>
> > It doesn't matter whether the Palestinians think what
> > they are doing is non-violent. What matters is what
> > others think. N-V is a political act aimed at changing
> > the minds of others. If others are not impressed,
> > you're doing it wrong.
> >
> > mbs
>
> ************
>
> If N-V don't work because others always have the right to remain
> unimpressed, then what?
Then you feel just like a Palestinian / Apartheid-era Black South Africa / Sundry Other Member of Oppressed Nationality.
Frankly, looking at the Palestinian position from a South African perspective, I can't figure out what they should try. In SA we had non-violence up to 1960, which was answered with bullets. Then we had a campaign of sabotage that was crushed. Ultimately, it seems the only thing that worked was an extremely expensive (both to the people waging it, and those it was waged against) campaign of mass protest and 'ungovernability', which was successful in part because of the economic importance of S.A.'s Black population, combined with a campaign of international solidarity and sanctions.
While the first part of that seems to be happening in Palestine at present (BTW. what's the economic significance of Palestinian labour to Israel - can they do without it indefinitely?), I certainly don't see the second part. And considering the situation in Dili, Pristina, etc., I can only think that, even with the outcome we're left with in South Africa today, we got lucky.
Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844