World Report

June 2011 Applying Nonviolence Instead of Terrorism in Palestine:

Exploring Reasons for Failure in the Past and Methods for Success in the Future by Matthew Bishop I: Thesis/Abstract

This paper presents and then builds on a series of arguments and assessments regarding nonviolence theory, specifically that nonviolence is in general a better means to an end than violence, that nonviolence as a substitute for terrorism must be met with nonviolence as a substitute for the structural violence giving rise to terrorism, and that patterns of violence exist in self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating cycles. Considering these truths in the specific case of Palestinian protests against Israeli abuses, this paper then argues that although Palestinian nonviolence does succeed in some short-term areas, in order for a nonviolent movement to succeed in the long-term-- that is, in order for real and lasting policy change to occur-- the nonviolent movement must take place in an environment of political fairness and, more importantly, earn the attention and sympathy of an international community which is in a position to change policies directly or to change policies by exerting influence upon the state perceived to be the enemy of the nonviolent movement. Ultimately, the failure of nonviolence and occasional resort to terrorism results from one thing: The lack of belief that nonviolence can succeed. This condition, the lack of belief, comes about primarily as a result of one overwhelming factor: the lack of fair and sympathetic media coverage-- a factor which also enables

states to continue repressive policies toward Palestine. The real ability for Palestinian nonviolent protests to succeed therefore begins with reporters.

II: The Prospects of Nonviolence versus Violence: A Summary

There are innumerable reasons why one should consider nonviolence as more important, more successful, more strategic, more acceptable, and more right than violent action. This realization must begin with the acknowledgement that violent actions and reactions reinforce and perpetuate one another, and in a similar way systems of state violence or oppression work to reinforce terrorist activities which in turn justify that state violence or oppression. Terrorists rely on an overreaction of the perceived enemy against the terrorist's population to gain sympathy among the terrorist's peers and also among populations abroad. Similarly, states oppressing populations and provoking terrorism rely on terrorist acts to justify their own institutions of structural violence and to justify policies which, outside of a wartime-like environment, could not be seen as acceptable and necessary. This mutual relationship is self-perpetuating.1 "Terrorist attacks are always shocking," says the Dalai Lama, "but avenging them by going to war is unrealistic and inappropriate."2 This paper agrees with that statement and asserts the idea that counter-terrorism should focus on the "intentions and purposes"

Senthil Ram and Ralph Summy, "Nonviolent Counter to Global Terror(ism) and Paradigms of CounterTerrorism". Nonviolence: An Alternative for Defeating Global Terrorism. Ed. Senthil Ram and Ralph Summy (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2008); Piero P. Giorgi, "The Origins of Violence: New Ideas and New Explanations Affecting Terrorism". Nonviolence: An Alternative for Defeating Global Terrorism. Ed. Ram, Senthil and Summy, Ralph (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2008)
2

The Dalai Lama. "Foreword". Nonviolence: An Alternative for Defeating Global Terrorism. Ed. Ram, Senthil and Summy, Ralph (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2008)

of the terrorist and the underlying causes of terrorism.3 By doing so, the causes of terrorism should be largely eliminated and remaining terrorists marginalized and left without wide bases of support. At the same time, these efforts result in more stable states which are more capable of dealing with terrorism in a nonviolent manner. Approaching counter-terrorism in a nonviolent manner requires funding and proper direction of funds within states plagued by terrorism to promote social, economic, political, and civic standings and rights, and to ensure that terrorist grievances are heard.4 But this paper argues that more important than any of this is the presence of a media forum where terrorist sympathies and grievances are heard. As these are very broad, complicated, and long-term goals, we must view the nonviolent approach to counter-terrorism as a long and lasting process which will require the cooperation both of individual sovereign states and of international bodies, and of individual actors in positions of potential power. While approaching counter-terrorism from the standpoint of nonviolence, one must also approach terrorism itself from a similar standpoint. This paper contends that nonviolent action does have greater potential than violent terrorism-- but in order for nonviolence to succeed, a number of factors must come in to play and a variety of circumstances must coincide. Obviously, the nonviolent action party must be aware of how nonviolence can succeed-- they must know how to utilize methods of nonviolent resistance correctly. That is to say that one must realize how to disrupt the oppressive

