The fight for a free Palestine is being fought on many fronts right now. There’s an ongoing debate taking place about what will work and what won’t—everywhere from the United Nations to the streets of the West Bank, where teenagers argue about whether to throw rocks at Israeli Defense Forces soldiers. The question that remains, though, is whether what’s happening now is bringing the cause together or pushing it apart.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is in the Netherlands lobbying for UN recognition of Palestine’s independence, while the US Senate has threatened to cut off aid to the territories if they continue pursuing the measure. But even Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is doubtful that the measure would accomplish anything, other than further disappointing his people and antagonizing their opponent. Israel, he insists, needs to be involved for any real change to take place. “Unless Israel is part of that consensus,” he says, “it won’t.”
Meanwhile, the latest Freedom Flotilla remains stuck in Greece, while Israel has been doing all it can to discredit it and prevent the intended voyage from happening. (See Kathy Kelly’s dispatch from Greece here at Waging Nonviolence.) The US has apparently pre-approved a violent reaction on the part of Israel against American citizens. Even some Gazans are concerned that the Flotilla won’t do them any good. Gazan media activist Mohammad Abu Asaker recently told me that actions like these might only be strengthening the hand of Hamas and its violent, failing tactics. “It is only the government in Gaza that gets the advantage of the media coverage from the Flotilla,” he said. “The people remain under the blockade, suffering.” Instead, he thinks, ships should be sent to the Knesset, and to the Capitol in Washington, DC, where policies are being made.
Back in the West Bank, thanks to peaceful protest, the IDF has finally begun rerouting the wall at Bil’in, which cut off the people who live there from their farmland. But in Bil’in, where nonviolent methods won a local victory, the Australian National reports that there’s no consensus:
Mr Abu Rahme admits that not everyone believes in the usefulness of peaceful marches. Many youth protesters throw stones at Israeli soldiers, provoking barrages of rubber-coated bullets, tear gas and a foul-smelling chemical spray called Skunk. “People have different opinions about non-violence but now, non-violence is important,” he said. “It’s our only option.”
As if to confirm this, a striking headline appeared yesterday in the Israeli paper Haaretz, quoting an IDF officer: “IDF has no way of stopping mass non-violent protest in West Bank“:
“A non-violent protest of 4,000 people or more, even if they only march to a checkpoint or a settlement, and especially if the Palestinian police does not deter them, will be unstoppable,” one IDF officer claims. “Such a great number of determined people cannot be stopped by tear gas and rubber bullets.”
Another high ranking IDF official serving in the territories claimed that “if we are to face protests similar to those in Egypt or Tunisia, we will not be able to do a thing.”
So far, however, Tahrir Square-style unified protests haven’t caught on in Gaza or the West Bank. As is the intention of Israeli occupation policy, the opposition is divided. Mohammad Abu Asaker reminded me that it isn’t just the Israelis who benefit from keeping Palestinians split. “Both Fatah and Hamas leaders are undermining the youth nonviolent resistance,” he said. “Both parties feel threatened by a youth movement calling for unity.”
Members of the establishment on all sides seem to have discovered that division is in their interest. But, that way, the cause of Palestinian freedom is going to have a hard time succeeding.
This post is rather ignorant of the major successes and setbacks of the Palestinian resistance movement.
The wall in Bil’in was moved back, but was by no means fully removed, and I’m pretty certain that the people will continue to protest there, if not harder recognizing that their efforts DO make a difference.
In the lead-up to the flotilla, Israel approved construction materials for 18 schools and 1200 homes to enter into Gaza, in addition to the entrance of 19 trucks worth of medicines into Gaza. This proves that Israel recognizes that Gaza doesn’t have enough of these resources and that the acquisition of these resources is in no way a threat to Israel. Yet what Palestinians are calling for is the self-determination to acquire these materials without Israeli approval – that is what the Flotilla is about (http://mondoweiss.net/2011/06/israel-proves-that-flotillas-work.html).
In direct contradiction to what you say, Nathan, Rami Khouri at the Daily Star, a Lebanese paper, writes that IT ALL WORKS. And in fact, it isn’t about having just one effort (Tahrir didn’t just happen), but about sustained political pressure on many different fronts that challenges the legitimacy of Israel according to international law.
His very poignant article is here: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2011/Jun-29/A-new-Palestinian-strategy-unfolds.ashx#axzz1Qm24nrMT
And let me just add that anything that Salaam Fayyad says is a bad idea is probably a good idea.
Thanks for the comment, Matt—and by the way I really like your photography. I appreciate your points, and your optimism. I agree that, to an extent, all of these actions are a step in the right direction. The question, though, is whether they’re part of a long-term strategy that can bring about meaningful and decisive change, or whether they’ll get muddled in the same infighting as so many other false starts over the past half-century.
It is really interesting to see how Rami Khouri’s article reads all these indicators in the opposite way that I do. Thanks for alerting me to that piece. But my recent conversations with people from Gaza, and an activist who was present at one of the recent border skirmishes that Khouri mentions, suggested to me that there isn’t really the sensation of a unified front forming. Rather, it seemed to them like various leaders are trying to take advantage of the situation for their own benefit in ways that bring harm to ordinary people—as the deaths in the border skirmishes suggest.
I certainly hope, though, that Khouri is right.
And, of course, the deal forming between Fatah and Hamas is a positive sign.
A movement that appears “divided” from one viewpoint may look diverse from another. A unified effort is by definition more focused than a movement with many strands. Yet many of history’s most effective struggles for change have had room for, and benefited from, people embracing a range of tactics and strategies in the service of one overarching goal. During the height of the U.S. movement for racial equality, for example, I stood on the side of nonviolent resistance, as I do today. But I was also vividly aware of the degree to which those who rejected nonviolence in principle if not in practice–from the Nation of Islam to the Black Panthers–increased the movement’s visibility and reach and, possibly, its effectiveness.