Many of us with sympathies—and therefore blinders—on the side of the Free Gaza Movement’s work have been reluctant to accept the possibility that, indeed, people aboard the Mavi Marmara and other vessels attempting to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip earlier this week were anything but nonviolent as Israeli soldiers descended from helicopters above. The facts of the incident remain very much in question, to be sure, and they will continue to be until a truly international, plausibly objective investigation takes place. While it cannot be taken yet as conclusive, there is some evidence provided by the Israelis that their soldiers met violent resistance before, during, or after their shooting spree that finally killed at least nine activists. This video of the events aboard the Mavi Marmara has been widely circulated:

Meanwhile, reports have begun to emerge from among the blockade-runners, including an Arab-Israeli Knesset member, a German activist, and a Turkish mother who brought her 1-year-old baby aboard. They insist that the Israelis fired on the Mavi Marmara before boarding, that those on board had no weapons short of wooden batons, and that the Israelis seemed intent on sending a bloody message.

But supposing the activists did try to defend themselves violently—how does that affect the ways we think about this incident in terms of nonviolence? As in any situation so tragic, and amidst a wider conflict so volatile, we’re faced with an array of perplexing questions. Encountering such questions is natural and, as much as one can muster, to be welcomed. For it is through them that we begin to grope after a way forward, a better way, one that has learned from the past and hopes for the future.

It is disappointing to think that a brutal assault on the Gaza blockade-breakers was necessary to gain the world’s attention when they have been risking their lives, peacefully, to bring aid to Gazans since August of 2008. Worse, what if the thing that finally put Free Gaza on the front pages was some activists’ attempt to meet the Israeli soldiers’ violence with violence of their own? Before, the Free Gaza Movement’s resolutely nonviolent approach earned them mainly obscurity, but an act of self-defense—resulting in much more violence in reply—may have changed the equation. Suddenly, world leaders are paying notice, and institutions from the United Nations Security Council to The New York Times are issuing statements of support. Egypt is even lifting its side of the Gaza blockade. Has violence, in this case, worked?

In its way, yes, violence works; it destroys people and things, and it certainly draws attention. The crucial challenge of nonviolent resistance, however, is to develop creative tactics that will point eyes and minds not to the bloodshed but to the conditions of injustice. (That’s what Waging Nonviolence is for: to highlight struggles for justice against a mainstream media that would prefer to present a version of the news in which little happens or matters except when violence is involved.)

In the days to come, though, the judgment of the world will depend very much upon the extent to which the activists really did fight back and, in doing, partly justified the soldiers’ onslaught. (Nothing, however, can truly justify the use of such disproportionate force.) To the extent that the activists and their mission were nonviolent, they will earn the moral high ground. Their nonviolence thereby invites Israel to respond not with the violence it is so effective in dispensing, but to join in a common cause of bringing about justice. The fundamentally nonviolent purpose of the Freedom Flotilla—to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and to break what much of the international community considers an illegal blockade—is already what has aroused the world’s sympathy and put Israel in a very uncomfortable situation, perhaps even more so than during the full-scale invasions of Lebanon and Gaza in the recent years. The fact that many aboard the flotilla were noted peacemakers and people committed to and trained in nonviolence makes their statement all the more powerful. The more insistent the activists are on eschewing violence and putting themselves in harm’s way to do right, the more any injustice at play in the situation will come to light for all to see—and the less any military power can justify aggressive action. Such power becomes undermined without a shot fired.

What is probably most at stake in the questions of violence and nonviolence surrounding this incident is the future character of the pro-Palestinian movement—among the international community of course, but foremost in the Palestinian territories themselves. A BBC report last month suggests that, despite growing interest in nonviolent methods among Palestinians, there is still a lack of willingness to make a comprehensive commitment. (In the days following the attack on the flotilla, there have already been skirmishes with Israeli troops resulting in Palestinian deaths.) Many leaders remain hopeful that acts of violence will help them make progress in securing independence and the kind of society they long for. These voices appear rather representative, speaking after attending a talk in Ramallah by Rajmohan Gandhi, the Mahatma’s grandson:

“I came to promote non-violent resistance,” said Mahmoud Ramahi, secretary general of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and a member of the Islamist movement Hamas.

“We support all types of resistance—non-violent, economic, political and armed resistance,” he said—apparently missing the point of strictly peaceful campaigns.

Hind Awad, 22, a campaigner for an international boycott of Israel, said non-violent methods had historically been a “major tool” of the Palestinians.

“I also think that under international law, armed struggle is just, for people that are living under occupation,” she added.

Yet the Palestine-Israel situation is a case in point of the endlessly cyclical and self-perpetuating nature of violence. From the 1940s onward, the more Palestinians and their Arab neighbors have tried to fight, the more Western-backed Israeli forces have been able to justify sweeping and decisive retaliation, as well as outright preemption. The international community can help break the cycle by exemplifying a kind of resistance that is at once effective and nonviolent. The BBC report tells of Najmadeen al-Husseini, a 62 year-old man who lives under occupation in the West Bank:

In his view, two decades of negotiations have yielded little, yet “military resistance will get us nowhere… what are Kalashnikovs against tanks?”

“If the world supports us, peaceful resistance will get us something back,” he says.

Providing that support will require nonviolent discipline and self-sacrifice, of a kind that demolishes any moral standing held by those who would support injustice with force. If that discipline broke on Monday, all the more reason to restore it for the future. Also needed, meanwhile, are the kinds of creative, courageous, and nonviolent tactics such as the Free Gaza Movement has been using since 2008, as well as ones that can make even more undeniable and unignorable the fact that more fighting is not the answer, justice is.