Ram, Senthil and Summy, Ralph. "Nonviolent Counter to Global Terror(ism) and Paradigms of CounterTerrorism". Nonviolence: An Alternative for Defeating Global Terrorism. Ed. Ram, Senthil and Summy, Ralph (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2008) 4 Ibid; Giorgi, Piero P. "The Origins of Violence: New Ideas and New Explanations Affecting Terrorism". Nonviolence: An Alternative for Defeating Global Terrorism. Ed. Ram, Senthil and Summy, Ralph (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2008); Alomes, Anna. "Searching for an Exit in the Corridor of Fear: Revisiting Gandhi and King in Times of Terror(ism)". Nonviolence: An Alternative for Defeating Global Terrorism. Ed. Ram, Senthil and Summy, Ralph (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2008)

potential or practices of the perceived enemy without giving the international community due reason to consider the nonviolent party themselves as the enemy. The nonviolent resistance must also grasp the attention of an influential international community or cause outrage against policies in the state of the perceived enemy, thereby forcing pressure upon the perceived enemy to change policies or negotiate.5 If a problem is left out of the view of the international community, it is too easy to respond to nonviolence with violent state terror. That is the critical problem in the case of Palestine. Some scholars have argued that terrorists rely on the "higher moral ground" of the counterterrorist-- that is, presuming that the counterterrorist will not resort to unrestricted violence.6 Problematic and narrow-minded as that concept is, we may, in fact, apply it to nonviolence: Nonviolent action as a substitute for terrorism relies very much on the ability of the oppressive state or perceived enemy to restrict their own use of force. The failure of the perceived enemy to do this results in massacres of civilian populations and a decrease in the faith of the people that nonviolence can succeed. An active international community is often required to assure that nonviolent actors do not become victims of the inability of the perceived enemy to restrain its usually-superior firepower. Lastly, the leaders of the terrorist/nonviolent action population must not become "tools" of the perceived enemy, and must not allow themselves to succumb to such things as bribes in exchange for power, thereby allowing themselves to become a part of the

Ibid; White, Ben. "Nonviolent Resistance: A Means, not an End". Electronic Intifada. < http://electronicintifada.net/content/nonviolent-resistance-means-not-end/7171>, Accessed April 28th, 2011. 6 Tamar Miesels, "Terrorism Can Never Be Justified" Debating Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Conflicting Perspectives on Causes, Contexts, and Responses, ed. Stuart Gottileb (DC: CQ Press, 2010)

structural violence systems which lead to violent terrorism.7 If this does occur the nonviolent movement will not only be directed against the perceived enemy state, but also against the state harboring the movement itself, as that state will essentially be held in the eyes of the people as a puppet of the perceived enemy state. This makes the nonviolent struggle exist on multiple levels and requires it to be directed against multiple governments, making the goal of success harder to attain.

III: Application to the Case of Palestine and Israel

Before measuring why Palestinian nonviolence has failed in the past, and how it might succeed in the future, we must first ascertain the goal of the nonviolence movement. For simplicity's sake we can say that the goal of a successful nonviolent movement should be the removal of policies which establish Palestine as a sort of colony of Israel. The conditions necessary for a Palestinian state are being completely eroded by Israeli policy.8 Therefore, for a two-state solution to ever succeed, the policies destroying Palestine must first be revoked. Likewise, should a one-state solution ever succeed, these same policies must be revoked in order for the one state to be meaningfully unified. The aim of a nonviolent movement, then, should be for Israel to rescind its harmful and oppressive system of apartheid in Palestine and to receive international attention, and, one may hope, genuine international aid to help in Palestinian reconstruction.

