Are Palestinians Allowed to Resist?
Are Palestinians Allowed to Resist? (Part I)
By Dina Jadallah-Taschler
'Right of self-defense has been appropriated by the occupier and denied to its victims.'
Feb 26, 2009
The issue of Palestinian resistance, in terms of its permissibility and types, is a highly inflammatory question for most Western observers. Mainstream media discourse frequently boils down to criticisms and condemnations of its "violence" or alternatively, asserts its impotence in the face of Israeli military might and Western opposition. It might therefore be helpful to place it in historical and current context and to comparatively evaluate it against that other famous struggle for independence, Indian national liberation. India’s struggle, given the prominent role of Gandhi’s satyagraha’s role, is usually synonymous in Western discourse with non-violent resistance.
This first part in the essay deals with legal and historical issues that define Palestinians’ struggle for independence, then describes their repercussions on the current status of the occupation. In the second and final part, I will present examples from the history of Palestinian unarmed struggle and then compare it with the Indian one. I will argue that the agreeable and reasonable- sounding frame of the superiority of peaceful resistance sets up a false dichotomy. Presenting satyagraha as the exemplary approach to liberation is deceptive on two levels. First, India’s independence was not achieved through non-violence alone. And second, while inspirational and useful on many levels, it is not sufficient as sole guide or solution to achieving Palestinian liberation.
Western Mainstream Media Perspective on Palestinian Resistance
Language and the framing of issues is always the privilege of the strong. This applies to international and legal attitudes concerning national liberation movements. At the height of their occurrence in the 1960s and 1970s, there was an international consensus on the necessity and legal right of oppressed people living under colonial and/or racist states to resist their status by any means available to them, including armed conflict. However, since the 1980s, there has been a shift away from focusing on ultimate legitimate goals of national liberation to a discussion of methods. Concomitantly, there was an interjection of a growing set of rules of military engagement that the international community wanted to apply to even non-state actors who were fighting for their independence. Israel, being a colonial and ethnically-based state and seeking to curb the use of armed struggle against itself, is in the camp that marks as "aggression" and "terroristic" any and all active resistance to its occupation of Palestinian land. Thus in terms of language and its function in rationalizing or justifiying events, there is a sharp contrast between descriptions of "armed conflict" depending on which side of the aisle one is on: on the one hand, "national liberation movements" and "freedom fighters" and on the other, "terrorists" and "pre-emptive strikes."
The justice of the initial demands for independence is frequently obscured by the legalistic focus on the means of inducing change. Moreover, international institutions, like the Security Council or the General Assembly of the United Nations or the International Court of Justice did not develop the means (or the will – in the case of the Palestinians) to enforce the legitimate claims of colonized peoples, or to punish states, like Israel, that place themselves above the application of basic legal and ethical principles. In a sense, this shift in focus is a regression to more imperial/colonial attitudes of the past.
It is a frustrating endeavor to peel away obscurantist assumptions and pervasive and intentional misdirection to arrive at the truth. Keeping in mind that Gandhi defined satyagraha as to hold on to the truth, the most basic reality for the Palestinians is that they are dispossessed, displaced, occupied, oppressed and most recently, massacred in Gaza. But most Western media coverage ignores some basic background facts that constitute the basis of the problem and which I will review briefly below. Ignoring the root causes renders incomprehensible to the casual observer Palestinians’ resistance, thereby facilitating their designation as stereotypical "terrorists."
Historical Background of Palestinian Plight
Palestinian dispossession started under the British Mandate, which "got" Palestine from the dismantled Ottoman empire after World War I. The Balfour Declaration (1917) established a national "home" for the Jews in Palestine and disregarded the wishes of the "non-Jewish communities." While the latter was the overwhelming majority, and despite promises of "non-prejudice" to their "rights," they were considered not significant enough to warrant that the colonizer ask their opinion about the "giving" of their homeland to an imported ethnic and religious group. In addition, British troops had not even set foot in Palestine yet. Thus Britain contradicted the legal maxim nemo dat quod non habet, meaning no one can give that which he has not. But being a superpower at the time, ordinary laws did not apply to itself. And the "promise" in the Balfour Declaration was incorporated into the Mandate by the League of Nations, which promptly validated this gift, even though the League did not possess Palestine either. The League also overlooked its inconvenient commitment to the right of self- determination for peoples originally inhabiting a land. (1: for an extensive discussion of this topic, see, Musa E. Mazzawi, Palestine and the Law: Guidelines for the Resolution of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Garnet & Ithaca Press, 1997: pp. 21-23.)
