On December 10^th 2009, in a small village of Bil’in, north of Ramallah in the West Bank, the home of 39-year-old school teacher Abdallah Abu Rahmah was raided by Israeli military forces who blindfolded and tightly fastened his hands together with zip tie cuffs. Frightened and confused, his wife and three children could only watch as he was hauled out of his home into the cold winter night and taken away in one of the seven military jeeps.

Almost nine-months later, having been imprisoned in weather-beaten tents at the Ofer military detention camp, prosecutors (failing to provide a single piece of documentary evidence) convinced a military courtroom to convict Abdallah Abu Rahmah for his involvement in coordinating “illegal” weekly marches and “incitement” with the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements. These charges, although unreasonable, are not as ridiculous as the ones he was acquitted on, which were taking Israeli tear gas grenades and canisters (weapons that recently killed activist Basem Abu Rahma and have injured others) to create an artistic peace sign.

Protests against the conviction have already begun with large gatherings outside Bil’in where many waved Palestinian flags and yelled out the injustice in Arabic and Hebrew. Israeli soldiers hiding behind clouds of suffocating smoke and ballistic shields regrouped to drive off the demonstrators.

Since 2004, Abdallah Abu Rahmah has organized and led Bil’in demonstrations with the grassroots movement Bil’in Popular Committee that pushes for nonviolent resistance against the illegal fence/wall and the Israeli occupation. These nonviolent movements have become inviolable and more widespread in the West Bank over the years. Despite human rights violations, Israeli soldiers continue to arrest, kidnap, torture, threaten with deportation or even kill those who demonstrate for self-determination.

Within a country that speaks to Palestinians with firearms, bulldozers, and land encroaching, Abdallah Abu Rahmah has been lauded by many as the “Palestinian Gandhi” for his devotion to maintaining a nonviolent stance as he leads the movement. But now Abdallah Abu Rahmah is facing up to 10 years imprisonment for “legitimately exercising [his] right to freedom of expression in opposing the Israeli fence/wall,” according to Amnesty International.

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Earlier this month, New Yorkers won a nine-month moratorium from the state Senate on the dangerous and highly-polluting drilling practice known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” The inspiring story of civic action that led to this decision is told by Maura Stephens in a recently published piece by Yes! Magazine.

Many fighting this battle had never before been involved in political issues. But after seeing the impacts of fracking around the country or in their own daily lives, they got active.

They organized and attended forums, panels, meetings, and rallies—sometimes alongside public figures like actor Mark Ruffalo and singer-songwriter Pete Seeger. Day after day, thousands of people called state senate and assembly offices to pressure for the moratorium. Achieving it was a first-round victory beyond expectations—a small but important win.

With their air, water, land, properties, communities, and health on the line, residents have made the campaign a priority, often sacrificing family time, leisure time, and sleep to keep abreast of developments and share information. “The petrochemical-industrial complex is stealing our land and our health,” says New York resident and architect Joe Levine. “Life as we know it will change forever if we don’t stop them.”

Levine has a home near the New York State border in Damascus, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Jane Cyphers, and their two daughters. The family has turned over their lives to this issue since they were first approached by gas companies wanting to lease their land. They soon realized that their beloved Delaware River would be imperiled by drilling. Levine cofounded Damascus Citizens, a grassroots group made up of people who are fighting to keep the Delaware safe from fracking. Their influence, and the experiences of the town of Dimock, Pennyslvania, inspired Josh Fox to make the documentary Gasland.

Sullivan County, New York, resident Larysa Dyrszka, a retired pediatrician, has also taken on the role of state-level activist for the first time.

“Nobody thought drilling would really come here, to a populated area, with technology that couldn’t ensure against harmful effects to our drinking water and health,” says Dyrszka. “Little did we know it was already happening in Texas and Colorado and in other populated areas.”

Together with her friends and neighbors, Dyrszka started SACRED—Sullivan Area Citizens for Responsible Energy Development. On January 25, Dyrszka joined hundreds of New Yorkers from all corners of the state to lobby their representatives in Albany—many, like Dyrszka, for the first time.

