This week, two totally different cases saw real progress towards resolution due to persistence, focus on achievable results and the use of nonviolent means. Palestinian prisoners and supporters of their just and reasonable requests in Palestine, the Arab world, and the international community saw a successful resolution of their demands. The end of administrative detentions was the aim when Khader Adnan and Hana Shalabi began the protests with a pair of hunger strikes followed by Thaer Halahla and Bilal Diab. This was followed by 1,600 prisoners demanding the end of solitary confinement, permission for family visits especially for Gaza families denied such visits since 2007 and agreement to allow prisoners to follow up educational pursuits. Thousands of prisoners refrained from eating for over 28 days while the administrative detainees went into their third month of a dangerous hunger strike. The selfless action of the prisoners touched people around the world who began numerous campaigns on social media and in front of UN agencies, and other forms of protests. In Amman, 15 young people, including two women, started their own hunger strike in a tent outside the Professional Associations Complex. They were especially supportive of over two dozen Jordanians in Israeli prisons, including Abdullah Barghouthi. The image of these supporters wearing light brown outfits resembling the prisoners’ uniforms went viral on line as they exchanged their own pictures with a faceless, brown-wearing sketch. Government officials in Jordan, Egypt, the U.S. and the EU, as well as the secretary general of the UN, were forced to take a stand and pressure the Israelis to accept the demands and use international standards for incarceration. The end was an Egyptian government-brokered deal that responded to most demands by Palestinian prisoners.
In another incident, Jordanian media professionals decided to investigate the status of persons with disabilities at privately-run centers. Radio Al Balad's investigation unit and the Arab world's investigative journalism network ARIJ cooperated over a year to look into the case. Because the media have little access to these centers, and due to the lack of serious monitoring, Al Balad's journalist Hanan Khandakji was dispatched to do undercover reporting.
She volunteered at a few centers, and over a 12-month period was able to collect damning evidence of verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Attempts to get government officials to better scrutinize the center failed to produce results.Before publishing the report, the BBC Arabic TV station was approached and agreed to film a documentary based on the evidence collected. The two sides agreed to broadcast/publish the investigation simultaneously, along with The Alghad newspaper. The combined local and international video-based media coverage produced quick results. The King made an unannounced visit to Ibn Khaldoun and Al Razi centers, both owned by a single entrepreneur. After the visit, and based on the initial media evidence, His Majesty instructed the prime minister to quickly and comprehensively investigate the charges, turn over to the judiciary those guilty of wrongdoing and provide him with results within two weeks. Families of children with disabilities warmly welcomed the King’s intervention and will be awaiting the results of the special committee.
In both the prisoner protests and the media investigation a clear trend can be identified. Injustice is recognized, clear attainable goals are identified, comprehensive plans are assembled, hard work is invested over a long period and the public is involved. All this is done without violence, with strong determination and active effort and follow up.
While many choose the shortcut of violence or revolution to effect changes, it is clear that although nonviolent and society civil-based activities take longer time, they can produce impressive and tangible results.In the two above cases, actions and results cannot be expected based on a one-off activity or a faza (communal knee jerk emotional outburst); they require long-term, focused and comprehensive plans. Community leadership development (prisoners showed leadership), institutional capacity building, financial and administrative support are all important ingredients that must be included for results to be comprehensive and long lasting.
Follow Daoud Kuttab on Twitter: www.twitter.com/daoudkuttab
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/discocapper/post_3386_b_1523446_155216930.html
You responded:
Since many of the detainees are held without charge or trial how can you be so sure that they are held for violent acts?
My reply to you was not posted so I will resubmit it below, as I believe it is fair and respectful:
Thank you for your reply Mr. Kuttab. But I made no such claim. What I said was all these sideshows [prison hunger strikes, peacenik warmongers getting rifle butted, etc] wouldn't be taking place if the Arabs wanted peace either at the moment they started the conflict or if the Palestinians wanted peace now, as in TODAY.
I support Israel. I want peace today. While I am not Israeli I'd welcome Israel making sacrifices if it would achieve peace. I think most Israelis feel this way. I know my cousin who is a teacher in Tel Aviv and loves both her Jewish and Arab students feels this way, as do her friends and family. They accept there is a Palestinian State on the horizon.
So I ask you Mr. Kuttab, what are you resisting? Do you want peace today? And will you accept a peaceful resolution to this too long ongoing conflict that leaves standing a Jewish State of Israel?
Posters just dont get it that we have Jewish Arab schools etc etc
I have always been left Hashomer, kibbutz., shalom achshuv and so on - I call these posters leftofascists. Always checking what the leader says, no doubt, absolute belief. Sometimes I feel I am back in the 1930's
Israel runs the worlds only violently enforced, state sanctioned, colonial settler movement, in direct violation of the Geneva Convention. Not a single other people on earth would accept this, and if it happened to the US, our response would make that of the Palestinians look rather tepid (not because we are any more brave, but because we have the resources to do so).