Zionist actions to actively dispossess and remove Palestinians from their lands, exemplified in Plan Dalet, led to the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 people and created a majority Jewish area just in time for the declaration of the Israeli state in 1948. The dispossession both preceded and was concurrent with the war. The Palestinians’ legal right of return was reaffirmed more than one hundred times by the United Nations. But Israel placed itself above international law and passed The Prevention of Infiltration/Offences and Jurisdiction Law in the Knesset in 1954. The defining of who is an "infiltrator" is instructive in explaining the violence and injustice done to the Palestinians, who were denied their legal right to return: the third definition for "infiltrator" in the law is a "Palestinian citizen or a Palestinian resident without nationality or citizenship or whose nationality or citizenship was doubtful and who, during the said period left his ordinary place of residence in an area which became a part of Israel for a place outside Israel." (2: Ibid, p. 178.) Later in 1967, the Israeli state expanded again and encompassed the rest of natural Palestine. The reason that there is an occupation in the new territory is simple. The Zionist enterprise, all proclamations to democracy not-withstanding, could not incorporate / digest the newly acquired territories without reducing the majority Jewish composition, thereby exposing the non-democratic, ethnocentric and racist premise of the state.
Evaluation of Losses and Achievements
The facts are simple enough. And yet that is not at all how current media narratives present the struggle. It is never referred to as one for liberation and freedom. Resistance to the oppressive occupation and to the expansionist and dispossessing Israeli state is never presented as a right, despite the self-evident moral and legal principle, that as the (occupying) aggressor, Israel cannot justify violence against resistance to its own initial aggression. (3: for a broader discussion of this issue, see Michael Mandel, "Israel’s Unjust War on Gaza: Self-Defence Against Peace," Counterpunch, 2/5/2009; also available here.) And yet, in this last massacre, Gazans who are starving, imprisoned, mostly refugees from the original displacement that happened with Israel’s creation, and who have qualitatively modest (but technologically improving - distance/reach) weapons, are the ones being blamed for "starting" or inviting the attack on themselves. This is objectionable on several levels. Fundamentally, the framing of the story which equates Palestinian resistance with the fourth strongest army in the world is inherently deceptive. Additionally, it blames the victim for resisting annihilation.
But once again, because it is the strong who determine what is legal and what is not, the Palestinian struggle for national liberation and their resistance against their oppressors are illegal by definition and are presented as "terrorism." The right of self-defense has been appropriated by the dominant, occupying, aggressing side and simultaneously denied to its victims. It is becoming increasingly apparent to the resisting Palestinians that this excessive use of legality is simply a means to preserve pre-existing power asymmetries that will perpetuate their oppression. It is ultimately aimed at their extinction as a people. It is the root cause of their resistance: for they refuse a peace built on injustice, no matter how much misinformation is produced disguise the facts.
The Oslo Peace Process must be evaluated from this perspective. It was started more than 15 years ago but has led to no tangible benefits for the Palestinians. On the contrary, it has led to their increasing dispossession and subjugation. It co-opted the PLO leadership and made the Palestinian Authority into a police arm of and chief appeaser/concessor to Israel, the occupier. The Process has served as legal cover for continued oppression. It is no different from the NATO announcement to "protect" Israel, or the Rice-Livni Accords, or the United Nations Resolutions that are never enforced. All these entities and agreements give a cover of multilateralism and legality to what is essentially aggressive expansionism and intentional dispossession. Similarly, Israel’s "withdrawal" from Gaza in 2005, narratively presented in mainstream media with so much angst for the trauma of the occupier, does not remove the initial aggression of the original and consistently brutal occupation. Even when one allows for the prison that is Gaza to be considered "unoccupied," the fact remains that Palestinians are one people and that the West Bank and East Jerusalem continue to be occupied. This is even acknowledged in the Oslo Accords which defines them as "a single territorial unit."