Ben White. "Nonviolent Resistance: A Means, not an End". Electronic Intifada. < http://electronicintifada.net/content/nonviolent-resistance-means-not-end/7171>(Accessed April 28th, 2011) 8 David Cronin, Europe's Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation (London: Pluto Press, 2011) 159

This September, the UN will decide if they will or will not officially recognize Palestine as in independent state and support the establishment of a completely independent Palestinian nation. The outcome of that decision will have enormous impacts on the ways in which nonviolent protests could succeed. With UN recognition, though mostly a symbolic act, nonviolent resistance in Palestine-- should Israeli abuses continue-- is much more likely to gain attention and succeed. Yet given the track record of US vetos, the most recent of which was in defiance of an enormous majority of states condemning Israeli settlement policy as illegal, it seems very unlikely that the United States will agree to recognize Palestine, espescially when they consider Hamas as a terrorist organization. For these reasons Hamas should not be a terrorist organization, and that is a critical step in the success of a nonviolent Palestinian movement-- that is, isolating the violent from the nonviolent. It is very difficult for nonviolent action to remain nonviolent when a state repeatedly responds with relentless violence, as is the case with Israel and Palestine. And yet, if the Palestinian nonviolent movement is to ever gain enough attention to succeed, it will need the support of Palestinian representatives, namely Hamas, at the expensive of their supporting violent movements. This is made harder by the belief shared by many officials and people that nonviolence cannot succeed. This belief exists historically across the Arab world-- that nonviolent methods cannot succeed. That notion has been challenged in recent decades, and most notably in recent months, across North Africa, the Arab Mediterranean, and the Levant. Right now, people are rising up through largely nonviolent means to achieve the ends of drastic government reform. In Egypt, the process is proving to be going quite well in some ways-- governors have been installed, for example, across the whole nation who have

historically been completely independent of the old NDP. Yet even as old patterns change, we must consider the historic doubts of Arabs in regards to nonviolence: That nonviolence leaves the nonviolent activist feeling like he or she has not accomplished something and keeps them yearning for more; that Arab nonviolence does not receive enough international attention to succeed; and that nonviolent resistance is ineffective in general and slow to bring reform and positive results.9 The first occurs because of the truth of the second and third. The third exists because of the truth of the second-- and that is the real reason why Palestinian nonviolence has failed in the past and one of the most pertinent reasons why it may continue to fail. International attention, sympathy, and action must be directed at Palestine in a way that it is not and has never been in the past in order for Palestinian nonviolent movements to succeed. The belief that nonviolence cannot succeed is the product both of Israeli violent responses to nonviolent protest and to international indifference and lack of awareness and action. That last one-- the lack of international acknowledgement and response, essentially-- is the core fault which prevents Palestinian nonviolence from succeeding and why it has failed in the past. During the first intifada, a large majority of Palestinian resistance was nonviolent.10 Yet this resistance failed-- where it did fail-- because international actors failed to recognize and report Palestinian nonviolent action as similar to the movements

Chaiwat Satha-Anand', "The Jahiliyya Factor? Fighting Muslims' Cultural Resistance to Nonviolence". Nonviolence: An Alternative for Defeating Global Terrorism. Ed. Ram, Senthil and Summy, Ralph. (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2008)
10

The estimate given by Dr. Mary King is that 85% of Palestinian resistance during the first intifada was in the form of nonviolent action. Mary King, "A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance". (Oct. 25th, 2011); Ben White. "Nonviolent Resistance: A Means, not an End". Electronic Intifada. < http://electronicintifada.net/content/nonviolent-resistance-means-not-end/7171> (Accessed April 28th, 2011)