It is, without any doubt, the Israelis who now sustain the conflict, due to the fact that "settlements" are both internationally banned and reviled, and not a defensive response to an already occupied people, but an aggressive and illegal act of war being forced upon millions of innocent men women and Children, regardless of whether they lay down their arms or not.
These settlements have been growing massively for more than 40 years regardless of any and all promised to the contrary that Israel has made to the Palestinians, the US, or other nations on Earth.
So, instead of asking Mr Kattab about things over which he has no personal control, why not ask the settlers? They, being largely violent, racist, radicals, will answer you very truthfully; There is NOTHING that will get them to go home. They will have to be forced. Hopefully we here in the US will provide that final impetus, because Israel is clearly not capable of it by themselves.
This conflict is not territorial, it is existential. 65 years of Arab refusal to allow Israel to exist in peace, regardless of size. The Settlements did not exist when the Arabs started the war to destroy Israel. Nor are they illegal under any international law. That, and the Geneva conventions have been covered extensively in these discussions, and you are 100% wrong.
Israel recognizes this. Smart people do, too.
" The project manager said the reason for the delay and cost overruns was the sabotage of the project by the Israeli settlers of the Beit Hadassah settlement complex in Hebron. They broke the street lights, stoned project workers, shot out the windows of bulldozers and other heavy equipment with pellet guns, broke paving stones before they were laid and now have defaced again the homes and shops of Palestinians with graffiti. The settlers did not want Shuhada St. opened to Palestinian traffic as was agreed to under Oslo 2. This renovation project is paid for by USAID funds and it makes me angry that my tax dollars have paid for improvements that have been destroyed by the settlers." Tom Malthaner
http://www.wrmea.com/about-wrmea/5696-us-aid-to-israel-1948-present.html
They therefore have a legitimate complaint. In any case, the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs publishes falsehoods and conspiracy theories and is therefore an unreliable source for correct information.
Let us know, k? Thanks!
http://www.haaretz.com/news/bil-in-residents-undercover-troops-provoked-stone-throwing-1.171892
"Testimony by commander of the Israeli Prison Service's elite 'Masada' unit sheds light on IDF methods in countering demonstrations against barrier."
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/undercover-israeli-combatants-threw-stones-at-idf-soldiers-in-west-bank-1.428584
Note, the above are very much within the context of international law accepted by the PLO, and bilateral agreements signed by the organization. It is now the time to reach a Final Status Agreement along this contour that Rabin drew in his Knesset speech of October 1995 and which the present government will enforce.
Will the Arabs, finally, grab this opportunity for a peaceful accommodation...??
(end)
Links?
But, do they want to pursue such a goal....??
Israel's government hasn't been stronger and more united for many decades. And, the person who heads it has expressed, in various ways, his general perception of such an accommodation, based, first and foremost, on the relevant elements of international law, and based on Israel's best national and security interests.
Indeed, Mr. Netanjahu's views on a peaceful accommodation are nearly identical to those of the late Yitzhaq Rabin who was dubbed worldwide "the prince of peace". The Muslim-Arabs have a new chance to interact with such ideas and apply them for the benefits of all:
1. Jerusalem will remain united under Israeli sovereignty and will also include the suburbs of Giv'at Zeev and Ma'aleh Adumim
2. All major Jewish settlement blocs will be incorporated into sovereign Israel
3. The Jordan Valley must be viewed in the widest sense of the term and it too will remain under Israel's rule
4. The future Palestinian state will not be a regular one in that it will be totally demilitarized, its airspace will be controlled by Israel as will its boundaries and all of its border passes: land, sea and air
(to be continued...)
How do you see the future for 5 million people that have been languishing under the boot of the Israeli occupier for more than 45 years? Kick them out? Put them on transport?
That is not even a serious proposal for peace but a demand for the Palestinians to submit to their Divine Israeli Overlords.
If Israel were truly oppressing the Palestinians I'd take no issue with "resistance," violent or otherwise. But the aim of the inappropriately named "resistance" is still the elimination of the State of Israel. This is no pathway to a peaceful resolution both sides can live withso what does it accomplish? Possibly it results in less loss of life on both sides. Now that can't be bad, but the truth is "resistance" of any means by the Palestinians to Israel being a reality is not going to accomplish anything.
Nothing will ever be accomplished until "Acceptance" by both sides that the other side isn't going away. Most Israelis accept there will be a Palestinian State. But this will only arise when the Palestinians stop "Resisting" the Israeli State, and instead Accept Peace.
How do you suggest Israel address that issue?
