Gandhi Redux - Justifying force

[idontwantaname]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/586551.html

<snip>

"How can you talk about nonviolent demonstrations if a soldier loses an eye in a demonstration like this?" Yarom Tamim, the deputy battalion commander of Schwarzman's unit, asked on a Tel Aviv radio program at the beginning of the week.

The truth is more complex. It is difficult to obtain precise data about the number of Palestinians who are hurt in demonstrations against the fence, because many of the wounded are treated on the spot and not taken to a hospital. However, in Bilin alone, with a population of a little more than 1,500, about 150 residents have been wounded in demonstrations during the past three months. According to partial figures from the human rights organization B'Tselem, seven Palestinians were killed in events along the fence in the Jerusalem and Modi'in areas last year. Another 180 Palestinians sustained wounds of varying degrees of severity, including at least 16 who were hit by live bullets.

<snip>

That impression is reinforced if we take into account that in the hundreds of demonstrations held since the protests against the separation fence began about two years ago, in the Qalqilyah area, the demonstrators have never resorted to firearms.

<snip>

Last week they even distributed flyers, in Hebrew, to soldiers who arrived to evacuate them from the fence route.

"Soldier, wait a minute before you cock your weapon," it read. "You and your friends are on our land. If you had come as guests we would show you the trees that our grandmothers planted here ... But you were sent here as the representatives of an occupying army and state ... That is why we are demonstrating here, without weapons, in the face of all your arms."

<snip>

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there was another demonstration in bil'in today.

[Colorado Blue]

1. Maybe if people had been nonviolent back in 1920 we wouldn't

be building a fence today.

Instead, there were terrible riots, lasting through the '30's, murderous attacks that ultimately resulted in the abandonment of the Jewish settlers by the British government, the prevention of land sales and the strict curtailment of Jewish immigration. The Balfour Declaration had originally promised the entire region of the Palestine Mandate west of the Jordan to the Jewish people but that was eventually reduced to a tiny strip, mostly Negev desert, that excluded the main center of Jewish population - Jerusalem.

Arab immigration, meanwhile, was unmonitored and impressive. Churchill himself commented on this and remarked that it was ironic and unfair that the Jews, who brought money and enterprise into the region, thus attracting Arab immigration and raising income levels, should be penalized by that same immigration.

After the Holocaust, the same interdictions continued and so did the attacks. The UN, responding to the desperation of the Jewish people, presented a partition plan that the Jews accepted. The Charter of Israel expressly extends full rights of citizenship to ALL people, Arab and Jew, Christian and Muslim.

The Arabs unanimously rejected it - ALL of the many Arab states, that is - and launched an all out attack on Israel with 5 armies. Subsequently ALL of the ancient Jewish communities throughout the Middle East were evicted - some 900,000 people. Only about 8,000 Jews remain in these age-old towns.

So now, we are hearing about Arab nonviolence? I'm glad.

[Violet_Crumble]

2. Israel doesn't like Palestinian non-violence...

Back during the first Intifada there was a Palestinian who went to the US to study the tactics of Gandhi to spread and use on his return to the West Bank. Israel got wind of this and blocked his return because they couldn't have any of that non-violence being used. Non-violence has been as aspect of Palestinian resistance for a long time, and when people act as though it never has been, I put it down to either ignorance or an unwillingness to do anything but cast Palestinians in a negative light by stereotyping them as purveyors of violence and haters of Jews...

Violet...