Nonviolent Protest Gains in West Bank
A Supreme Court decision in favor of one protesting village has inspired others.
AL WALAJEH, West Bank -“All those who love the prophet should lend a hand!”
Ten shouting Palestinians were pushing against one boulder, but the primitive Israeli roadblock cutting off the tiny Palestinian village from Bethlehem was not budging. Then, with the help of two giant crowbars, an Israel protester, and a Japanese backpacker, the group heaved the stone aside, opening the road for the first time in three years.
“Tomorrow they’ll bring a bulldozer and move it back,” sighed Sheerin Alaraj, a village resident and a demonstration organizer. “Then next week we’ll come back again to protest.”
Inspired by the experience of other Palestinian villages, the Al Walajeh demonstrators are part of a small but growing core of protesters combining civil disobedience with legal petitions to fight Israeli policies.
Earlier this month, the village of Bilin, which has held weekly protests since 2004, garnered widespread attention and praise in the Palestinian press when the Israeli Supreme Court ordered a part of the military’s separation barrier near Bilin to be dismantled. Increasingly, other Palestinian villages are following Bilin’s lead, though it remains to be seen whether this kernel of nonviolence will grow into a full-fledged movement.
“Before Bilin, people never had faith it would achieve anything, neither nonviolence, nor the legal system,” says Mohammed Dajani, a political science professor at Al Quds University. “Maybe this will be a response to the skeptics, that, ‘Look, it works.’ ”
Nonviolence means more attention
While Palestinian militants dominate international headlines through suicide bombings and firing rockets on Israeli towns, residents of Bilin and a handful of other tiny farming villages like Al Walajeh have eschewed the armed struggle. Instead, they have linked arms with Israeli peace activists and chained themselves to trees to delay Army bulldozers cutting a swath for an electronic fence severing the villagers from their land.
Though Palestinians glorify the armed militiamen and those killed in battle with Israel, protest leaders say the nonlethal tactics have one crucial advantage: it attracts Israeli and international peace activists, who in turn bring sympathetic media coverage.
The leaders sound like a Palestinian version of Martin Luther King Jr., and their voices have become more prominent in the ongoing debate about whether peaceful or military actions will win their statehood.
“We use nonviolence as a way of life…. We learned from many experiences: like India, Martin Luther [King], and South Africa,” says Samer Jabber, who oversees a network of activists in the villages surrounding Bethlehem.
Every Friday in Bilin for the past three years the protesters have faced tear gas, rubber bullets, and beatings that have caused hundreds of injuries. Demonstrators sometimes threw rocks, one of which caused a soldier to lose an eye. (While leaders say they’re against such violence, followers don’t always hold the line.)
“The belief in one’s rights is more important than anything else. If I am confident about my rights, nothing will make me despair,” says Iyad Burnat, a Bilin resident and one of the protest leaders. “When you resist an Israeli soldier by peaceful means, their weapons become irrelevant.”
The strategy paid off when the Supreme Court ruled that the current path of the fence around Bilin offered no security advantages. Villagers will now be able to reach their crops without having to pass through gates in the fence manned by soldiers.
In Al Walajeh, Ms. Alaraj says the protests would be meaningless without a challenge in the Israeli courts. Villagers fear that the construction of the separation wall - set to be more than 400 miles long total, affecting 92 Palestinian communities - will leave the hamlet completely surrounded.
Praise from the Palestinian press
Even though the Bilin ruling was not the first time the court ordered a portion of the barrier moved, it has resonated widely among Palestinians.
“It has become obvious that popular civil resistance has become the best way for national resistance from the occupation,” wrote Waleed Salem in an Al Quds newspaper op-ed.
The civil disobedience taps into Palestinian nostalgia for the first intifada in the late 1980s, marked by grass-roots participation and stone-throwing.The current uprising is led by a network of underground militias, most of which have ties to political parties.
A way to heal Palestinian rifts, too
Just three months after Palestinians watched Hamas’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip from the Fatah-run militias, nonviolent protest against Israel is being seen as a way to heal rifts among Palestinians.
“Armed struggle has a side effect on the occupied people. Palestinians start to use this tool against the occupation, but in the end they use it against themselves,” says Jabber. “Violence has become part of the culture. We realize that we have to reform.”
In 2002, an open letter by Palestinian intellectuals against the use of suicide bombing failed to trigger a change in the uprising. Now, the demonstrations draw, at best, several hundred protesters - possibly because the protests are taking place in poor and isolated villages.Last Friday, only several dozen came out to move the boulders in Al-Walajeh. Palestinians say that after seven years of daily conflict, people are exhausted. “It’s because of frustration,” says Alaraj. “There’s been real poverty in the last two years. And when you’re not eating, then you don’t think of anything else.”
The opening of the road, organizers hope, will encourage more people to join the protests. “If everyone moves forward toward that objective it will be most effective,” says Abdel Hajajreh, a demonstrator. “Don’t forget, Gandhi liberated an entire country.”
© 2007 The Christian Science Monitor
Sure. After pulverizing the Palestinians to grit over the last 50 years the only remedy we can offer them is non-violence !! Call me a cynic but in the current Axis Of Evil (US., Israel, U.K) onslaught non-violence is not about to achieve a thing. Does the name Rachel Corrie ring a bell ?? Caterpillar anyone ?!
Violence will never attract wide-spread support like an active non-violent stance. I had hoped we would see this years ago, it is a good time to start.
“When you resist an Israeli soldier by peaceful means, their weapons become irrelevant.”
Violence is a dimension in which Israel and its supplier the US reign supreme. Non-violent civil disobediance and protest are the way to outflank these extremely violent ruling structures.
“I had hoped we would see this years ago, it is a good time to start.”