“I was hooked,” Dyrszka says. “Now, whenever Roger [Downs, of the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter] or Katharine [Nadeau, of EANY] or any fellow foot-soldier groups suggest a lobby day, I’m there.”

For months, Dyrszka and her fellow activists continued building relationships by phone, e-mail, and in person with legislative staff, sending them scientific, health, legal, economic, and other information on fracking.

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As Russia’s forests go up in flames, a group of activists and environmentalists is struggling to protect one of Moscow’s few remaining green belts and stands of old growth oaks. This time the threat isn’t wildfires but rather a 10-lane super highway that would link Moscow and St. Petersburg. The campaign to prevent the road from passing through the 2,500-acre Khimki forest, a long protected reserve just outside of Moscow, began in 2007. Since then journalists and editors investigating the story have been attacked (one nearly beaten to death), environmental activists have been arrested, and European investors—including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB)—have begun to question the viability of the project. Recently efforts to halt the construction of the highway and leveling of the forest have escalated.

In late July, Khimki’s administrative building was attacked by a group of anarchists and anti-fascists, while activists who had set up a camp in the forest were detained and arrested. Then, on Sunday, Moscow police and security forces broke up a rally and concert in defense of Khimki that attracted perhaps as many as 2,000 supporters.

It is difficult to hold rallies in Moscow. Obtaining a permit is a bit like playing the lottery; your chances are slim and subject to the whims of the city’s Mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, who, over the course of his 18-year rule has come to run the city like a fiefdom. He is particularly non-plussed by gay rights campaigners and has denied them the right to march in Moscow year after year. So getting 2,000 people out onto the streets in defense of a public forest is no small feat. Like Lake Baikal in the 1960s, Khimki has become the symbol of a rejuvenated Russian environmental movement, one that has largely relied on civil disobedience and non-violent protest to achieve its goals.

The face of the new movement is Yevgenia Chirikova, a 33-year-old mother of two with degrees in business and engineering. She and her husband moved to Khimki in 1998 for many of the same reasons that any young family would: It is quiet, clean, and close to a large public green space. (It is worth noting that Moscow is one of the most polluted, congested, dangerous, and expensive cities in the world.)

In 2007, when Chirikova and her husband noticed large swaths of trees marked with red x’s they were naturally concerned and did some digging. They soon found out that the forest had been sold to a Russian company, Avtodor, a spin-off of the Transport Ministry, and would be cleared to build a massive highway. The work had been sub-contracted to a French company, Vinci, and most of the financing was to come from international bodies.

The residents of Khimki were largely unaware of what was happening; the project had been kept completely under wraps. An engineer by trade, Chirikova thought it was odd that the administration had decided to build the road in this particular spot. Why build a highway that has to conform to the irregularities of a forest when there are simpler, more direct, and perhaps even less expensive routes?

“It was totally obvious that it was simply a backroom deal to begin [property] development in our oak forest,” Chirikova recently told Radio Free Europe.

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Over at Mondoweiss, which I’ve recently discovered has perhaps the most thorough coverage of nonviolent action challenging the occupation of Palestine, there is a post today announcing a big victory for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign:

The Norwegian government has divested its pension fund of two Leviev companies that build settlements in the occupied West Bank on the grounds that the international community regards territory east of the ’67 line as occupied.

• Singing choruses of “we shall not be moved” while scattering sunflower seeds, 14 activists were arrested in Kansas City on Monday after blocking an earth moving vehicle on the site of a proposed nuclear weapons manufacturing facility.

• Last Friday, around 35 Palestinians demonstrated against Hallamish settlement with around 15 Israeli and international peace activists in the village of An Nabi Salih.

• German workers on Tuesday protested against what their union says are plans by the country’s central bank to have euro banknotes printed by foreign companies.

• Some Pakistani flood victims blocked highways to demand government help on Tuesday.

• Three television channels in Ukraine went on strike on Saturday in protest of steadily increasing pressure on media in Ukraine, with hundreds of other journalists declaring readiness to join the action.

• Students from various schools and universities in the Philippines traded the four corners of their classrooms for the streets last Friday to join the National Youth Walkout and appeal for more government support for the education sector.