Moreover, Israeli expansionism continues, and even accelerates, in the shadow of the peace process and of the headline- grabbing events in Gaza. Just in the last week, Israel has announced the annexation of extensive areas of Palestinian- owned land, where the villagers have been non-violently protesting the apartheid wall. For three days the Israeli army invaded the village of Jayyous declaring it a "Closed Military Area" and arbitrarily arrested 65 Palestinians: "The Israeli wall confiscated about 600 dunums of lands and 8,600 dunums were isolated behind the wall, where the town’s area is 12,500 dunums," leading to the loss of thousands of jobs lost as a result of the wall and the isolation of agricultural land. (4: Learn more here; also here, in Arabic, for broader perspective ) Similarly, on 1/26/2009, the Israeli High Court approved the complete destruction of the village of Tana, east of Nablus, in order to expand the settlement colony of Makhurah (5: Arabic) In addition, an expansion to the Effrat settlement colony near Bethlehem was also announced, swallowing an additional 170 hectares of "state land" (6: Arabic). All this is happening in the West Bank, ostensibly the co-operating segment under the dictatorial and oppressive control of the Palestinian Authority. And it is definitely not conducive to economic independence, let alone the mirage of prosperity that was promised to come with the pursuit of a negotiated and non-violent "settlement."
The argument is frequently made that Hamas is a "terrorist organization" because it targets civilians. But that is a question that is both not for the militarily strong to ask and also ignores completely Israel’s far greater and more consistent targeting of civilians. In this last attack on Gaza, despite an earnest and far reaching hasbara/propaganda effort by Israel to change perceptions, the extent of the destruction was too blatant to repress. Any fair assessment of damage to civilians will plainly see the disproportionate suffering of the weaker party. It also must account for the slow strangulation and eradication of Palestinians even when there is no "war." The means of destruction are so entrenched and persistent so as to become too banal for Western media to report on. The "targeted assassinations" that inevitably kill civilians, the ever-growing "settlements"/colonies, the land expropriations, the apartheid "separation" Wall, the roadblocks, the economic blockade and de-development, and so forth have effectively ended any hope of a two state solution. In fact, the Palestinians’ pursuit of the peaceful route of "settlement" through the peace process, recently "negotiated" at Annapolis, has resulted in a 20% increase in settlement expansion in the West Bank and a 36% settlement expansion in East Jerusalem, just in the last sixteen months. (7: See here)
The Oslo Peace Process has essentially reached a dead end. Remember that it was launched after the First Intifada proved that a militarily powerful actor could not defeat Palestinian grassroots resistance. Hence, Israel’s resort to "settlement" and its reliance on the native enforcer, in the form of the Palestinian Authority. But that too failed. The endless peace process has been unable to accomplish the main (colonialist/racist) goal that gave it life: namely, to convince the Palestinians that they are defeated and are rightfully untermenschen in the legally still border-less Zionist state.
Taken to its ultimate logical and counter-intuitive conclusion, this will eventually (and in fact has already started to) call into question the viability of a Zionist Israel in the long term. Increasingly, Israel’s own success in oppressing its Other has left it with two equally non-palatable options: either transition into an equal society or dismantle the colonialist enterprise. Its current choice of apartheid separation and oppression is demographically, morally, ethically, and in time, technologically unstable and unacceptable going forward.
- Dina Jadallah-Taschler is an Arab-American of Palestinian and Egyptian descent, a political science graduate, an artist and a writer. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact her at: dina.jadallah.taschler@gmail.com.
Dina Jadallah-Taschler
Part 2
There is an abundance of discourse over the means and methods that are pursued and / or justified by the Palestinians in their quest for independence and liberation. In the first part of this essay, I presented the legal, historical, and current context that form the root of their current predicament. In this segment, I want to address the pros and cons of pursuing an exclusively non-armed struggle both by looking at the uniqueness of Palestinian circumstances and also by comparing it with the Indian National Liberation Movement, which is usually presented in Western narratives as almost exclusively non-violent, and successful, for having (ostensibly) been so.
A Brief History of Palestinian Non-Violent Resistance
Palestinians are continuously asked to not resist. The truth is that whether they resist violently or non-violently, Israeli violence continues unabated. Perhaps the scale, ugliness and the immediacy of the trauma are exaggerated in a massacre like we recently saw in Gaza, but the reality of purposeful eradication persists.