Despite the rain, around 2,000 demonstrators gathered in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday to march in protest of Israel’s May 31st attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. Only 5 days prior, many of these same activists gathered on this same city block in a significantly smaller demonstration in support of the embarking 6-ship convoy, which carried over 600 international activists and 10,000 tons of aid meant for the besieged residents of Gaza. This latest, much larger protest is one of many actions against the illegal attack across the globe, from Malaysia to Beirut to Sweden.

Showing up in force were hundreds of veteran Palestinian-rights activists representing numerous organizations, including Jews Say No, the Palestinian right-to-return coalition Al-Awda, and the orthodox Anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta. But, as the large turnout suggests, there was something different about these latest protests.

The crowd included many folks like Michael, who was watching the rally enthusiastically from outside the police barrier. “It’s nice to see this,” he said. “It’s nice to see people are finely waking up.”

Michael, who stopped by the demonstration after work, is not an experienced activist; he is one of a growing number of conscientious citizens pushed to speak up and take action by Israel’s increasingly brutal and illegitimate aggression. Echoing the words of many attendees, Michael said, “This, for me, was a boiling point.”

As protesters made their way down 42nd Street towards Times Square, where the gathering wrapped up, they expressed dismay and frustration over Israel’s attack on the flotilla, as well as over the ongoing siege of Gaza, which necessitated the flotilla’s mission. Sarah Wellington, with the Activist Response Team, said, “I’m here because we need to stand up and speak out against Israel shamelessly murdering people.” She handed out signs reading “Israel attacks again” and “Stop the Israeli blockade.”

Condemnation of the United States and its policy of unconditional support for Israel was equally prevalent. Dana Balicki, an organizer with the peace group Code Pink, called the U.S. response “abhorrent.” Signs and chants demanded an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, which amounted to at least $7 million each day during Fiscal Year 2009, and urged President Obama to hold Israel accountable for its intransigence.

Activist Debra Sweet said she felt that Americans have a particular responsibility to hold their government accountable since the U.S. provides Israel with such enormous funding. Code Pink’s Balicki stressed the need to put pressure on the Obama administration to stop letting Israel get away with continued indefensible violence against civilians. As more Americans wake up and speak out, Obama is bound to feel the pressure.

“There will be more protests,” Balicki promised. “Operation Cast Lead was a tipping point for a lot of Americans, this is another.”

Islamabad– “Our situation is like a football match. The superpower countries are the players, and we are just the ball to be kicked around.” This sentiment, expressed by a young man from North Waziristan, has been echoed throughout many of our conversations with ordinary people here in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. Most are baffled that the United States, with the largest and most modern military in the world, can’t put a stop to a few thousand militants hiding out in the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Just about everyone we have spoken with, Pashtuns included, has little to no sympathy for the Taliban or their tactics. Many people have lost limbs, homes and loved ones to the brutal assaults of suicide bombers or the indiscriminate violence of IEDs. Yet, people expressed frustrated confusion over uncertainties regarding U.S. government goals in relation to the Taliban. Some believe that the United States might be working with the ISI (Pakistani Intelligence Services) or at least not working against them, to enable continued Taliban resistance. If there is no resistance, according to this view, a military presence in the region cannot be justified. Nor can a so-called humanitarian presence further flood the Pakistani and Afghan economies with millions of dollars in aid that most often lines the pockets of the politicians, elite bureaucrats, and United States corporations involved in construction and security.

The fact that very little aid money has reached the impoverished and war weary people who need it most has been confirmed to us by members of the Afghan and Pakistani governments, human rights organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations and several very unfortunate families forced to live as refugees. As Hyder Akbar, a Pashtun working on NGO assessments in Afghanistan, said to us, “If you are pouring 100 million dollars into a tiny and impoverished province like Kunar and seeing no results, you’re obviously doing something wrong.” But, several seasoned analysts agree that money alone can’t solve problems faced by impoverished people in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Both Dr. Mubashir Hassan, former finance minister of the Peoples Party of Pakistan, and Nur Agha Akbari, from the Ministry of Agriculture in Afghanistan, strongly believe that efforts to bring people out of poverty in South Asia must be initiated, at district and village levels, through consultation with grass roots, indigenous community groups. Mr. Akbari stressed that there is still an opportunity for the United States government and people to play a positive role in Afghanistan, but that role will not be possible until the United States stops giving orders and starts listening to community groups living in Afghanistan.

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• Protests against Israel’s attack on the Free Gaza flotilla that resulted in the deaths of at least nine activists took place around the world yesterday. Hundreds of Iraqis took to the streets in Baghdad. Thousands gathered in Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon. Israeli embassies throughout Europe were greeted with rallies of 3,500 in Athens, 2,000 in Paris (pictured above), and 5,000 in Stockholm. Hundreds also protested in New York and Washington DC , with even larger protests planned for later today.

• Tens of thousands of people protested Arizona’s new immigration policies on Saturday in cities across the US—including Phoenix; Oakland; Boston; Passaic County, NJ; and Salem, OR.

• More than 130 activists were arrested in Moscow yesterday for protesting a government crackdown on protests despite the Freedom to Assemble guaranteed by the Russian Constitution.

• Gay and lesbian activists eluded Russian security services in a five-hour game of cat and mouse on Saturday to hold the first gay protest in Moscow not to be broken up by riot police.

• More than 30,000 people reportedly quit Facebook yesterday as part of a protest against the social networking giant’s privacy policies.

• About 25 protesters waved signs outside a Clearwater BP station on Memorial Day morning to protest the company’s disastrous oil spill.

• Tens of thousands of Romanian public workers went on strike yesterday to protest hefty wage cuts meant to reduce the country’s budget deficit.

• Tens of thousands marched in central Lisbon on Saturday to protest the government’s austerity measures, showing the first serious sign of popular discontent toward the government’s announced tax hikes, spending cuts, and freeze on civil servants’ wages.