced to deal on a daily basis with the damaging effects of the Israeli occupation on his own life, his own family, and the community that his organization serves. It is also a suggestion that is in line with the tradition of universalist bridge-building that is embedded in the best of the worldwide experience of nonviolent activism. When Mahatma Gandhi was leading the Indians’ struggle for independence from the British, he was clear that the ultimate relationship he strove for with the British was one of friendship. When Desmond Tutu was deeply engaged in the struggle of Black South Africans for political rights, he wrote friendly letters to the apartheid government’s prime minister John Vorster, inquiring about the health of his family and seeking to build a relationship within which he could persuade Vorster to do the right thing by all the country’s citizens.
Gandhi and Tutu—like numerous other leaders in the worldwide nonviolence movement--well understood that nonviolence is not just a smart “tactic” that currently weak peoples can choose to adopt or ignore at will. Nonviolent engagement is a spiritual venture, and one that has a unique power to transform both human relationships and the people involved in them. If pursued with wisdom, compassion, and authenticity it can open a chink of understanding in the heart of a current opponent, opening up the possibility that he may indeed be tomorrow’s negotiating partner, ally, or even friend. As the veteran Norwegian theorist of nonviolence Johan Galtung wrote in a small 1989 book about nonviolence in Israel/Palestine, “The whole theory of nonviolence is based on the idea of Self recognizing the human being in the Other, appealing to that human being not only for [com]passion with one’s own plight, but also for self-interest in a better future, to be enjoyed together.” [16]
The whole history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict since the 1930s has shown that when nonviolence is adopted merely as a tactic, rather than embraced as an entire philosophical and spiritual vision, then whenever setbacks occur in this struggle for justice—as they inevitably do, somewhere along the way—many individuals will turn to other tactics, principally the tactics of violence. Moreover, if the “playing-field” on which the parties engage is the field of violence, then the side that has the deadliest means of violence at its disposal will win. What Gandhi, Tutu, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other great philosophers of nonviolence understood, however, is that if nonviolence is embraced as an entire and transformative worldview, then its proponents can explain and transcend setbacks while remaining true to their radical, transformative goal. For this to start happening in Israel/Palestine, it will probably require that nonviolence activists from both communities commit both to some version of a deep philosophical-spiritual vision of nonviolence and to engagement in those kinds of transformative actions that flow from such a vision.
This
principled nonviolence is what most Quakers embrace as a logical
extension of
our belief that “there is that of God in every person.”
It is what Bishop Tutu of
Since
the mid-1980s,
numerous peoples around the world have
overthrown undemocratic regimes or won their independence using active
nonviolence:
the
The
harsh controls that
We
therefore agree with those on the scene who are convinced that active
nonviolence offers the most promising path toward a just and
sustainable
resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Assertive, creative Palestinian nonviolence has immense
potential to
stir world opinion. And if a commitment
to nonviolence is sustained systematically over a period of time, and
in the
face of even harsh and violent Israeli counter-measures it can impose
mounting
cognitive dissonance on the Israeli public, highlighting as it would
the
contradictions between Israeli ideals of justice and democracy and the
reality
of Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.
It
would be hoped, too, that this experience could lead, in both
communities, to
the next step of finding ones own experience reflected in the
experience of the
other. As the Jewish theologian Marc
Ellis wrote in 1987,
The torture of the death
of
Palestinian children calls us to a theology which recognizes
empowerment as a
necessary and flawed journey toward liberation…
Today, the Palestinian people ask the fundamental question
relating to
Jewish empowerment: Can the Jewish people in
For his part, Johan Galtung is especially good in addressing the question of the imbalance of power by insisting that the nonviolent actions of the oppressed alone cannot produce a victory. What is needed, Galtung argues, is nonviolent action from within the oppressor community that is supported by nonviolent actions of those outside the situation:
It is not obvious that nonviolence against an oppressor is primarily the task of those who are oppressed. They certainly have not only the right but also in a sense a duty to resist. But if their resistance is an invitation to even more brutal oppression the question can be legitimately be asked. What are the alternatives? One answer, very well known, is violent instead of nonviolent resistance from below. That answer is unsatisfactory to the believer in nonviolence. Hence, a much better answer is the one that I am leading up to in this chapter: nonviolence, to destroy the oppressive structure, but by others than the victims themselves; for them, on behalf of them, partly also of them, but not primarily by them.[18]
It was clearly our experience that nonviolent cooperation between the Israeli, Palestinian, and international communities will be required if peace is to be achieved and sustained. We are moreover convinced that such cooperation is possible. We conclude this section with three very inspiring example from Jewish-Israeli peace activists of the kinds of action that they have been pursuing.