led by Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr.11 In fact, the models used by Palestinian nonviolent actors during the first intifada were very similar to the models employed by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi-- it is the fact that international attention was not directed enough at depicting the Palestinian nonviolent actors as people with whom a wide international and US audience could empathize, and who they could support, that undermined the success of Palestinian nonviolent action. The US did momentarily shift its policies, but the shift was short-lived and not exceedingly meaningful.12 If nonviolent action is to succeed in the future, international coverage must be more pro-Palestinian, depict nonviolent action more fairly, and incite international action. Most notably, coverage of events in Palestine focuses overwhelmingly on violent resistance when, in fact, the vast majority of resistance has been and remains nonviolent.13 International reporters of the situation must make it a policy to devote stories and clips proportionate to the largely-nonviolent resistance that Palestinians partake in on a daily basis, and stop perpetuating the violent alternative by covering it almost exclusively instead of nonviolence. Seeing people as moderate and relatable to oneself is fundamental in feeling empathy toward a population. Images of terrorists, trumping those images of Palestinian protesters mowed down by bulldozers or shot in the stomach as they are hopping over a fence, are the images which dominate in international media. Should reporters begin covering and sympathizing with Palestinian nonviolent protests-- and begin covering
11

Mary King, "A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance" (Oct. 25th, 2011) 12 Ben White. "Nonviolent Resistance: A Means, not an End". Electronic Intifada. < http://electronicintifada.net/content/nonviolent-resistance-means-not-end/7171> (Accessed April 28th, 2011); Ramzy Baroud, The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (London: Pluto Press, 2006) 165 13 Ibid; Mary King, "A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance" (Oct. 25th, 2011)

them in a more coherent and comprehensive manner-- then popular sentiment should force politicians abroad to consider alternative actions. Stories like those of the American girl run over by the Israeli bulldozer while protesting the demolition of a Palestinian home need to receive much greater attention and investigation by American media outlets. Furthermore, if this happens the morale of the Palestinian people themselves should receive a boost, as lack of fair international coverage, especially from the West, remains the most fundamental reason for Palestinians' doubts of successful nonviolent movements and consequently the most basic reason why many Palestinians are still hesitant to partake in nonviolent resistance. The disproportionate coverage that terrorists receive, on the other hand, urges Palestinians to consider violence as a viable solution. Why else is this media attention so critical? First, because Israel does not want Palestinian nonviolence to succeed, and two, because government officials inside Palestine are often perceived as "bought out" by Israel and the West and so do not have the faith of their own constituents. It is the unwillingness of Palestinian and Israeli leaders to cooperate in a manner which leads to a sustainable peace which perpetuates cycles of violence on both sides. The leaders of Palestine-- most notably Mahmood Abbas-- are perceived by their constituents as tools of the West who do not really work in the best interest of the Palestinian people. Leaders in Israel, namely the more zealous contingents of the Shas party, are intent on illegal expansion and exploitation policies to strengthen Israel and weaken Palestine. Hamas, because of all the factors which act upon them and because of the perceived failure of nonviolence, refuse to renounce terrorism. The international community will hardly speak with Hamas until they do so.14 Israel, this whole time, continually suppresses nonviolent dissent by assassinating nonviolent leaders
14

Azzam Tamimi. Hamas: A History from Within (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2007)

swiftly, thus deterring others from joining the nonviolent movement.15 Meanwhile, just weeks ago after Fatah and Hamas concluded their deal in Cairo, Hamas reiterated their refusal to recognize Israel after Netanyahu stated that Abbas must choose between peace with Israel or peace with Hamas.16 All of these factors hugely contribute to the sense that nonviolent movements cannot succeed. Palestinians largely regard Abbas as someone who can be manipulated by Israel and the USA, and so nonviolent movements must be directed both at Abbas and at Israel and, at times, the United States as well. This results in the same sense of discouragement which the media perpetuates by covering almost exclusively the most violent and extremist-agenda of attacks and attackers. To sum all of that up, among leaders in Palestine and Israel there is virtually no motive for nonviolent resistance, and, conversely, very powerful motives to consider violent alternatives. For leaders, the problem is slightly different-- that is, the issue is that leaders cannot agree on terms or on what nonviolent or violent movements should aim to achieve in the first place. Many leaders in Israel consider all of Palestine as a part of Israel. Many leaders in Palestine consider all of Israel as a part of Palestine. Many leaders across both nations, conversely, wish to partition the two populations. The impatience and frustration of leaders in both lands leads oftentimes to a dismissal of nonviolent action and sometimes to an endorsement of violent activity. Nonviolent activity, one would conclude in this position, cannot bring about enough change in a short enough time to be considered viable.

