Seth
> ----------
> From: Michael Pollak[SMTP:mpollak at panix.com]
> Reply To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2000 2:26 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Palestinian non-violence
>
>
> Brad DeLong wrote a while ago:
>
> > This is the non-Gandhi road. It has the normal effects. Given that
> > Arafat's task is to persuade the Israeli electorate that it is
> > worthwhile handing over some degree of sovereignty over parts of East
> > Jerusalem to him, and to persuade the U.S. Congress that he can be a
> > peaceful statesman, the non-Gandhi road is not working.
>
> Having searched down a few things on the Palestinian debate on
> nonviolence, I have a new take on this question. Is seems that as far as
> the Palestinians are concerned, Arafat did take the Gandhi road -- that
> this is the Gandhi road. But to follow their reasoning you have to accept
> a basic transposition -- that what we think of as violence in middle
> America, they think of as non-violence. That is to say, when we argue the
> merits of violence and nonviolence in an American context, like Seattle,
> we think of non-violence as marching, sitting in, and blocking traffic --
> and violence as throwing stones. When Palestinians argue the merits of
> violence and non-violence, they think of throwing stones as non-violence.
>
> By violence, they mean suicide bombers. And similarly, where most of us
> would describe Seattle as "almost entirely nonviolent" because only a
> small minority of people damaged property, most Palestinians speak of the
> intifada as "largely non-violent," by which they mean most people threw
> stones, and only a few people stabbed Israelis. And this line of thought
> survives today. Most Palestinians describe what is going on now as a
> "peaceful intifada." There are two quotes to that effect in today's
> (10/23/00) Financial Times ("Arab summit cheers Palestinians" by Roula
> Khalaf, p. 2 in the hard copy):
>
> "'We got political and financial backing to sustain a peaceful intifada
> [uprising], and the Arabs sent a message to Israel and the US that they
> back our poistion, especially our rights to Arab east Jerusalem,'" said a
> senior Palestinian official."
>
> "Officals at the summit suggested that Mr. Arafat woudl take away weapons
> from the streets of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to ensure the intifada
> was a peaceful movement."
>
> i.e., just stone throwing. But just as most Americans consider Seattle to
> be largely nonviolent because stone throwers were a small minority, so
> Palestinians consider the current intifada to be mainly nonviolent because
> only a small minority of them are shooting.
>
> At any rate, if you accept that transposition -- which brings you into
> touch with the actual debate and, I would argue, the actual limits of
> political possibility -- then the advocates of Palestinian nonviolence
> have not only made the same argument Brad has, but they prevailed within
> Fatah 15 years ago. The were arguing already during the first intifada,
> and even more heatedly during the 90s, that the intifada (their idea of
> nonviolence) was more effective than any tactic that had gone before
> (e.g., the Munich Olympics and Achilles Lauro). And they were right.
> Rabin decided to open the peace process only because he couldn't crush the
> intifada. That was certainly his first course. He was the proponent of
> the infamous "iron fist" policy of dealing with the intifada. And the
> subsequent peace process, flawed as it was, contained more concessions
> than the Palestinians had ever gotten before. The argument of people like
> Said who were against the settlement was that they should've have held out
> longer for a better settlement. But there was a basic agreement on
> tactics.
>
> If you look at the 90s, there seems to be every evidence that this
> argument was accepted by Fatah. All terrorist bombings during the 90s
> were by Hamas or similar groups who wanted to scuttle the peace process --
> not by Arafat's allies trying to advance his goals of statehood.
>
> The current mood among Palestinians seems to be that there should be a
> return to intifada tactics in order to get better terms than they were
> being offered for the state they still want. And it is interesting that
> so far, there have been no bomb attacks on Israel. It's very hard to
> believe that Hamas and company would accept over a hundred dead to almost
> no Israelis without retaliating. Unless they accept that this is the
> public mood -- and that terrorist attacks might forfeit Palestinians the
> sympathy they have so far garnered as heroic victims. (Also they might be
> persuaded that it would be more profitable to attack the US again, since
> that's kind of a win-win game for them now. If the US strikes back, it
> fans anti-Americanism. If they don't, it makes the bombers look
> mightier.)
>
> In short, by Middle Eastern Standards, I think this is a variation of the
> Gandhi road: to make imposing control cost more than it's worth, in part
> through rallying outside support, by provoking and (largely passively)
> enduring a violent suppression. And by publicizing the unjust mismatch of
> force as the brutal and inescapable reality of an unjust situation. And
> yeah, it does work better. But they're not kidding when they say they're
> martyring themselves. 2,000 of Palestinians died in the last intifada, and
> they're dying at a faster clip in this one.
>
> Michael
>
> __________________________________________________________________________
> Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com
>
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