Non violent resistance is not acceptable to you? For the people whose land has been stolen and who are forced to live behind a wall and get a permit to go to the doctor 2 weeks in advance or go to work (unless they are young men then they can't ever get a permit) are not allowed in your view to think that something is wrong in the system? They are not allowed to express the idea that they should have freedom of movement, dignity and human rights? By the very nature of thier birth they are lesser than the people who came to colonize? They have no rights, but someone from the US or the Ukraine can have full rights?
Just because they went on a hunger strike does not mean that they weren't criminals. If Charles Manson went on a hunger strike, so what? It still does not erase why he is in prison.
If that were true, they would have driven out every Arab west of the Jordan River, just as the Israelis were ethnically cleansed from the West Bank in 1948.
Instead, the Arab population multiplied exponentially, and the Arabs' standard of living on the West Bank exceeds that of the Arabs on the East Bank.
Now, if we cut them off and shut down AIPAC, perhaps it would be ok to spend more time on other
Issues. However, currently, Israel is trying to force the us into a war with iran that will literally economically devastate the US, so I suppose it is a good idea to continue to decry their awful behavior before they succeed in alienating us from the rest of the world as much as they have already done for themselves.
How about CAIR?
How about the bankiing lobby, the auto lobby, the US Chamber of Commerce, the oil lobb? After all, the US went into Kuwait to drive Iraq out not on behalf of Israel but on behalf of our ally Saudi Arabia. More than 140 US service men and women were killed. That is more than have been killed defending Israel.
So far, it's never happened.
“There is so much evidence to show that the PalestiniaÂÂÂn non-violenÂÂÂt resistance is and has always been central to the PalestiniaÂÂÂn struggle. But if that was the case, then where is that 'PalestiniaÂÂÂn Gandhi?' The answer to that is simple: You are asking the wrong question.
“There is no shortage of PalestiniaÂÂÂn Gandhis in Israel’s jails, at checkpointÂÂÂs, and in refugee camps.
"There are even Gandhis as young as five years old walking to school holding on to their backpacks, to their pride, and to their dignity while they get stoned and showered with settler garbage." See:
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15969
"...PalestÂÂiniaÂn Gandhis are likely to be found in prisons after being repressed by Israeli soldiers or police or in the hospital after being brutally beaten or worse…
“PalestiniÂÂÂan nonviolent resistance is nothing new. While some have adopted an Israeli narrative that identifies nonviolent PalestiniaÂÂÂn dissent as something new, the reality is that PalestiniaÂÂÂns have consistentÂÂÂly chosen nonviolent resistance before arms - from the general strikes of 1936, to the consistent appeals to internatioÂÂÂnal legal bodies, to the weekly demonstratÂÂÂions against the wall.
"It has been the continued dispossessÂÂÂion at the hands of Israel, and the silence of the international community despite these nonviolent efforts, that has led some PalestiniaÂÂÂns to view violence as the only option…"
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/display/ContentDetails/i/10758/pid/2254
"It has been the continued dispossession at the hands of Israel, and the silence of the international community despite these nonviolent efforts, that has led some Palestinians to view violence as the only option.
"Alas, it is often the major explosions that make headlines and not the nonviolent demonstrations or their violent repression by Israel's secret police or its military occupation ...
"The international community has an obligation to Palestinian nonviolent activists. Leaders cannot simply call on Palestinians to abandon violence in the face of Israeli occupation and remain silent when the nonviolent activists are politically repressed. This only reinforces the idea that the use of force reigns supreme ...
"Sadly, the same leaders who call on Palestinians to abandon violence have been silent in the face of Israeli repression. By condemning violent Palestinian resistance while remaining silent in the face of Israeli crackdowns and political arrests, they are simply endorsing violence against civilians by one side instead of the other."
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/display/ContentDetails/i/10758/pid/2254
While the explosions you mention certainly make headlines, non-violent protests including those of Jayyous, Budrus, Bil’in, Ni’lin and Umm Salamonah often do not.
Further, Palestinian daily hardships in going to school or work or visiting relatives are all daily acts of non-violent resistance that go by completely unnoticed by Israelis and by the International community.
Palestinian children resist non-violently as they make their daily journey to school despite the long waits at the checkpoints and the harassment by Israeli settlers.
Palestinians non-violently resist when they continue to go to work even if it means riding a donkey using back mud roads because they are denied access to the Jewish only roads which connect the settlements.
The media is hungry for blood…a peaceful protest that occurs on a weekly basis with civilians sprayed with sewerage water or injured or even killed doesn’t make the news.
A child’s journey to school, head held high as Jewish settlers' children throw garbage at him and stones never makes the headlines.
These acts of non-violence overwhelmingly outnumber the explosions of violence that make the headlines. The solution lies in make this non-violence visible to the world, not by pretending it doesn't exist, or isn't their "primary" method of resistance.