> - Palestinian non-violent protest, often done jointly with anti-
> occupation Israelis and internationals, is going on daily. And
> while this type of protest has become much more prominant of late,
> Palestinians such as Mubarak Awad have promoted non-violent action
> as early as the mid 1980's, when he established the "Palestinian
> Center for the Study of Non-violence." He was expelled from
> Palestine/Israel in 1988 by the Israeli authorities for his
> actions. But, in general, the great majority of actions against the
> Occupation are non-violent, usually individual or protest by a
> couple hundred at most. The first and second Intifada were in large
> part, non-violent protests.
>
> - However, it must be admitted that the non-violent anti-Wall
> protests such as take place in Bi'lin and Aboud, though they in
> fact get the greatest coverage in the Western media and considered
> emblematic among the international left, are considered peripheral
> within Palestinian society in general.
The paradox you mention here -- non-violent protests by Palestinians are at once numerically a majority of Palestinian political activities and politically "peripheral" within Palestinian society in terms of power and prominence -- is expressed by the position of Suha, who stands for a philosophy of non-violence resistance, in Paradise Now. Throughout the film, she is most often alone (the film never shows her with other Palestinians, let alone Israelis, who espouse the philosophy of non-violent resistance), she is the only one who is associated with the West (a cosmopolitan born in France), she is given the least screen time among the main characters, and she is the first of the main characters to drop off the screen (the latter two facts are in part also because she is assigned the function of "Said's love interest" in the film, making her secondary to Said and even Khaled).
It should be noted that Suha doesn't make an argument against suicide bombings based on a moral interest in victims of suicide bombings (this point is likely to limit the appeal of the film in Israel, though most Israeli leftists will still probably find the film interesting in many ways). What she says is that suicide bombings do not end the Israel occupation and that there are other ways to resist. If there is a contrast among the three main characters, it's not one that Wojtek makes -- a person who makes moral decisions and a person who just follows the crowd. The contrast, instead, lies elsewhere: between those (like Suha) who think that there are non- violent ways to bring the Israel occupation to an end and those (like Said) who think that there aren't (without even believing that suicide bombings can help end the occupation). The film, in my view, represents neither as more convincing than the other, though I have a reason to believe that the director himself thinks like Suha.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>