• On Monday, hundreds of protesters started a sit-in outside the legislature, fueled by mounting anger over the government’s cross-strait policies and the expected passage of a controversial trade agreement with China later this week.

• The 19-day long protest in Bolivia’s Potosi province was finally brought to an end with the protesters lifting the blockade of the airport and major roads after a deal was struck with the government.

• The entire team of Sri Lanka’s government wildlife vets has gone on strike amid mounting controversy over an elephant conservation plan that has led to increased clashes between the animals and villagers.

• Men wearing face masks of British Prime Minister David Cameron gathered in London on Friday to call for a ban on the cloning of cattle for human consumption, following the discovery of a cloned U.S. cow that was slaughtered and eaten in Britain.

• Two members of the environmental group Six Degrees climbed onto the roof of Queensland parliament house in Australia last week to display an anti-coal mining banner that read: “Don’t undermine our farms.” Meanwhile, hundreds of farmers and green activists staged a peaceful protest outside parliament.

• The “We Are Guahan” coalition in Guam gathered at a major intersection in Tamuning on Friday to protest the use of historic and ceremonial lands for military buildup.

• Some 150 protesters gathered outside a federal prison farm in Kingston, Ontario this morning to protest its closure. They say the government is ignoring the rehabilitative and healing effects that farming offers low-risk inmates.

• Up to 60 people have been camping out in front of the county government building in Santa Cruz since July Fourth to protest the city’s camping ban, which prohibits sleeping on public or private property from 11 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. But deputies rousted the homeless protest camp just after midnight Saturday, arresting five people and handing out 17 other misdemeanor citations.

• Workers who were fired by a Brooklyn kosher food producer after demanding overtime pay have been protesting outside the owner’s house and a supermarket this summer, and preparing for a return to the National Labor Relations Board this fall.

• Baristas and community supporters shut down a Starbucks in Omaha last week demanding that management reverse all cuts to healthcare, staffing, and benefits that have been imposed during the recession. The baristas claim that executives have no justification to squeeze working families with Starbucks raking in profits of $977.2 million in the past four fiscal quarters.

Time’s Up!, “NYC’s direct action environmental organization” (which also fought to save a Brooklyn bike lane earlier this year), is now organizing to protect New York’s community gardens, which may become vulnerable to development in September. The New York Times reports on how:

The bikes departed Tompkins Square, pedaled by men and women dressed in 21st-century thrift-store versions of 18th-century garb. There were tricorn hats, vests and, in a few cases, shirts with long, flowing sleeves. Many of the bicycles were decorated with cardboard cutouts in the shape of a horse’s head. One man rang a bell. Others shouted to passers-by on Avenue B, calling out, “The bulldozers are coming.”

The procession was modeled, of course, on Paul Revere’s nighttime ride to Lexington, Mass., in 1775. But the riders on Thursday night meant to warn people not about an invading military force, but about proposed rules by the city that would alter the status of hundreds of community gardens.

[…] They rode from garden to garden in the East Village to spread news of the rules, then ventured uptown to deliver a message to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

One perhaps can’t help but wonder whether these activists might have gotten the Revolution-era motif from the Tea Party, a movement not exactly known for dedication to the environment. What is it—tribute or reclamation? Or neither?

Time’s Up! has more in store. The Times continues:

Some gardeners said the ride was the first in a series of events meant to sway opinion in favor of explicitly preserving the gardens. Members of a citywide gardening group are encouraging people to bring signs and banners on Aug. 10 to a public comment session for the new rules. Some gardeners said they would deliver fruit and vegetables from gardens to the mayor and members of the City Council on Monday.

