Abbas
must use non-violent
resistance in Palestine
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF Associate
since 1991
Comments to JonatPower@aol.com
January 20, 2005
LONDON - President Mahmoud Abbas is
in a corner. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has lowered the
boom on further negotiations, following the attack by
Palestinian militants that killed six Israelis.
Democratic legitimacy is obviously not on its own a
strong enough tactic, either to win the ear of the
militants or the Israelis. Abbas needs another string to
his bow.
One is reminded of the argument of
Martin Luther King when confronted by the outburst of
black rage - the big city riots, the rise of black power
and the birth of the gun toting Black Panthers. Violence
is not truly revolutionary, he used to argue, because it
invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis that
is followed by a sense of futility. This was certainly
the case in America where President Richard Nixon gave a
license to brute repression. And it appears to be the
case in Palestine where the intifada has clearly become
counterproductive.
Chris Hedges, the New York Times
war correspondent, has made the case against violence
better than anyone I know in his book, "War Is A Force
That Gives Us Meaning." "War is an elixir", he writes,
"It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be
noble…..[But] war is a drug. It is peddled
by mythmakers."
Shakespeare's foot soldier in
"Coriolanus" likewise understood the appeal of war: "Let
me have a war, say I: it exceeds peace as far as day does
night; it's sprightly, waking, audible, and full of vent.
Peace is very apoplexy, lethargy, mull'd, deaf, sleepy,
insensible….."
Hedges admits that as a young
reporter he got fired up by war. "The chance to exist for
an intense and overpowering moment seemed worth it in the
midst of war - and very stupid once the war ended. In the
light of time, what look so momentous then now looks like
folly."
This is the conundrum that now
confronts Abbas. At least 20% of his people think
violence is the antidote to lethargy. If they didn't
fight the Israelis they would be convinced that their
cause deserved to be defeated. In battle, they believe
that they are living out their convictions right on the
edge of the knife of life itself.
If Abbas thinks he can lead by
talk, he is mistaken. He is simply outflanked and out
maneuvered by the militants. He needs an alternative that
would appeal to the energies of the militants and their
desperate need to feel the juices and passion of resolve
and sacrifice.
Non-violence is connected in most
people's minds with passivity and non-resistance. Yet if
properly deployed and organized, it can be very powerful
weapon of defense and a very effective tool for rapid
social change. We saw this last month with the impact of
the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine. We saw it with the
power of the shipyard strikers in Solidarity's Poland,
the trigger that led to the demise of Soviet communism.
We saw it when the crowds of protestors sticking red
roses into the barrels of the soldiers' rifles brought
down the fascist dictatorship in Portugal.
Basil Liddel Hart, the military
genius second only to Clauswitz, who had the job of
interrogating the German generals after the end of World
War 2, wrote that the generals confessed that they found
non-violent or passive resistance, as they encountered it
in parts of France and Denmark, much more difficult to
deal with than guerrilla resistance movements. The latter
they could repress mercilessly, the former often
outwitted them.
Abbas needs to give the young
militants a focus for their energy. He needs to deploy
them to surround Israeli patrols with unarmed crowds who
whilst refusing to move also refuse to let the troops
move. He needs to lead tens of thousands of strong young
men and women armed only with pick axes to attempt to
demolish the wall where it intrudes on Palestinian land,
and to accept arrest rather than fight back. He needs to
sends thousands of people to occupy Israeli transit
roads. Let them take their families too and make sure
they are provided with food, medical help, tents and
portable toilets. And he needs to keep up these
demonstrations, week after week, month after
month.
If the Israeli army overreacts the
world will see the pictures. So too will the Israeli
public. Israel is a democracy. It is a spiritual nation.
Because of fear and because of historical experience it
has allowed its baser instincts too often to lead the
way. But underneath there is another side - that
negotiated at Camp David and Taba, that produced the
Supreme Court ruling on torture, that even today seeks
justice rather than defeat for its opponent.
Abbas both has to give his
militants a cause and to appeal to these nobler Israeli
ideals.
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Copyright © 2005 By
JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by
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