Palestinian "aggressive non-violence"

[Seth Ackerman]

>                         Copyright 2000 The Irish Times  
>                                 The Irish Times
> 
>                                 October  25, 2000
> 
> SECTION: CITY EDITION; WORLD NEWS; Pg. 13
> 
> LENGTH: 611 words
> 
> HEADLINE: Palestinians' intifada strategy based on theory of "aggressive
> non
> -violence"
> Michael Jansen talks to a senior member of Yassser Arafat's Fateh movement
> 
>  BODY:
>     Palestinians and Israelis agree on one thing at least: that the
> ongoing
> intifada in the occupied territories is unlikely to wind down soon.
> Indeed, Mr
> Faisal Husseini, the Palestinian minister responsible for the Jerusalem
> issue,
> agrees with the assessment of the Israeli army command that this rising
> could
> carry on well into next year.
> 
>    Speaking on the morning after the latest cabinet meeting in Gaza which
> he had
> attended, Mr Husseini told The Irish Times: "As long as there is no change
> on
> the ground, the intifada will go on. It will go on as long as the Israelis
> consider 242 a resolution to be negotiated instead of a resolution to be
> implemented." This resolution calls upon Israel to withdraw from the
> territories
> occupied in 1967.
> 
>    "We must return to the intifada of 1987-93, the 'intifada of the
> stones'," Mr
> Husseini (60), a leading figure during that insurrection and a veteran
> member of
> Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's Fateh movement, said. "At
> that
> time we froze Israel's atomic bombs, phantoms, tanks, heavy machine-guns
> and
> automatic weapons. The Israelis were forced to deal with us with the
> lowest
> technology and the biggest number of soldiers. Sometimes they even
> resorted to
> throwing stones at us from helicopters. If we use stones, they will
> respond with
> rubber bullets and live ammunition. If we use rifles, they will respond
> with
> machine-guns, if we use machineguns they will use rockets. I am against
> using
> guns even though my training was in the military. Even if others use
> weapons, I 
> will not."
> 
>    He cited the example of ongoing clashes between Palestinian
> stone-throwers
> and the Israeli army at the settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip.
> "From the 
> Military point of view we are losing but we are winning from the political
> point
> of view."
> 
>    The opposite was true at Joseph's tomb, a Jewish religious site in the
> Palestinian town of  Nablus,  evacuated by the Israeli army and then
> wrecked by 
> demonstrators. "The only thing that saved us was our allies in Tiberias
> (Israeli
> extremists) attacked a mosque there," cancelling out the outrage at
> Joseph's
> tomb. Tiberias, once an Arab town, has been entirely Jewish since 1948.
> 
>    Mr Husseini described the Palestinian strategy as one of "aggressive
> non-violence". Asked why the Palestinians did not adopt the traditional
> non-violent strategies of Mahatma Gandhi, he replied: "To do this we are
> in need
> of three things: Gandhi, the Indian people and the British . . . Whenever
> we
> have staged non-violent demonstrations, the Israelis immediately started
> shooting. They will not give us the opportunity to protest peacefully.
> They
> respond with violence, particularly if there are only Palestinians taking
> part, 
> but also if foreigners and Israelis participate," he stated. He gave the
> example
> of an Italian woman who lost an eye during an attempt to make a human
> chain
> around the Old City of Jerusalem.
> 
>    The Palestinians, he said, must make a clear distinction between mass
> demonstrations and action by armed elements. Arms should be strictly
> "forbidden"
> at popular protests.
> 
>    He agreed that there was a major difference between the situation on
> the
> ground during the first intifada and the current uprising. At that time
> the
> Israeli army held every street in every Palestinian town and village, so
> it was 
> easy for Palestinian protesters to engage Israeli soldiers.
> 
>    Today the majority of Palestinians live in enclaves under the control
> of the 
> Palestinian Authority. Israeli troops confine Palestinians to these
> enclaves so 
> confrontations take place on the edges. This means the Israelis are in a
> much
> stronger position than they were during the first intifada.
> 
> LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
> 
> LOAD-DATE: October 25, 2000
>