Yitzhak Frankenthal is chairman of the Bereaved Families Forum, an organization of Israelis and Palestinians he founded after his 19-year-old son, Arik, was killed by Hamas militants in 1994. He writes about his son’s killing with painstaking clarity:
It is unethical to kill innocent Israeli or Palestinian women and children. It is also unethical to control another nation and to lead it to lose its humanness...
We lost sight of our ethics long before the suicide bombings. The breaking point was when we started to control another nation. My son Arik was born into a democracy with a chance for a decent, settled life. Arik's killer was born into an appalling occupation, into an ethical chaos. Had I myself been born into the political and ethical chaos that is the Palestinians' daily reality, I would certainly have tried to kill and hurt the occupier; had I not, I would have betrayed my essence as a free man. My son Arik was murdered when he was a soldier by Palestinian fighters who believed in the ethical basis of their struggle against the occupation. My son Arik was not murdered because he was Jewish but because he is part of the nation that occupies the territory of another.
Frankenthal has put these values into action. The Bereaved Families Forum provides mutual support to families from throughout Palestine/Israel who have been lost children to political violence. The three principles adopted by the group are “preferring the ways of peace and negotiation as a means of achieving the legitimate goals of the Israeli and Palestinian people; favoring the dignity of a person, his/her freedom, well-being, safety and welfare over any other value (mostly over territorial values); striving for reconciliation and lasting peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people.”[19]
The second example is a description by Gila Svirsky of a peace vigil held in Tel Aviv in late May 2003, to mark the near-completion of the 36th year of Israel’s occupation of the West bank and Gaza.
The
speakers alternated -- Jews and Palestinians from
A particularly moving letter written
by Cindy Corrie, the mother of Rachel--the American peace activist who
was
killed by a bulldozer as she tried to prevent the demolition of a
Palestinian
home--was read out loud and said, in part: ‘There have been times when
I have
been quiet because I felt there were others who knew more. But I am no
longer
intimidated by experts and critics. After all, my daughter had the
courage to
stand in front of a bulldozer’.
Shulamit Aloni, former Israeli
cabinet minister and outspoken defender of justice and equality, was
eloquent
in demanding an end to the bloodshed and the dawn of an era of peace…
Zahira Kamal, senior official in the
Palestinian Authority, and committed all her life to peace, women, and
workers,
declared ‘I believe in the power of women. Women are grounded in their
awareness of the sanctity of all human beings...I believe we can work
together
for ending the occupation and that we can live in peace together.’
Rauda
Murkus, Palestinian from
As the situation in the territories
gets worse; as witnesses are barred from the scenes of violence; as
political
rhetoric raises expectations and then retracts them; our hopes still
lie with
the duet of the people, the lament caressed by quiet clapping, the
Palestinians
and Israelis who have kept their faith, who still reach out to each
other
inside the pain and wait--and work together--for the lament to end.[20]
For her part, Israeli linguist and peace activist Tanya Reinhart-- commented favorably in one of her recent books on the Palestinian thinker Edward Said’s view that, “The Palestinian struggle… must be based on the understanding that the Jewish people are here to stay. The struggle must strive towards a settlement that will enable coexistence based on human dignity, a settlement that “will capture the imagination of the world.” She added,
On the Israeli side, on March 20, 2001, 140 academics published an ad in three Palestinian newspapers that said: ‘we extend our arms to you in solidarity with your just cause…and wish to cooperate with you in opposing the IDF’s brutal policy of siege, closure and curfews.’ In the spirit of Mandela and Said they too believe that this cooperation ‘may serve as a precedent -setting example for future relations between the two communities in this country, our shared country.’
On March 2001, in the village of Rantis near Tul Karem I watched, bewildered, as approximately two hundred Israelis--youth along with old veterans--demolished with their bare hands the stone and earth barricade erected by the IDF--just one of the dozens of events of this kind that have taken place since the current round of Israeli oppression began. The people knew that as soon as they left, IDF bulldozers would return to reconstruct the barricade. Still they looked happy. Because they knew that they too will be there again. They will be there for the only future worth living--a future based on basic human values.[21]
We do not presume to tell nonviolent activists in either the Israeli or Palestinian community what they should do. We do, however, feel able to suggest some directions that people in other places might consider taking to support the nonviolent organizations inside those two communities, as indicated in the following paragraphs.