15

See, for example, pages 26-30 in Ramzy Baroud, The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (London: Pluto Press, 2006) 16 "Fatah and Hamas Sign Reconciliation Deal". Aljazeera News. <http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/04/2011427152119845721.html>, April 27th, 2011 (Accessed April 27th, 2011)

That opinion prevails, oftentimes, for the same underlying reason that it does so among the Palestinian people: Palestinian leaders know that nonviolent actions will not receive the attention they require from the West. Without international coverage and international action, Palestine cannot succeed in a nonviolent movement while Israel remains uninterested in addressing the root causes of such a movement. It is perhaps a dark conclusion to reach that Palestinian nonviolent movements must either earn the support of Israel itself or of a powerful international community before they can really succeed and lead to the marginalization of Palestinian terrorist networks and the end of Israeli structural abuse. There are some examples of where Palestinian nonviolence has succeeded in the past, but in the long run Israel has not made any very significant policy changes because of that resistance. So that is the conclusion this paper must reach. To proclaim that the Palestinian nonviolence movement can succeed on its own would be unrealistic and inaccurate. The very belief among Palestinians that it can succeed is too absent, and that is a product of both Israeli and international oppression. Fixing this dilemma must begin with those responsible for shaping public opinion and so pressuring governments to respond to that opinion-- the media.

IV: Prospects of Continued Failure and the Role of Journalists Today and in the Future

The United States, in the past, has vetoed an enormous record of UN Resolutions seeking to condemn Israeli actions. The United States has ignored the Israeli murders of American, Italian, and British citizens, has vetoed a Resolution seeking to condemn the Israeli assassination of UN officials, has vetoed a Resolution condemning the Security

Wall as illegal, has vetoed a Resolution seeking to condemn Israeli settlement policy as illegal, and has vetoed a Resolution seeking to formally condemn IDF massacres of Palestinian civilian populations.17 Given this amazing record, it is very unlikely that the United States would not veto the upcoming Resolution this September for Palestinian independence as recognized by the UN, a statement which will be prepared and given by Mahmood Abbas. The continued failure of the UN to recognize Palestine will not harm it anymore than it has in the past, but it will deny the nonviolent movement an easy access channel to big-time media outlets and media sympathy. Legally, it would change things enormously-- but international law does not seem to matter in Palestine. The enforcement of UN Resolutions 147 and 242, and of the Fourth Geneva Conventions, should-- and in fact are-- at the top of the list of Palestinian protest demands. It is easy to take both a humanitarian-based and an international law-based defense of Palestinian protests. So why does our media not do this already? There are the family connections within The New York Times, the economic and political incentives generated by the government and groups like AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League, and there is the status quo, which itself remains a problem. But for independent bloggers, international journalists, and humanitarians, these are only small obstacles to overcome. In "the blogosphere" and all over independent media outlets online, sympathy for the Palestinian nonviolent movement is actually very commonly defended. Outlets like IMEMC and Oppressed Palestine, along with a number of Palestine-sympathetic Jewish organizations, publish daily news and events. Every day these outlets distribute stories of someone who has just been run over by a bulldozer, of a village that has just been