Examples of Palestinian non-violent resistance have existed since the very start of Jewish immigration into Palestine, but were never enough to attain freedom. Ultimately it is an imperative but frequently unstated precondition, that Palestinians accept a permanent subjugated and defeated status, preferably outside of their historic lands. It is otherwise known as the Yigal Allon Plan (1967), a policy actively pursued by even the "Dove" Shimon Peres and entailing the expulsion of Palestinians. The Allon plan formed the basis of Israel’s settlements / colonization. Frequently unacknowledged in mainstream Western coverage is that only after acceptance of defeat and eradication can Israel’s violence (aka "retaliation") against Palestinians stop.
Unwilling to accept that, and choosing a policy of "sumoud" / steadfastness on the land, Palestinians pursue(d) non-violent resistance as a complimentary and grassroots approach against the occupation. Here are just a few examples of Palestinian non-violent resistance to Israeli aggression: in 1902, villages of al-Shajara, Misha, and Melhamiyya peacefully protested against the takeover of 7000 hectares of agricultural land by the first Zionist settlers; in 1936, Palestinians held a six-month industrial strike protesting the British Mandate’s refusal to grant them self-determination; in 1986, Hannah Siniora and Mubarak 'Awad (who advocates the power of non-violence and is a self-described disciple of Gandhi; recently deported by Israel) drew a list of civic disobedience activities heavily reliant on boycotting Israeli products and economic self-sufficiency, helping launch the 1987-93 First Intifada; in 1993, the signing of the Oslo Accords and the pursuit of the "settlement" path; and currently, the holding of protests in the villages of Jayyous, Budrus, Bil’in, Ni’lin and Umm Salamonah against the apartheid wall (1: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article49). Today, the tradition of non-violence is still practiced and promoted by some secular and independent Palestinian political leaders, like the Palestinian National Initiative led by Mustafa Barghouti. And even Hamas, often presented as the ultimate terrorist organization, upheld a six month ceasefire with Israel but was still subjected to a non-lifting of the suffocating siege of Gaza. (The ceasefire ended on November 4, 2008 when Israel conducted a targeted assassination that killed six Hamas members.)
Needless to say, these facts are rarely, if ever covered in mainstream accounts. Instead the focus is consistently on "terror" and "Israel’s right to defend itself," ignoring the cumulative suffering of the occupation. As for Israel’s response, it consistently uses overwhelming force, including tear gas, rubber bullets, live ammunition, etc. against protesters and justifies this as "self-defense," even when protecting illegal settlement colonies.
Which raises the question of the efficacy of non-violent resistance as the sole or primary means of achieving national liberation. While each national liberation struggle is unique, there are certain conditions and methods that may translate across people. One thing that many have in common is that non-violent resistance was not pursued exclusively. This was true of the African National Congress’ anti-apartheid Boycott and Divestment Movement in South Africa, which accompanied armed struggle. It was also true of the struggle for national liberation from British rule in India, a fact usually unmentioned in Western press, which tends to focus on Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha / non-violent path to resistance. In doing so, there is a grave disservice done to explaining how Indian independence came to be. There is also a convenient decontextualization of the struggle. And I use "convenient" intentionally, because Gandhi’s model is often held up (by Israel and the West) as the best and "most civilized" one that ought to be emulated by the oppressed Palestinians.
Gandhi in Context: Was the Indian National Liberation Struggle Entirely Non-Violent?
The name Gandhi and non-violent resistance (satyagraha) are almost synonymous in most people’s minds. Satyagraha’s aim is not just to defeat the opponent, but aims to convert the adversary as well. And yet there are important nuances and definite progression in Gandhi’s approach to war and colonialism. On the subject of whether it is better to be a coward or to resist violently, he said: "I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence… I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour…" (2: Eds. R. K. Rabhu & U. R. Rao, "Between Cowardice and Violence," The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi, Ahemadabad, India, 1967, p. 3) He also said: "Though violence is not lawful, when it is offered in self-defence or for the defence of the defenseless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission. The latter befits neither man nor woman. Under violence, there are many stages and varieties of bravery. Every man must judge this for himself. No other person can or has the right. (3: Ibid, pp. 369-70) Applied to the Palestinian context, this would indicate that Palestinians have the duty to fight back against their own annihilation. However, he would have probably qualified that by saying that non-violence could cause the same changes with lower loss in life.
Historically, too Gandhi’s attitudes to war evolved. While still in South Africa, and in reaction to the Bambatha (Zulu) Rebellion of 1906 against a new British poll-tax, to which Britain responded by declaring a war, Gandhi encouraged the British to recruit Indians. He wanted to advance Indian claims as full citizens of the Empire. He also encouraged Indians to join the war through his columns in Indian Opinion.