The Time’s Up! website describes two upcoming actions, one of which is this morning:

• Harvest Day Rally at City Hall (in conjunction with other garden groups’ press conference) August 2nd – 10 or 11 am (Monday) (exact time and location TBA)

• Proposed Rules Public Hearing/Rally – Let’s rally around the hearing and let them know how we feel about saving our community gardens! Bring instruments and props – be creative! August 10, 10:30 a.m. rally before 11 am public hearing (Tuesday) Chelsea Rec center, 430 W. 25th Street, Manhattan

Bicycle protesters have sometimes been accused of being overly aggressive and disruptive of traffic, but here the mood seems to have remained positive, declaring the good that these gardens do for the city. I experienced this at least twice today: eating lunch at a restaurant in my neighborhood in Brooklyn that serves garden-grown food and then, on a bike ride no less, discovering the large community garden at Floyd Bennett Field where an elderly immigrant couple happily showed my friend and me their day’s harvest of beautiful tomatoes.

• Members of the youth climate group Consequence hosted a Big Oil Carnival for Senate staffers on the steps of Union Station in Washington DC on Tuesday. The event was complete with oil-themed games, Tony Hayward clowns, a stilt walking Uncle Sam and a message to the Senate: “Stop playing games with our clean energy future.”

• Greenpeace U.K. shut down at least 30 BP stations in London on Tuesday, fanning out to as many as 50 BP stations and posting banners that said, “Closed: Moving beyond petroleum.” They also pulled safety switches that cut off fuel supplies at the stations — and removed the switches so they couldn’t be turned back on again.

• Four supporters of the federal DREAM Act stood before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in full cap and gowns at a Netroots Nation luncheon in Las Vegas last week to protest his lack of conviction on a bill that would allow a pathway to citizenship for undocumented youth.

• An animal rights activist was arrested in Jordan’s capital on Sunday after covering herself in lettuce in a square along one of Amman’s trendiest streets. She held a placard reading “Let vegetarianism grow on you.”

• Rights activists, including celebrities such as Bianca Jagger and actors from James Cameron’s film Avatar, gathered outside the venue of the annual general meeting of the mining company Vedanta in London on Wednesday to protest its controversial plans to mine tribal land in the Orissa region of India.

• Eight people were arrested during a sit-in staged by the direct action group GetEqual in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday as part of an effort to push for a vote on the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, which would outlaw workplace discrimination based sexual orientation and gender identity.

• 15 people from a small town in North Queensland, Australia blocked a coal export terminal by camping on it for two nights to protest pollution and noise from the coal trains that pass through the town 15 times a day.

Last month, on the streets of Otavolo, Ecuador, around three thousand peaceful marchers participated with the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) in protest of the Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA). With eight presidents of the countries involved at ALBA, CONAIE tried to deliver a communiqué asking why they weren’t invited to participate on behalf of the indigenous tribes.

More importantly, CONAIE’s demonstration was to focus on the government’s approach to neoliberal policies that only enriches themselves and foreign companies while impoverishing others. The CONAIE, like many other indigenous tribes protecting their lives and Pachamama (Mother Earth), protest against one of their most difficult opponents—global production.

To counter the Ecuadorian government’s unfriendly policies, CONAIE demands to be recognized as a sixth level of government. They want the ability to debate and veto the neoliberal business decisions that are aimed at damaging their territory.

These damages are done by the government’s allowance of Canadian mining companies coming into indigenous areas to exploit minerals on a large-scale (a gigantic open-pit copper mine), privatize water (forty-five percent of Ecuador’s water is under private control) and oil extraction in the Amazon. This would further displace communities, bring about deforestation, dry up or contaminate rivers, destroy the pristine landbase they’re dependent on and deteriorate the health of those living in the area.

In ongoing attempts to demonize CONAIE, the group and its members have been falsely marked as “terrorists” by Ecuador’s four-year President Rafael Correa on suspicion of trying to overthrow the government. A recent case of this supposed “terrorist” activity involved people breaking “through a police line” while marching at the ALBA summit and “allegedly” taking “a pair of handcuffs.” Somehow the theft and destruction of land and killings of indigenous people by the government doesn’t make it into this reality.

CONAIE resistance has consisted of hunger strikes, demonstrations, roadblocks and open negotiations with Ecuadorian government officials. Despite president Correa’s so-called progressive stance, his government tries to divide and dismantle the indigenous movement. In a Reuters interview, Correa dismissed those who resist as “‘infantile’ leftists, environmentalists and indigenous groups unwilling to modernize,” and says “The ecologists who say ‘no mines, don’t use non-renewable resources [petroleum].’ That’s like being a beggar while sitting on a sack of gold.”