Self-Education
All of us need to learn a lot more about the rich and complex history of nonviolence in the Palestinian-Israeli context, and about the debates between advocates of nonviolence and advocates of violence that continue inside each community. (We also need to continually educate ourselves about the roles our own governments play in the area.) Most of the organizations mentioned in this chapter—or elsewhere in the report--have good websites, and many of them have written publications that are very informative. In addition, there are numerous English-language articles and a growing list of books on this topic. We have tried to indicate in Appendix D which of these resources might be most helpful.
Aiding
Palestinian and Israeli
Nonviolent Organizations
When
we asked Ghassan Andoni how we could help the
We need
resources, funds. But not a lot. For example, we need to buy prepaid
phone-cards, in order to stay in touch with each other.
During the siege at the Church of the
Nativity in
I stress that we have no paid staff. All are volunteers. But the internationals who come to work with us need to have their living expenses covered. Perhaps we could link to churches or Quaker meetings or other groups?
Many
of the Israeli and Palestinian nonviolence organizations post specific
requests
on their websites or in their publications.
We urge readers to do what they can to respond.
Building
Longterm Partnerships
Andoni’s suggestion of “linking” with faith-based or other support groups internationally seems to us an excellent one that can strengthen the work of everyone involved. An important aspect of any such partnership would be for the internationals to provide consistent and loving support for the women and men involved in the work of the local group in a way that helps these courageous people to bear the hardships of their situation while reducing the sense of isolation and despair that can on occasion beset them.
Such a partnership might also involve making a solid commitment, on a long-term basis, to funding, technical support, fund-raising support, or the provision of other needed resources. It might grow to the point where some members of the international group might volunteer to go to Palestine/Israel and work for and with the on-site organization. Another possible way to support the people in these organizations might be to provide a “respite ministry” that provides a safe and supportive environment away from tensions of the homeland where they can collect their thoughts, restore their energies, and engage in some brainstorming and experience-sharing with members of the partnering group.
Bearing
Witness
All of us, because we had the huge privilege and challenge of being part of the IQWP, feel under the weight of a leading to bear witness about what we saw and experienced on our journey. (This publication is part of that effort.) We know that many other “internationals” who have had similar experiences of traveling around Israel/Palestine, or who have had the privilege of working with nonviolence organizations there, have similarly found ways to spread their witness as widely as possible; and we urge the continuation of such efforts
This
might involve something as simple as inviting friends over for dessert
so you
can tell them what you saw, or convening a small group of interested
persons
from your congregation or other civic group; or it might involve
becoming
passionately engaged in a large-scale attempt to sway your national
government;
or, anything in between. All such
efforts are good! We would suggest,
however, that a good portion of all these messages might usefully focus
on the
role of the nonviolence organizations in
If you have not had the opportunity to visit Palestine/Israel yet—or even if you have—you always have the opportunity to help spread the testimony of other witnesses.
Missions
to
We know of a number of international groups do activist work in Palestine/Israel based on an intentionally nonviolent philosophy. A few of these are listed below.
The most experienced such group is
the Christian
Peacemaker Teams (CPT). It started
out as a ministry of the historic “peace churches” (Church of the
Brethren,
Mennonites, and Quakers) and continues to embody a specifically
gospel-based,
pacifist approach to its work. CPT has
maintained a full-time presence of four to six team members in downtown
While
the CPT sees its role in
The
International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which was mentioned above by
Ghassan Andoni, is a secular group organized along loose
“affinity-group”
lines. It describes itself as a
“Palestinian-led movement of Palestinian and International activists
working to
raise awareness of the struggle for Palestinian freedom and an end to
Israeli
occupation. We utilize nonviolent, direct-action methods of resistance
to
confront and challenge illegal Israeli occupation forces and policies. As enshrined in international law and UN
resolutions, we recognize the Palestinian right to resist Israeli
violence and
occupation via legitimate armed struggle.