17

For a brief outline of some of these vetos, see pages 45-55 of Ramzy Baroud, The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (London: Pluto Press, 2006)

destroyed, of a refugee camp being raided or denied goods, or of a group of protestors being shot with live fire while marching along the Security Wall.18 It is no conspiracy theory to say that the large media conglomerates which dominate across Europe and in the United States especially are the ones which keep Palestinian nonviolence from succeeding. Israelis use the term "terrorist" to describe victims of their onslaught, which translates into these large outlets as "militant", when in fact the people killed-- the vast majority of the time-- are not militants at all. This process is used to justify the targeted killing of Palestinians who, much of the time, are leading nonviolent activists-- thus making it virtually impossible to lead a nonviolent movement. Leaders are often caught and killed at a very early stage.19 In the online world, this phenomenon is much the same. This year, Palestinian nonviolent resistance leaders organized what they called a "Third Intifada" to take place on Nakba. Following the trends set by their Egyptian and Tunisian predecessors, these organizers used Facebook as the channel through which to coordinate the resistance. At one point, the page had more than 300,000 followers. The Israeli government and IDF appealed directly to Mark Zuckerberg, and the United States government joined them soon after. Facebook proceeded to shut the groups and fan pages down. The leaders of the planned-for Third Intifada then re-created the group, and Facebook again shut them down. This process was repeated once more. By the time the anonymous organizers created the page for the fourth time, it was only just before Nakba day, and the page did not reach 100,000 members.20 When Nakba day came, only an estimated 50,000 people
18

See IMEMCs online editions at <http://www.imemc.org/>. <OppressedPalestine.com> has been removed. 19 Ramzy Baroud, The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (London: Pluto Press, 2006) 25-30 20 "1.2 Billion Muslims to Rise for Palestine on May 15th, 2011", The Total Collapse. <http://www.thetotalcollapse.com/1-2-billion-muslims-to-rise-for-palestine-on-may-15-2011/> (April 13,

gathered together along the border fences, although there were smaller-scale protests and marches throughout all of the Occupied Territories and at Israeli embassies worldwide.21 This brings us to the deeper question. We have established the normative, strategic, tactical, and otherwise logical reasons why Palestinians should employ nonviolence over violence. We have established that the success of that nonviolence depends to a large degree on journalists who hold large audiences in Europe and especially the United States. We know that there are any number of defenses these journalists could offer up to legitimately defend their pro-Palestinian position. Yet we have encountered one problem: The media, in whose hands the success of nonviolence lies, is unwilling and unmotivated to meaningfully address the issues at hand and to take a stand in solidarity with the Palestinian nonviolence movement. So what does one do now? The most obvious answer is that it lies in the hands of the smaller-scale media and of individual people and activists to exert pressure on larger media outlets with the aim of those larger outlets giving air time and print space to Palestinian nonviolent activities. The media's obsession with certain cases in the Arab Spring-- the events in Tahrir Square, for example, during the weeks immediately preceding Mubarak's resignation-- represent a powerful potential to steer the public eye towards a certain event and public emotion towards a certain cause. Historically, this phenomenon has been proven time and again, back to the very onset of the printing press at the very least.22 One way in which small2011) Accessed May 15th, 2011. Facebook shut down the original group on March 29th, 2011.
21

Most of the main media outlets ran stories on the Nakba day events. 50,000 is the general consensus on how many people gathered, mostly along the Lebanese border. Death toll counts range from one dead to more than one dozen, with one death being the more conservative estimate coming from groups like AIPAC, and "one dozen" coming from Students for Justice in Palestine. 22 For example, in the French Revolution it was largely a popular, free, and uncensored radical leftist press which brought the events and debates surrounding the Estates-General into the public audience and directly