Last year, while speaking to hundreds of Ecuadorians, President Correa clearly stated that he would not tolerate roadblocks: “With this law in hand, we will not allow these abuses, we will not allow uprisings, roadblocks, attacks on private property, or obstacles to an activity (mining) that is legal and that is being regulated.”

His concern over the roadblocks effectiveness has been demonstrated. In 2006, paramilitaries deployed by Falericorp (a communication equipment company) hired by Copper Mesa Mining (formerly known as Ascendant Copper Corporation) and possibly with the support of the Ecuadorian and Canadian government, invaded the Intag valley in Ecuador seeking concessions. During their entry into Intag, the hired guns were met by a peaceful blockade of villagers and a single-linked chain on the narrow Junin dirt road. A sign posted on a nearby tree read: “Mining companies are prohibited here. We don’t sell our land, we defend it.”

Without warning and unprovoked, the gunmen used pepper spray and then fired their weapons at the defenseless villagers. Although villagers were injured, they did not back down from the violent attacks. The thugs, stunned by the villager’s defiance, instead retreated themselves. Afterwards, 56 of the gunmen were held under citizen’s arrest until local authorities arrived. This eventually led to a peaceful takeover of the paramilitary’s camp in Chalguayacu Bajo and permanently stopped Copper Mesa Mining concessions.

However, events like this have altered how President Correa politically and strategically approaches the CONAIE and the indigenous tribes that are aligned with them. Correa excludes CONAIE and indigenous communities from constitutional state rights (contrary to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Correa doesn’t acknowledge CONAIE demands), and recently approved the New Ecuadorian Mining Law that lifted a ban on mining and labeled members from CONAIE as terrorist. This not only gives the government more excuses to arrest and prosecute, but to employ the use of lethal force.

In response to Correa’s tactics Marlon Santi who heads CONAIE remains optimistic and says that the movement will not become violent. CONAIE continues collective leadership instead of caudillismo (big man leadership), garners media attention to support their progressive protests and involves indigenous people, teachers, students, leftist and socialist movements. While only making up twenty percent of the population, indigenous people are the ones that President Correa should be representing, not the business elite who are the source of their corruption and deterioration. The structure that traditional indigenous tribes march for will help save Ecuador from becoming another country that cannibalizes itself in the name of economic prestige.

• In North Carolina, a thousand marchers from the state NAACP, local churches, student groups and civil rights organizations took to downtown Raleigh streets on Tuesday morning, rallying at the State Capitol to protest the dismantling of a Wake school diversity policy they believe will lead to de facto resegregation. Afterwards, nineteen protesters, including the leader of the North Carolina NAACP, were arrested at Wake County school headquarters in an act of civil disobedience.

• On Saturday, an estimated 2,000 farmers in Taiwan began their protest against government expropriation of their land and spent the night on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building. They turned part of the wide road into a field by rolling out patches covered with plants while also paying their respects to farming deities.

• About 150 Jordanian activists demonstrated before the Egyptian embassy in Amman on Tuesday to protest Cairo’s refusal to allow a humanitarian convoy to reach the besieged Gaza Strip.

• On Monday, hundreds of teachers, councilors and pupils have protested over the axing of England’s school rebuilding programme. Led by trade unions, the Save Our Schools lobby urged ministers to reconsider the move which led to the halting of 735 school projects.

• Former employees of the closed Amonsito factory in Cairo have ended their sit-in, following Wednesday’s tentative agreement for overdue early retirement payment to the workers from Banque Misr, the factory’s creditor.

• In Greece, 170 migrants detained in the Samos detention camp started a collective hunger strike in an effort to stop their deportation.

• Starting last Wednesday, thousands of people in eastern China protested for at least five days against local authorities which they accuse of withholding land compensation.

• In Chile, more than 20 Mapuche political prisoners began a hunger strike Monday. The prisoners, jailed in Concepción and Temuco, took note of the recent prisoner releases in Cuba and began the strike in hope that President Sebastián Piñera would take notice.

