As I mentioned the other day in my post about Obama’s Cairo speech, there’s a misguided notion that the Palestinians know nothing of nonviolence. The Jewish Daily Forward, in an editorial it ran on Wednesday, is the latest to make this mistake:
For years, many have wondered why Palestinians have not adopted the tactics of nonviolence from the American civil rights movement, and here Obama gave public voice to that point, without qualification.
Meanwhile, according to the Palestinian News Network:
An Israeli military court is trying a leader of the Palestinian nonviolent resistance for organizing just that; nonviolent resistance to occupation.
Azmi Al Shoukhi is the General Secretary of the Palestinian Popular Committees and he, along with four fellow nonviolent organizers are being tried in Israeli military court. The arrests took place during the weekly nonviolent demonstrations in southern Bethlehem, cushioned between the killings of two Palestinian demonstrators in western Ramallah’s Bil’in and Na’lin.
[…]
He was arrested for participating in a nonviolent demonstration against the Israeli Wall and settlements in the West Bank.
This information was not, to the best of my knowledge, picked up by any western English-language media.