However, we believe that nonviolence can be a powerful weapon in
fighting oppression and we are committed to the principles of
nonviolent
resistance.”[25]
We have also
heard with interest about a proposal that the U.S.-based Quaker
organization Friends
Peace Teams (FPT) might establish a presence in or around the
Friends
Schools in Ramallah in order to develop the ability of Friends
worldwide to
contribute to nonviolence work in
Supporting
the Vision of Nonviolence in
Israel/Palestine
We
have noted above the robust state of
pro-violence discourse in
We hesitate
to suggest we have answers on this, but we also recognize that the
advocates and
organizers of nonviolence in
Are there
books or other printed materials that they would like to use or to
distribute,
that outsiders could donate? Is there
translation work, into Hebrew or Arabic, that they would find useful? Are there experiences of nonviolence
movements elsewhere in the world that they would like to learn more
about? Are there conferences elsewhere in
the world
that they want to attend, but for which they have trouble finding
either the
travel costs or the necessary permissions (from
We
believe it is especially important to
stress in the Palestine/Israel context that nonviolence is not a
specifically
Christian doctrine, but part of the spiritual heritage of all humanity. Are there, therefore, specific intellectual
tasks like restoring the heritage of Muslim thinkers of nonviolence
like Jalal
al-Din Rumi or (more recently) Badshah Khan, or their Jewish
counterparts like
Martin Buber or Abraham Heschel, that could help Palestinian and
Israeli
nonviolence organizers to undertake more effective faith-based outreach
to
Muslims and Jews?
[1] We wonder to what extent this perception is the result of the focus that most the global media place on acts of violence and their consequences, rather than on the simple grace shown by people helping their families and communities make it through tough times.
[2] Ari Shavit, “The enemy
within,” in Ha’aretz,
[3]
Moshe
Ya’alon, quoted by Nahum Barnea in Yediot
Aharonot,
[4] Ya’alon may have addressed
this issue in public, but we have not found any reference to such
utterances.
[5] A good description of these
developments can be found in Joost R. Hiltermann, Behind the Intifada : labor and women's
movements in the occupied territories
(Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1991).
[6] Awad’s right to
reside in his native city had
been withdrawn by
[7] Gene Sharp, “The Intifadah
and Nonviolent Struggle” in Journal of
Palestine Studies, vol. XIX, no.1 (Autumn 1989), pp. 3-13.
[8] In
1989 one of our IQWP members, a
[9] For more information on these actions see Maxine Nunn, Creative Resistance: Anecdotes of Nonviolent Action by Israeli-Based Groups (Jerusalem: Alternative Information Center, 1993).
[10] This expulsion was, of course, a clear infringement of the Fourth Geneva Convention. However, the fact that even that dramatic escalation failed to win for Israel the intended goal of damping down the intifada—indeed, it had just the opposite effect—likely helped persuade Rabin to try the different strategy of supporting talks with the PLO, instead.
[11] He had, of course, won what
he had sought from the Palestinians in
[12] An account of Hezbollah’s
political work can be found in Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu’llah:
Politics and religion (
[13] Text available at <http://www.mifkad.org.il/eng/PrinciplesAgreement.asp>.
[14] Information from <www.palestinemonitor.org/Other%20Updates/palestinian_national_initiative.htm>. The Initiative has its own website, with an English-language section accessible at: <www.almubadara.org/en>. The Palestinian-American scholar-activist Edward Said was a strong supporter of the Initiative until his death in September 2003.
[15] Common Ground News Service,
transmission of
[16] Johan Galtung, Nonviolence and
Israel/Palestine
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Institute for Peace, 1989), p.14.
[17] Marc H. Ellis, Towards a Jewish Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987), p.132.
[18] Johan Galtung, Nonviolence and Israel/Palestine, p.20.
[19] More information about the Bereaved Families Forum and Yitzhak Frankenthal is available at <http://www.theparentscircle.com/parents/about.asp>.
[20]
Communication by e-mail from Gila Svirsky,
[21]
Tanya
Rhinehart, Israel/Palestine: How to End
the War of 1948 (
[22]
During
“Operation Defensive Shield” in spring 2002, the IDF reoccupied
[23]
<http://www.prairienet.org/cpt/history.php>, accessed on
[24]
<http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/international/palestine/eap.html>,
accessed
[25]
<http://www.palsolidarity.org/about/aboutISM.htm>, accessed
[26] We have little news at this
point about the progress of this proposal.
A visit to the FPT website is probably the easiest way to find
out about
its status: <www.friendspeaceteams.org>.