The Palestinian Tragedy
Poll after poll suggests that a majority of Israelis and Palestinians favor “nonviolent forms of resistance and negotiation as the best approach to achieving self-determination and security. According to Gallup, only about a third in Israel, and slightly fewer in the Palestinian territories, favor "armed struggle" as the better solution.”
Palestinians could have had a homeland now if they had embraced non violence. They know the story of Gandhi and more recently Mandela who led their countries to freedom from colonial rule yet they feel rocket attacks are their best weapon. Why?
We can blame a lot of factors other than the Palestinians proverbial ability to in Abba Eban’s memorable words to “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity"—but some of them include:
1) The West’s media bias/lack of interest in covering the non violent protests that did emerge since 1948 —the US Press hardly gave them any coverage or interviewed anyone who marched peacefully
2) A feeling among Palestinians that non violence is weakness and not resistance. As the Jerusalem Post characterizes it there is no suitable translation for the term, In Arabic it is "la-umph," or "no-violence." Some argue that it sounds as if it is negating something, like the right to fight back. For this reason, activists use the terms "civil resistance," "popular resistance," or "political defiance."
3) Lack of leadership—no one from the Palestinian community seems able to take up that mantle. For decades the leader was Arafat a completely corrupt politician who had every interest in keeping the conflict going.
4) Involvement of Hamas—which is a wholly owned subsidary of Iran—and wants to turn the Palestinian struggle like everything else into an Islamic led battle against the heretics i.e the West as it strives to extend its terrorist caliphate everywhere without dissent.
We are now living the results of the failure to find non violent solutions to a problem means years more of war and bloodshed. The extremes during this time have only become more extreme. Congratulations to all the zealots who egged all the war mongers on—nice job. It would have worked if the Middle East were a video game—but its not—its an area of land that is homes to millions of people who just want to live in peace and pray to whoever they want to worship.
The Biden administration must now pick up the pieces. Without the US leadership and that of the UN Security Council can prevent more conflict. In the meantime the US media must create space for peaceful Palestinian voices to be heard and as well as condemning Palestinian violent resistance condemn Israel’s taking of Palestinian land and other provocative actions designed to dehumanize and suppress legitimate human rights. The Israelis’ need to heed the words of Mandela—”If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” Equally both sides need to understand Gandhi’s objection to violence that “when it appears to do good that good is only temporary the evil it does is permanent”