Gandhi’s statecraft and thought did not happen in a vacuum. Likewise, India’s independence was not the work of only one man or one concept or one strategy. In fact, India’s nationalist feelings pre-existed Gandhi and the Congress Party, and evidence of it can be found as early as 1857. The first group to call for complete independence was the uncompromisingly secular Ghadar Party, organized in 1913 by Indian immigrants in California. (3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghadar_Party) The party actively pursued violent resistance and revolution (rejecting caste as well) and predictably, their actions were labeled as "terrorism" by Britain. Operating mainly in the first two decades of the 20th Century, the Ghadarites were successful in recruiting Indian soldiers in the British Army (in Hong Kong, Singapore, Rangoon, and Basra) and urging them to revolt.
As for Gandhi, once in India, he progressed to advocating non-violent resistance as a "weapon." His political views on Indian independence evolved as well. Consider that at the age of 45, Gandhi still held some esteem for the British empire, calling it a "spiritual foundation," in contrast to the views of most Indian revolutionaries.
(4: http://www.zimbio.com/Ghandi+quotes/articles/18/
Mohandas+Gandhi+Flawed+Manipulative+Politician)
It wasn’t until after the Amritsar Massacre of civilians by British troops in the Punjab, that Gandhi advocated complete self-government maturing into independence (swaraj). In the intervening years there was a constant push and pull between Gandhi’s satyagraha policy and other political personalities and groups pursuing independence -- not always non-violently.
A massive wave of revolutionary unrest swept India in 1919. British violent retaliation was unable to quell it. For example, there were more than 200 strikes in the first six months of 1920 alone. And yet in 1921, when Muslim leader Hasrat Mohani wrote a resolution asking for complete independence, Gandhi led the opposition against it and secured its rejection. Likewise, he supported Britain in WWI by trying to recruit Indians for the war effort. He himself volunteered twice for it, in present-day Iraq and in France, reasoning that he "owed" this to the empire in return for military protection. (5: Ibid) This led to deep divisions within the Congress party and also caused a dramatic drop in the popularity of Congress. Young revolutionaries like Rash Behari Bose, Shaheed Bhagat Singh, and revolutionary groups like the Workers and Peasant Party (Kirti Kisan Party) and militant unions like the Bombay textile workers were frequently at odds with Congress. Armed revolutionary groups that emerged in this period included the Hindustan Republican Army and the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army in northern India, as well as the "Revolt Groups" in Bengal (e.g. Chittagong group led by Surya Sen). Working class and union resistance continued throughout the 1930s. Eventually, it was in response to this revolutionary tide, that the Congress Party became less conservative and more supportive of the more militant attitude. As for Gandhi, he returned to advocating non-violent struggle and launched the salt satyagraha (1930-31) and the boycott campaigns. He has been criticized by some for not taking advantage of this revolutionary tide, thereby delaying independence.
Even at the time of World War II, Gandhi prevaricated on non-violence: first offering "non-violent moral support" to the British effort, and only later rescinding that decision when members of the Congress Party objected to the inclusion of India in the war effort without her consultation. In 1939-40, strikes and uprisings in the countryside swelled dramatically. Afterwards, the Congress party was compelled by grassroots pressure to launch the Quit India movement in August of 1942. It is important to note that this period in the struggle was one of extreme violence, mass arrests, and so forth. And yet, Quit India’s success in contributing to independence is controversial. Those arguing that it failed say that it fizzled out after five months (largely due to the army’s loyalty) and didn’t topple the Raj or bring it to the negotiating table for independence. In contrast, those who see it as a success, focus on how it sapped colonial energy and resources and on its success at mobilizing masses of people.(5: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quit_India) Importantly, it inspired the final phase of the fight for independence, which witnessed increasingly militant peasant uprisings, sometimes joined by some of the landlords.
By the end of the war, Britain was indicating that power would be transferred to Indians. Aware that they couldn’t hold on any longer, they instead focused on partitioning India – bringing to mind Israel’s recent attempts to divide Gaza from the West Bank. In the meantime, Congress’ adherence to a policy of non-violence was entirely dependent on the British soldiers – as opposed to the armed Muslim League – and were unable to prevent partition. Thus, Congress’ inherent conservatism with regards to armed struggle hindered its goal of keeping India intact. They failed to build on numerous past instances of Hindu-Muslim cooperation against British colonialism. (Not all members of the Muslim league supported Muslim self-determination: Communist leader Ghaffar Ali opposed it vociferously.)