• More than a thousand nurses wearing red scrubs gathered outside California Republican gubernatorial nominee and nurses union foe Meg Whitman last Thursday to protest her vow to cut the state’s nurse-to-patient ratios and fire health workers.

• More than 100 indigenous activists and supporters marched past the Ministry of Forests offices and the Ministry of Environment office in Smithers, British Columbia on Friday to protest plans for a pipeline that will carry tar sands crude to ports off the west coast of Canada.

• Members of the Ukrainian feminist group FEMEN gathered on the Independence Square in Kiev where they stripped down and bathed in a public fountain to protest hot water cut offs in the capital and rising tariffs for housing and utilities services.

• A fenced-in lot at 7th and R Streets in DC has become home to a tent city as local residents protest the building of high-income apartments, where the city had once promised to build affordable housing.

• A team of seven Washington women and men reached the summit of Mount Rainier on Friday to demand that Governor Chris Gregoire close the largest source of pollution in the state—a coal-fired plan in Centralia—by 2015.

• An estimated 2,000 farmers gathered in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taiwan on Saturday to protest the government expropriation of their land. They turned part of the wide road into a field by rolling out patches covered with plants while also paying their respects to farming deities.

• Former employees of the closed Amonsito factory in Egypt ended their sit-in, following last Wednesday’s tentative agreement for overdue early retirement payment.

• 300 people gathered at Queen’s Park in Toronto ono Saturday to call for a G20 police inquiry and the right to blow bubbles. The latter was in response to an officer caught on tape threatening to arrest a G20 protester for blowing bubbles.

The International Solidarity Movement posted a video (above) of a “dance protest” in Hebron last Saturday – where three dancers playing the role of soldiers searching three Palestinians – as a response to the YouTube video of Israeli soldiers dancing near the illegal settlement of Tel-Rumeida.

They performed in front of the gate that closes off Shuhada street and prohibits all Palestinians from using it. The demonstrators called for justice and the opening of Shuhada street, and for the inhabitants of illegal Israeli settlements to leave the city and take the soldiers with them.

The demonstration, held weekly on a Saturday afternoon, then turned and paraded through the town. As they approached the market the peaceful protesters’ path was blocked by a line of soldiers armed with M-16 rifles – some of whom were seen kicking and hitting protesters. After a short sit-in the protest continued by turning around and heading towards the Old City.

Israeli activists gave speeches in Hebrew aimed at soldiers and settlers, calling for an end to the Apartheid situation in Hebron. One settler living in a house from which Palestinians were evicted threw water down on protesters but this did not dampen their spirits. Palestinians and international activists chanted together: “One two three four, occupation no more, five six seven eight, stop the killing, stop the hate.”

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof writes this week about the growing trend toward self-conscious nonviolent resistance among Palestinians against Israeli occupation. But he is also quick to point out its shortcomings, as in his account of one action in Bilin:

Most of the marchers were Palestinians, but some were also Israeli Jews and foreigners who support the Palestinian cause. They chanted slogans and waved placards as photographers snapped photos. At first the mood was festive and peaceful, and you could glimpse the potential of this approach.

But then a group of Palestinian youths began to throw rocks at Israeli troops. That’s the biggest challenge: many Palestinians define “nonviolence” to include stone-throwing.

Kristof, often sensitive to matters of gender, points out that women may be leading the charge toward a truly nonviolent resistance in Palestine:

But imagine if Palestinians stopped the rock-throwing and put female pacifists in the lead. What if 1,000 women sat down peacefully on a road to block access to an illegal Jewish settlement built on Palestinian farmland? What if the women allowed themselves to be tear-gassed, beaten and arrested without a single rock being thrown? Those images would be on televisions around the world — particularly if hundreds more women marched in to replace those hauled away.

He tells of one case in which a women’s movement was successful:

Most Palestinian demonstrations are overwhelmingly male, but in Budrus women played a central role. They were led by Mr. Morrar’s quite amazing daughter, Iltezam Morrar. Then 15, she once blocked an Israeli bulldozer by diving in front of it (the bulldozer retreated, and she was unhurt).

