What's old is new

A few months ago, I suggested that I sensed a shift going on the the Middle East; the ground was moving but I wasn't sure in what way. I started to draft a long post, trying to draw together various bits and pieces of news to clarify - or perhaps explore would be a better word - what it was that I was sensing. I never finished it partly because it seemed too big an undertaking and it has to a fair extent been overtaken by events, particularly the death of Yasser Arafat. But I do think one paragraph of the draft is still relevant:

There is a sense of a new - for lack of a better term - bureaucratic coldness about Israeli policies, ones increasingly concerned merely with efficiency of execution with less thought to effect on the victims (whether Palestinians or, indeed, Israelis affected indirectly) or long-term implications. Meanwhile, on the Palestinian side, there are some hints of an exhaustion with violence, a vague feeling that it has become self-defeating.

Interestingly, it was about that time that Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas Gandhi and head of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence in the US, came to Palestine to offer support for

an unarmed, popular struggle against the Israeli occupation.

The campaign is being organized by a group of Palestinian social and political activists in Ramallah, that was formed after a ruling of the International Court of Justice in The Hague against the separation fence and Israel's occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The group's members are anti-fence activists, members of non-government organizations for water and agriculture development, and central Fatah activists, headed by minister without portfolio and Fatah activist Kadura Fares,

according to Haaretz for last August 13. Gandhi spoke to three mass rallies in the West Bank around the end of August, telling Palestinians

"it is their responsibility to change. If the Israelis do not want to listen, it does not mean we cannot act"

and that

"You have fought for the Holy Land, but God said there is nothing holier than people's lives."

Around that same time, Akram Baker, a former minister in the Palestinian Authority and co-president of the Arab Western Summit of Skills and Gordon Woo, a specialist in strategic risk analysis, wrote a commentary for the Daily Star (Lebanon), in which they argued that

[t]The Israel-Palestine conflict is stuck at an equilibrium point of tit-for-tat violence. For as long as Israeli civilians are attacked, Israeli public opinion will favor a robust military response. Conversely, for as long as the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory persists, Palestinian public opinion will favor a continuation of the armed struggle. However, an alternative equilibrium point exists: one of mutual non-violence, which can be supported strongly by both the Israeli and Palestinian publics. The way to reach this political haven is through a series of gradual steps, each of which is carefully planned and constructed to maximize the consensus for non-violence on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. ...

Implementation of a strategic campaign of non-violence requires organization. Ideally, a popular Palestinian leader might inspire this. But even without the presence of such leadership, modern communications make mass coordinated action easier to organize than during previous campaigns of non-violence. For example, in 2000, British government policy on a fuel tax was reversed by a leaderless group of truck drivers, armed not with guns or bombs, but with cellular telephones.

So why is all this four-month old news relevant now? Because of this, from Haaretz for December 15:

The use of weapons in the four-year-long intifada was a mistake and should end, Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday in an interview with the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. ...

Abbas, who is expected to win the January 9 presidential elections in the Palestinian Authority, said Palestinians should resist the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza without resorting to violence.

It is important to "keep the uprising away from arms because the uprising is a legitimate right of the people to express their rejection of the occupation by popular and social means," he said. "Using the weapons was harmful and has got to stop."

Abbas has been opposed to the armed intifada since it began four years ago. But now he is and will be in a position to express that opposition openly in an atmosphere where his words may well fall on willing ears. He could be that "popular leader" to lead a campaign of nonviolent opposition that could put the question to Israel: Is it really an end to terrorism you seek - or an end to Palestinian aspirations for a homeland of their own? Do you want to achieve security or conquest?

Of course, the answer will not come so easily: The US responded to Abbas' statement by saying

it welcomed moves aimed at fighting terror. "We remain focused on working toward a strategy that will put in place the institutions necessary for a viable [Palestinians] state to emerge," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "But fighting terrorism and putting in a unified security force are key to those efforts."

Translated, that means that the definition of a "viable" Palestinian state is how well it meets Israeli security demands - giving every reason to expect that attempts at nonviolent opposition to the occupation will be labeled as encouraging acts of violence against Israelis rather than trying to find an alternative to them. That is, the existence of resistance per se will be blamed for any terrorism.

But then again, Gandhi (Mohandas, not Arun) said - if I'm remembering it accurately; it at least retains the flavor - "First they ignore you. Then they attack you. Then you win." And the Palestinians would not be alone. There are Palestinian groups trying to promote the idea of justice through civil resistance; Palestinians for Peace and Democracy is one based in the US. In Israel, too, they would find friends. There are groups like Yesh Gvul. And there are people like Amira Hass, a columnist for Haaretz, who has said that in response to Palestinians considering nonviolent resistance,

it is a discussion that we Israelis should also conduct. As occupiers.

The original violence, the primordial, ongoing violence, is the violence of the side that imposed through its military superiority a reign over another nation. Can Israeli society be attentive to the popular Palestinian struggle, and conduct the necessary internal revolution to truly disengage from the colonialist characteristics of the state of Israel?

There are voices on both sides ready to dispense with the murderous violence, who are tired of the blood, who are tired of the killing, who are tired of the occupation both as occupied and occupier. The question is are people in the occupied territories ready to take another path? Clearly some are - and if Abbas is prepared to take a lead, there may be a new day coming.

Footnote: But the path is never easy.

A few women who arrived from a village near Tul Karm were asked what they thought of Gandhi. They said they were pleased with his support of the Palestinian people and the prisoners. Asked for their opinion on his message for nonviolent battle, they replied, "Nonviolent? Do the Israelis recognize such a thing as nonviolence?"

No matter where you stand, it's always "they" who do not understand peace, always "they" who understand only violence. And always, then, "they" who must be killed. And so the cycle of death continues - until and unless "we" decide to change.