time media players may become important, then, is to create a unified effort to expose the realities of Palestinian nonviolent resistance. Such a unified effort should emphasize the theories this paper has already explored: That systems of violence build off of one another and are self-perpetuating whereas nonviolence is not; that nonviolence as a strategy exposes the roots causes of repression, inequality, and societal ills whereas violence obscures them; and that violence and terrorism are products of passive and structural violence themselves and cannot cease entirely until that passive or structural violence itself is brought to an end.23 Furthermore this effort should expose the targeted killings of nonviolent leaders and emphasize the courage of those who pursue nonviolence in spite of both its dangers and its inability to effect real change. This effort should, and already does, involve activists and writers living and working within Palestine and within cities receptive to sympathetic news, but that news must reach US and European audiences through network coordination. These unified pro-Palestinian networks should lobby mainstream US media outlets and government officials at the same time, and do so relentlessly. They should submit stories of an overwhelming number and magnitude, so that it is virtually impossible for government and large-scale media actors to ignore them. This is a difficult track to go down, but an effective one, and it can be done. Mahmood Abbas, just recently, actually
led to the establishment of the National Assembly, the body of Third Estate representatives which broke away from the Third Estates in pursuit of their own answers to France's problems. In another case, in the American Revolution, it was the wide distribution of Thomas Paine's pamphlets which convinced key players and the public audience that there was legitimate political, normative, and legal reason to break away from England. (My honors thesis is on the role of radical leftist journalists and print outlets in the French and American Revolutions-- specifically how they changed national-level government and effected legislation through public opinion) 23 "Passive Violence" is a term coined by Mahatma Gandhi and employed by his grandson Arun Gandhi in a speech at Ohio University on Monday, May 18th, 2011 at the Blackburn-Templeton Memorial Auditorium. It is similar, but not identical, to the idea of structural violence, but unlike structural violence everyone is responsible for passive violence, which can include an American citizen paying his taxes, which are then used to fund wars and military operations abroad.

managed to get a sympathetic Palestinian article printed in The New York Times.24 The article indirectly advocates the US vote in the coming September Resolution.25 There was even a story run recently in The Economist which covered nonviolent resistance, titled "Here Comes Your Nonviolent Resistance".26 It is clear, then, that such a task is not impossible and well-worth advocating. The United States may end up vetoing the upcoming resolution-- that is not at all unlikely. But if we approach this problem from the bottom-up we can shift the focus on Palestine from terrorism to nonviolence, and thus grant legitimacy to nonviolent actors while marginalizing terrorists and their support. If we, small-time activists and journalists, force such an agenda on larger media outlets and government officials, which in turn will in theory share that agenda, we can effect real change in Palestine. By ignoring these barriers, we allow for continued terrorism and the continued belief that nonviolence cannot succeed, as well as the continued persecution of Palestinians in general and nonviolent leaders specifically. To we who have witnessed revolution in Tunisia and Egypt this very year, we know that it is wrong to dismiss nonviolence as legitimate in this day and age. In Palestine, it remains an illegitimate answer to a pervasive problem due in part to internal and political issues and divides, but moreso to the lack of fair international coverage. There is no real reason why Palestinians should resort to violence instead of nonviolence. It is not that violence has any greater chance of lasting success. Those
24

Mahmood Abbas, "The Long Overdue Palestinian State", The New York Times, < http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/opinion/17abbas.html?_r=4&ref=opinion> (May 16th, 2011) Accessed May 16th, 2011 25 Ibid 26 "Here Comes Your Non-violent Resistance", The Economist <http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/05/israel_and_palestine_0?fsrc=scn%2Ftw %2Fte%2Fbl%2Fherecomesyournonviolentresistance> (May 17th, 2011) Accessed May 17th, 2011.

Palestinians who do resort to violence do so because they believe that nonviolence cannot succeed. This belief is perpetuated by the nature and bias of international media coverage and by the factionalized and partisan nature of Palestinian-Israeli politics and individual politicians. It is perpetuated by the constant failure of nonviolence as made possible by illegal Israeli activities and persecutions-- but, perhaps more importantly, because of the lack of international action and awareness. These are the two broad, main issue areas which need to be seriously addressed before Palestinian nonviolence can succeed-indeed, they must be addressed together and at the same time. If they are addressed by all the parties responsible-- and that is a great number of parties, including media outlets, governments, international institutions, and individual actors across the world-- those efforts should lead to a redesign of the US-Israeli-Palestinian political arena allowing for nonviolent Palestinian protests to succeed in their long-term goals of reforming land and settlement policy and ending economic discrimination. Those same efforts should, at the same time, marginalize Palestinian terrorist groups. In the end, the viability of long-term nonviolent success begins with the actors who shape public opinion-- it relies on cooperation in the international arena, and that begins with the movement of an international press.

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