How Are You, Non-Violence?

[Violet_Crumble]

By Uri Avnery
08 September, 2004
Gush-Shalom



<snip>

Yussuf: “Look at the brothers who scaled the wall. That is an example of successful non-violent action, breaking the law of the occupier openly and without fear! ”

Hassan: Don’t kid yourself. If Arun Gandhi and the Israelis hadn’t been there, the soldiers would have shot and killed them. Later they would have announced that they were wanted terrorists. You remember the beginning of the al-Aksa intifada, when there were unarmed mass demonstrations? The Israeli army brought in snipers and killed the leaders. Please, this is not India, and the Israelis are not Englishmen. They understand only the language of force.”

Yussuf: “But that is exactly what they say about us!”

This kind of debate is now going on everywhere in Palestinian society, perhaps in every Palestinian family. The Yussufs have no success in convincing the Hassans, and I am afraid that Gandhi will not succeed either, because they lack the decisive argument. Abu-Mazen, who advocates non-violence, got nothing from Sharon. Half a year without suicide attacks inside Israel have not brought the Palestinians any achievements on the ground.

Therefore, the suicide attack in Beer Sheva, just a week after the Gandhi rally, was to be expected.

http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-avnery080904.htm

[bemildred]

1. I don't see anybody else "renouncing violence".

Certainly not the US, Israel, Russia, etc.
I suppose it's time for H. Rap Brown again:

"Violence is as American as cherry pie."

One can easily insert the name of some other country
for "american" there. Violence is what Israel was founded
on and what maintains it.

[idontwantaname]

2. bump! for nonviolence. n/t.

[Djinn]

3. it'd be great if it'd work

but there are so may reasons why "non violence" hasn't worked in the territories, best article I've read so far on the issue is Jonathon Cook's "Look Again, Gandhi"

The first and most obvious condition is that non-violence should carry with it the moral weight that makes violent retaliation unconscionable. But if there is one lesson from the first and second Intifadas, a lesson learned at a high price, it is that non-violence by Palestinians both in the occupied territories and inside Israel is rarely reciprocated by the Israeli security forces.

During this Intifada, for example, 13 unarmed Palestinian citizens were shot dead inside Israel, in the Galilee, for organising largely peaceful demonstrations. And the first victims across the Green Line in the West Bank and Gaza were scores of children hit in the head by sniper bullets. Most were throwing stones ineffectually at tanks and military installations, or just watching -- maybe not quite Gandhi's vision of non-violence, but hardly armed insurrection either

(snip)

But South Africa and Israel also learned from the colonising nations' failures. The main lesson was that to reinforce the colonisation project it was better to install a settler population in the place of the dispossessed natives. These settlers should be committed to the national project and to the occupied territory in a way that, for example, British army officers on a tour of duty could never be.
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=4718&CategoryId=5

[Violet_Crumble]

4. Yeah, it's all pie in the sky stuff, as far as I'm concerned...

A much more realistic message to preach in the hope it'd reach the ears it's meant for would be to stop attacks on civilians on both sides. But I don't think those who should get that message on either side would be the slightest bit receptive to it, as it's the killing of civilians that keeps this whole thing brewing away...

As for non-violent resistance, I don't know if this has been brought up by anyone here, but seeing there are calls for non-violent resistance in the same way as it was done in India, I thought I'd mention it. While non-violent resistance in India wasn't responsible in the end for India gaining its independence, why it had some success in India was due to the fact that the British ruled India by relying on the Indians to be underlings to the British. The British exploitation of India relied heavily on the Indian population playing their role in things, whereas the Palestinians have been totally removed from the picture when it comes to Israeli exploitation of the Occupied Territories. And when non-violent resistance only hurts those doing the non-violent resistance, I can't see much point to it...

Violet...