GAZA: NONVIOLENCE AND VIOLENCE

How is that a small country like Israel has such an effective propaganda service? Why is it that the norms of international behavior, if not international law do not apply to Israeli Government? The obvious answer might be the Holocaust, but the Palestinians were not responsible for that, and have been subject to racism and ethnic cleansing from at least the beginning years of the twentieth century down to the present time. It seems that the Palestinians have suffered consecutively from policies of the British Imperialists and those of the Western consensus lead by the Americans.

Take the most recent example of the nonviolent protest by Gazans in which they stood with linked arms protesting the ceiling of their borders by Israel, and it seems also by Egypt. Consider the framing of Matt Brown’s ABC report:

A protest against Israel’s blockade of the Gaza strip has ended without major incident. Israeli officials had feared a repeat of scenes from last month when Hamas militants broke open the border between Gaza and Egypt. Thousands of Gazans held hands and signs calling on Israel to lift its blockade. The Israeli military strengthened its forces surrounding the strip in case the protesters rushed the barrier between the two territories.

Collective punishment is, I understand, contrary to International Law. The news reports fail to identify Israel source of the structural violence, but whose effects are real enough, for example consider this report of her experiences in Gaza by Jen Marlowe. The Gazans in the face of this violence engage in nonviolent protest, and some of them throw stones against armed troops, and others fire Qazzam rockets, which are violent actions, but nothing in comparison to the brutality of the Israelis, not just in relation to Gaza, and for which there is a now a long and disgraceful history.

The question is what has happened to the Israelis, who have a strong tradition in moral philosophy and so forth. There are the usual dynamics between groups, including the effects of indiscriminate violence, which puts the lie to retaliation. Malcolm X said something to the effect that is utterly wrong to ask a brutalized person to suffer further violence and that person should strike back. While it is true that there is an asymmetrical balance of force, violence in the form of suicide bombing has not worked. Somebody is going to have to say what we want is to have this land, and you want this land, why do not we share it on some just and reasonable basis, and beyond that we have to recognize what has happened and find a basis for living together. There is nothing easy about any of that, except if it can be done, it will open up new positive possibilities.

Professor Michael Nagler, of UCB, a classicist and Gandhi scholar, in answer to question, what are the greatest misunderstandings of nonviolence people said:

The biggest and greatest is to be fooled by our culture and by the word—to think it’s a negative thing—that if you feel like punching somebody and you don’t, that’s it, you’ve exhausted the entire science of nonviolence. (In fact, a nonviolent person will use force in an emergency situation if there’s no other option—but in an entirely different spirit.)

Another big misunderstanding is to demand immediate results. Nonviolence may or may not “work” immediately, but it will always make the situation better at some point. One other is, we’re so externally oriented and materialist that we think nonviolence is simply a behavior, and we don’t realize that it’s a spiritual conversion that has to go on inside the actor, which then has its effect on the observers.

The story of Badshah Khan told in the wonderful book, A Nonviolent Soldier of Islam [written by Eknath Easwaran], serves to refute four major myths about nonviolence. Khan shows that nonviolence is not the weapon of the weak, because the Pathans were extremely courageous people. He shows that its effect is not limited to a wimpy opponent—the British were actually extremely brutal in that part of the world—and that it can be used in place of a military force. He raised an army of almost 80,000 people all committed to nonviolence. Finally, it shows that nonviolence has an important place in Islam; he was a very devout Muslim, all of them were.

Nonviolence is a difficult practice. It cannot be fully effective when mixed with violence. The Quakers going back to the Seventeenth Century have proven the practice can be followed. George Fox and those around him underline the explanatory point with respect to the spiritual orientation which is very clear in the declaration and petition to Charles II in 1660.

(The day of the declaration, 16 November, is recognized by UNESCO, I believe, as International Day for Tolerance. It is remarkable how a small, peripheral group like the Quakers, with their insistence on individual conscience can have such major influence on the culture, exposing a principle fundamental to liberalism and to liberal democracy. There were others prepared to go the final mile for their conscience as well, among whom Thomas More could be included.)

CODA:

I have not got the relevant story for Australia, but in New Zealand members of the Quakers, Christadelphians, and Seventh-Day Adventists were exempted for military service in the First World War. Of course, other conscientious objectors were subject to various schemes, including systematic torture. The story is contained in Archibald Baxter’s (father of poet James K Baxter) book, “We will not Cease”.

The New Zealand Herald has a review of “We will not Cease“, observing the book was written twenty years later but reports events and conversations directly. Archibald’s wife, Millicent it is suggested had a greater hand in its writing than her husband. In my mind this makes the courage and commitment shown by Baxter so much more extraordinary, since it suggests he was in many ways typical of this background.

ELSEWHERE:

Kim at Larvatus Prodeo quotes sociologist Randall Collins that human beings have a predisposition against violence. The commenters have a range of views.

Amira Hass writing for Haaretz describes “Gaza: The breakthrough that did not happen”. Israeli democracy has facilitated the appropriation of Palestinian property as it has simultaneously allowed writers to express their opinions.