As is evident from the history recounted above, the agreeable and reasonable- sounding frame of the superiority of peaceful resistance sets up a false dichotomy. Presenting satyagraha as the exemplary approach to liberation is deceptive mainly because India’s independence was not achieved through non-violence alone. Moreover, its historical context and enemy are do not translate well across time and location. Finally, while inspirational and useful on many levels, it is not sufficient as sole guide or solution to achieving Palestinian liberation.
Options for Palestinian Resistance
Fundamentally, all theories of national liberation emanate from the ethical and legal principle that a people has the right to be free from alien occupation and exploitation. Resistance is their inalienable right. Insistence on non-violent resistance can sometimes be counterproductive – as happened with Gandhi’s insistence on it when confronting partition. Relying solely on non-violence subordinates the fundamental moral and ethical goal of independence to all sorts of conditionalities in order to achieve it in the "right" way.
All events so far indicate that non-violent resistance has been of modest benefit to Palestinians, with the important exceptions of tarnishing Israel’s image and moral claims. One could argue that Israel pursued the (sham) Oslo peace process precisely because the First Intifada rendered the population ungovernable. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, the Fateh leadership of the PLO squandered those achievements and marginalized popular input. Since then, pursuit of "settlement" and "negotiation" in the absence of a concomitant armed struggle has produced regressive and contradictory effects. Why is that?
One reason is the nature of the adversary. Zionist and Israeli ideology and statecraft are fundamentally violent, involving ethnic cleansing and relying first and foremost on war as an instrument in achieving Greater (Eretz) Israel. Unlike Great Britain, which had developed a liberal democratic tradition when Indians were struggling for their independence, Israel is essentially a highly militarized, ethnically-based and legally privileged society. It made no difference whatsoever how the Palestinians resisted, whether violently or not. As happened in other Western colonial historical experiences, like the US, Australia, or apartheid South Africa, the settlers use overwhelming force to convince the native populations of their ultimate defeat.
A second important difference is that after World War II, England could no longer hold onto its colonies. This is in sharp contrast to the US-superpower-backed-Israel, which maintains a pronounced military superiority over all its neighbors.
A third difference is that ever since the Jewish Land Agency started buying Palestinian lands from absentee landowners, and continuing after its war-time conquest of land, Israel stipulated that Palestinians cannot lease or be employed on purchased land. As a result, Palestinians are less important to the Israeli economy than India was to Britain. Their marginalization and de-development are intentional and serve to facilitate Israeli expropriation of valuable water, land, and other resources. Moreover, Israel receives significant financial and military "aid" from the United States which also reduces its need to integrate economically with its neighbors. The lack of economic dependency makes non-violent resistance much less effective as a weapon in fighting the occupation. Any economic levers the Palestinians may have had were further diminished (intentionally) via their PA leadership’s dependency on and distribution of foreign "aid." This had the double effects of corrupting and ensuring the cooptation and cooperation of the leadership, as well as minimizing the size and role of an educated middle class that could lead the struggle – as was the case in India.
A fourth difference is the lack of a charismatic leader like Gandhi. Which brings us right back to the first reason, the nature of the opponent. Israel has a long history of assassinating and / or deporting any potential leader who is incorruptible or charismatic or effective. (6: For a partial list of Palestinian leaders assassinated by Mossad, see http://wapedia.mobi/en/Category:Palestinians_assassinated_by_Mossad)
In the final analysis, non-violence is still a worthy means of resistance. Significantly, it enhances growing international perceptions of the brutality of the occupation and builds on the legal consensus and framework of the legitimacy of Palestinian rights, as recurrently affirmed through UN General Assembly annual resolutions and the most recent ruling against the apartheid wall at the International Court of Justice. Non-violent resistance, by being more accessible to ordinary people, additionally creates more sustainable and widespread networks of resistance. At a minimum, it establishes a network of interdependence for the newly liberated society to build on.
But it is not enough. And arguably, it has never been enough, especially in the absence of a more just as opposed to legalistic international relations.
Dina Jadallah-Taschler is an Arab-American of Palestinian and Egyptian descent, a political science graduate, an artist and a writer.