1) Conditions in Palestine are totally unfavorable to armed struggle. 2) Use of weapons will get more Palestinians killed. 3) Use of weapons will undermine popular mobilization. 4) Use of weapons will undermine international support for the Palestinians, increase sympathy for the Israeli government, and legitimize increased Israeli repression.
Unfortunately, the Palestinian Communists lost the same argument during the Second Intifada - in no small measure because the First Intifada was perceived - incorrectly, I think - to have failed. But the Second Intifada proved every one of their arguments correct. Many more Palestinians were killed, there was much less popular mobilization, international support for the Palestinians was undermined, sympathy for the Israeli government was increased, increased Israeli repression was legitimized.
Now there is a new political moment in Palestine. A new generation of young Palestinians is turning towards nonviolence. If this movement draws a big increase in international support - as it absolutely should - it could change history. The fact that pompous ass Todd Gitlin is celebrating this development in a pompous ass way should not distract us from the fact that there is something important to be celebrated - and vigorously supported.
On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Patrick Bond <pbond at mail.ngo.za> wrote:
> In a talk given to our Centre for Civil Society in 2009 -
> http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?11,22,5,1878 - Norman Finkelstein gave
> a stunning lecture to a large Durban crowd that included Gandhi's
> grandaughter Ela, in which he argued that Gandhi would have supported
> Hamas' rocket launches. I don't have a transcript of this but if anyone
> wants to read the original discussion of Satyagraha by Gandhi I can
> forward it. Quite a mixed-bag in terms of race politics, it was, but a
> century ago in Durban things were rather tricky.
>
> We'll see what interesting residues of Satyagraha will apply when the
> Conference of Polluters climate summit comes to town in about six
> months' time. Dec 9 is the final day for saving the Kyoto Protocol's
> binding language - and that won't happen. Instead, there'll be more
> privatisation of the air via carbon trading.
>
> Maybe some civil disobedience will change the tone.
>
> (In Gaza a couple of weeks ago, at the Erez border, I witnessed Israeli
> border patrols firing regularly at unarmed Palestinians. In these
> peaceful marches to the border there have been dozens killed or wounded.)
>
> On 6/9/2011 6:42 AM, Robert Naiman wrote:
>> Gitlin may be a pompous ass, but the underlying point is still
>> basically right. When pompous asses come around to seeing that 2+2=4,
>> it's still four. It's important not to be provoked by the arrival of
>> the pompous asses on the scene into arguing that 2+2 is anything but
>> four.
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 3:45 PM, Joseph Catron<jncatron at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> "[I]t now looks as though—fingers crossed—a critical mass of Palestinians
>>> may, at last, be getting the point. When they blow people up, they
>>> manufacture panic and hatred, and lock themselves up. They forfeit the
>>> initiative. When they act en masse with what Gandhi called satyagraha, soul
>>> force, they seize the initiative. If the Palestinian national movement had
>>> begun with disciplined nonviolence, it would have achieved statehood by now.
>>> That said, much better late than never."
>>> http://972mag.com/can-nonviolence-move-the-next-century
>>> Anyone failing to understand why this dripping racist condescension is
>>> entirely baseless might consider reading Mazin Qumsiyeh's Popular Resistance
>>> in Palestine. But in the meantime, or in lieu of that, please avoid any
>>> attempts to feign expertise on the topic.
>>> --
>>> "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
>>> lytlað."
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> pen-l mailing list
>>> pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu
>>> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> pen-l mailing list
> pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu
> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
>
-- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org