Israeli security forces knew how to deal with bombers but were flummoxed by peaceful Palestinian women. Even when beaten and fired on with rubber bullets, the women persevered. Finally, Israel gave up. It rerouted the security fence to bypass nearly all of Budrus.

While it may be that women will play a pivotal role in future nonviolent action in Palestine, men can do it too. If Palestinians, truly want to make progress—and galvanize international opinion—against Israeli power, they should follow the lead of these women and men calling for unyielding, courageous, nonviolent resistance. If they want to continue making matters worse, they can keep throwing rocks and launching rockets.

As the World Cup began in South Africa on Friday, Palestinians from the town of Bil’in formed a “national football team” and marched, along with dozens of Israeli and international activists, to the separation wall.

Sporting Palestinian uniforms, the players erected a goal next to the wall and began playing. After kicking several soccer balls over the fence to land that was once owned by the village, Israeli soldiers responded as they have in the past, by fired tear gas at the participants. According to the Friends of Freedom and Justice – Bil’in:

They then came through the fence, and arrested 6 journalists, four of whom were soon released… The tear gas canisters fired also caused large fires on the dry ground around the olive trees. Soldiers fired more canisters, aiming for the groups of villagers attempting to put out the flames.

While Ahlul Bayt News Agency said that the nonviolent protesters “did nothing but kick footballs,” the video above clearly shows that several of the youth involved did unfortunately throw rocks as well.

If you’re looking for an explanation of why Israel acts the way it does, look no further than this quote by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak:

“We live in the Middle East, in a place where there is no mercy for the weak and there aren’t second chances for those who don’t defend themselves,” he was quoted by Haaretz newspaper as saying.

For most people this is either an ideology you embrace (though, hopefully not) or one that simply causes you to look away in disgust. But such a polarizing stance deserves to be understood. What could possibly make someone think this? And more importantly, what can we do to change it?

A good answer to both questions can be found in a recent talk by Palestinian nonviolence leader Sami Awad produced by the Compassionate Listening Project. Awad, who is also the founding director of the Holy Land Trust—a Bethlehem based nonviolence organization—described a visit to Auschwitz, where he witnessed many Israeli youth on a government-funded trip become politicized by an ideology of fear that says, “if given the opportunity, the Muslims, the Palestinians, and the Arabs would do the same thing” to them as what happened to their grandparents. The only way to prevent this, they are told, is to join the Army and support the State.

While Awad does not discount the very real fear posed by what happened during the Holocaust, he is wary of leaders who exploit that fear and worse yet, the world at large, which has ignored it by giving Israel billions of dollars in military aid every year, plus a free-reign political mandate. He says, it’s up to the Palestinians to break Isreal from its culture of fear because “Palestinians are the closest thing to the Israeli Jewish community that can engage in actions and activities that provide an opportunity for healing.” This, he believes, is happening already, as more and more Palestinians embrace nonviolence.

Coincidentally, Awad published a piece in Foreign Policy magazine yesterday that explains the shift in attitude towards nonviolence among the Palestinian leadership.

We are now witnessing a rise in the choice of nonviolence. When the gap was created with the Israeli government refusing to engage in real negotiations, Palestinian leaders began to search for what options were available to them and their community. This is what the Palestinian community engages in on a daily bases, this is what keeps resiliency and steadfastness alive in a community that is literally facing destruction (most acutely suffered in the ongoing siege on Gaza). When leaders looked, they found this value being practiced in villages across the West Bank; they saw people from different political backgrounds unite together in order to save their villages; they saw men and women walk as equals; they saw communities that were empowered to stand and face the harshest of violent responses from the Israeli military; they saw Israelis and internationals join Palestinians in their struggle. As a result, these leaders began to see the value of nonviolence, not only for their limited political survival, but also for the nation of Palestine.

Beyond the mere strategic power of nonviolence, however, is its systemic culture-shifting potential, which going back to Awad’s talk, is ultimately what he’s after. As he put it, ever so bluntly, “Any political solution that doesn’t address the fear within Israeli society will not last.”