Non-violent resistance has been going on in Palestine for years and has been brutally supressed, ignored, and mocked. The First Intifada was largely a non-violent protest. People were murdered. Open your eyes. No one has the right to lecture the Palestinians.
I agree with Gandhi’s grandson when he asked why there werent palestinians sitting with Rachel Corrie. Was it because Israel would have been all the more likely to run over them? Probably.
I think israel has proved itself to be more ruthless than the British were.
-but it is surprising that they wouldnt be more willing to put their livs on the line when they are willing to throw stones at soldiers they know will shoot at them and strapping bombs on themselves. Its harder for a bulldozer to run over 50 people than one.
I dont think we can criticize a palestinian for suicide bombings since an israeli pilot is killing more from the air and goes home to bed.
Robert Fisk seems to regard suicide bombing as worse than what a pilot does.
Ultimately though, I dont think non violence resistance will have an impact in the media for a long long time–because the media is too prone to regard arabs as being bloodthirsty and irrational. There hasnt been a suicide bombing for years now and yet–no mention of Israel killing Palestinians.
Plus I really dont think the general Israeli psyche is healthy enough to understand that others can suffer too besides jews. They are too isolated and paranoid.
the reason non violence worked with the British in colonial India was that the Victorian British had a deeply ingrained sense of decency for one and the fact that there were several hundred million Indians and only a couple of hundred thousand Brits played a huge factor as well. The military technology was also far inferior to today. There were no jets, or guided missiles the artillery was nothing compared to today either. Then of course the whole “promised land” ideology has freed the conscience of the aggressors here of any guilt or sense of propriety or fairness.
–“promised land” ideology has freed the conscience of the aggressors –here of any guilt or sense of propriety or fairness.
Absolutely right.
–Victorian British had a deeply ingrained sense of decency
Absolutely wrong.
You need to study the 400 year history of british imperialism in India to gain a sense of perspective. This is laughable. The only reason they left India was because they couldnt hold onto it, especially after the brutal losses they suffered in WW2. Decency had nothing to do with it and if it did it came 400 years too late !!
Non-violence can’t work any worse than violence has. Forcing those who have power to show their cruelties and hypocrisies every day is how you get sympathy and support over time.
During the violence of the intifada a majority of Israelis were willing to support a Palestinian state, i.e., ‘land for peace’.
Once the inifada faded the majority of Israelis were NOT in favor of a Palestinian state.
The only solution unfortunately appears to be unrelenting militantcy by the Palestinians.
greenman,
Try looking up Colonal Dryer in Amritser, he is a hero to some in Great Britan.
He had his soldiers shoot into an unarmed peacful gathering of about 2,000 people. There were more listed on the dead list than injured. This included women and children.
His defense, “I was trying to make a statement”.
Exactly right, Emma. Palestinians have been resisting non-violently for a long time. Before they resisted the Zionists, they resist British imperialists. They staged an enormous general strike in the late 1930’s that convinced the British government that they had to pay attention to the people living in Palestine, not just what foreigners wanted (altho in the end they ignored the resident majority anyway). Not only has non-violent resistance been going on for decades, for the vast majority of Palestinians it is the only form of resistance– boycotts, protests, refusing orders.
Why hasn’t this worked? Thats a good question. Comparisons with Gandhi or King are inadequate.
sorry I’m not the best writer, if you could of heard me saying the comment I made you would have heard the cynicism. I thought that following it up with the fact that they were infinitely outnumbered and the lack of better means of killing people might have conveyed that. I was trying to draw a parallel to the fact that so many people defend Israel by stating that the Israeli people are good folks, and this is all some kind of misunderstanding. My experience growing up in the U.S. has been that we were taught all this positive stuff about anglo-christian coloniization of the world, only to discover on closer examination that it was quite the opposite.
point taken greenman ….
We grew up with that kind of indoctrination as well unfortunately.
Hopefully future generations will view history through the eyes of the oppressed.
All I can say is this is that Isreal starting to look like south africa before aparthite fell.
ha iran hamas insurgents will blow something up before they ever let peace. THEY WILL EXECUTE THOSE PEACEFUL PROTESTORS
If a tree falls in a forest full of people, will it make a sound? Apparently not when the tree is a palestinian peace activist. This has been going on for years, and not a peep from any US media, not even after all the violent aggression encountered by them.
A single court victory when hundreds or thousands are filed is nothing to celebrate about. No matter what, the wall will be build, regardless of the minor adjustments here or there.
M.Gandhi rediscovered ahimsa
And changed his world but died
A failure in his eyes(Partition).
Martin Luther King led his followers
To victory by Non Violence
But there is never a victory over evil
So he was killed by the powers,
The Philippine people prevented the
Army taking over on Easter Sunday
1985 with flowers!!!
The people of Berlin dismantled the
Wall one brick at a time in 1990
The Russian Parliament stood the tanks
Standing for freedom,cutting up an Empire
Nelson Mandela imprisoned 23 years
For refusing to renounce violence
Brought “Truth and Reconcialiation”
Leaving aside vengeance
This very day the monks march in Rangoon
the people march for their dignity
The power of the people is vast
You ignore that at your peril
As your own conscience will turn against
Your own brutality no matter how powerful
You think you are ,you also will die one day.
Elias Chacour wrote “Blood Brothers”
He lives in Ibillin ,Israel. (Is that Billin?)
A Palestinian Christian , an Israeli Citizen committed to
Reconciliation ,Non-violence and Human Dignity.
Only Justice ,Tolerance,Love can
Bring Peace.
Any other way is war under another name.
There is hope in the world as more and more people put their lives on the line for peace.
greenman,
sorry for misunderstanding your comment.
Peace!
It’s all about timing. Non-violent protest would be extremely effective right now. it should have the hardliners shaking in their boots.