Does Nonviolent Resistance Work? Part 4a: The Curious Case of Palestinian Nonviolence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jV1BzE3C0i8

This is the first of three posts comprising Part IV of a series of posts in which Dr. Ian Hansen shares his thoughts on nonviolence.

See also Part 1aPart 1bPart 1cPart 2aPart 2bPart2cPart3aPart3b and Part3c.

The majority of Palestinians these days prefer nonviolent strategies to violent ones, even if they hold ideologically to the right to use violence in self-defense.  If those undertaking nonviolent direct action in the name of Palestinian resistance could get more camera crews and U.S. distributors for the films made from their work, I think the Palestinians would probably be making a lot more progress than they are. The de facto American media blackout on almost all acts of Palestinian nonviolent resistance likely diminishes the effectiveness of the tactic.  Still the alternative—violent attacks on soldiers and civilians—is likely to be countereffective rather than just ineffective: worse than useless.

Talk of the uselessness of violence annoys revolutionaries schooled in violence-advocating ideologies, especially when they regularly see abusive governments and empires making good use of violence to serve their own interests.  If I say violence is useless for the Palestinians, would I also say it is useless for the Israelis?  Might Israeli goals be better achieved by nonviolence too, or does even asking that question make it seem absurdly rhetorical and thus expose how massively naïve and even system-justifying the nonviolent vision is?

I don’t think the question is rhetorical, though many would say Israelis could not achieve their goals nonviolently. I would argue that Israel has as much to gain from nonviolence (and to lose from violence) as Palestinians do. 

What if large deployments of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers (including Jewish Israelis, Arab Israelis, Druze, and others) were trained to do their work in the West Bank without material weapons, learning only minimally violent martial arts like Aikido, survival skills, and Arabic language as well as strategies of effective communication, peacemaking, and nonviolent direct action? 

Imagine this diverse troupe of well-trained, unarmed, nonviolent IDF soldiers going into West Bank villages to protect religious minorities (including but not limited to Jews) from attacks by violent religious fanatics.  Imagine them also acting to protect Palestinians from attacks by Israeli settlers and keeping the peace at nonviolent Palestinian protests against the settlements there that are illegal by international law. 

Imagine troops of IDF soldiers being ready to lay down their lives if necessary to do something decent, without taking any “enemy” lives with them.  This might be a first step towards ending the expansion of settlements and eventually dismantling them and fully ending the occupation of the West Bank—something that most ordinary Israelis claim to want as the end point of any peace deal with Palestinians.

Ian Hansen, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at York College, City University of New York. His research focuses in part on how witness for human rights and peace can transcend explicit political ideology. He is also on the Steering Committee for Psychologists for Social Responsibility.

Truth & Reconciliation, Part 1

Mujahideen in a parade after they forced the US to retreat out of Fallujah in May 2004
Mujahideen in a parade after they forced the US to retreat out of Fallujah in May 2004.
Photo by Dahr Jamail, used with permission.

This is the first of three posts on Truth and Reconciliation by guest author Ross Caputi.

Truth and reconciliation projects have proven to be a powerful ways of bringing closure to communities affected by violence, healing the psychological wounds inflicted by war, and taking the first steps towards bringing communities that have been torn apart by violence back together.

The most successful application of this idea of post-conflict restorative justice is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after the abolition of Apartheid. Many have attempted to apply this model to other conflicts involving protracted inter- and intra-group violence. Some have even tried to use it as a way of ending ongoing violence, as in the case of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

However, much of the success of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa can be attributed to the fact that Apartheid had been abolished. The unjust system that had been fueling oppression had ended, creating an opportunity to build a new society based on equality, human rights, and dignity.

We at Islah believe firmly that reconciliation is not possible while violence and violent systems are ongoing and sustained. Furthermore, it is insufficient for reconciliation projects to try to affect cognitive, emotional, and behavioral changes in groups and individuals alone in order to achieve reconciliation. Dialogue, exercises in forgiveness, and the fostering of attitudinal and perceptual shifts about the conflict do not address the structural injustices that drive conflicts.

Reconciliation cannot lead to resolution; it can only be a result of resolution. Furthermore, the form of resolution called “peace,” is not desirable if the structural injustices that caused the conflict remain in place.

Ross is currently on the Board of Directors of ISLAH. He is also a graduate student and a writer. In 2004, he was a US Marine in the US-led occupation of Iraq. His experience there, in particular his experience during the 2nd siege of Fallujah, compelled him to leave the US military and join the anti-war movement. His activism has focused on our society’s moral obligation to our victims in Iraq, and to the responsibility of veterans to renounce their hero status in America.

What does terrorism mean to you?

Banner used by FBI. Image in public domain, from Wikimedia Commons..

Before proceeding, write your own definition of “terrorism.” Then you can compare it with other definitions from ordinary people from over 40 countries around the world who responded to the Group on International Perspectives on Governmental Aggression and Peace (GIPGAP) survey.

This study revealed that “terrorism,” like “war,” is defined in many different ways, but those definitions fall into several major thematic categories.

Some definitions focus on perceived causes or motivations for terrorism:

  • “People who fight for idealism
  • Last resort in getting global response: e.g. Palestine, N. Ireland”
  • An expression of senseless rage against innocent people to get a point across”

Another group of definitions focus on the methods or processes of terrorism:

  • “it is a kind of weapon used by anti-social elements”
  • “violently attack someone or something outside the bounds of normal warfare”

Some definitions focus on the outcomes of terrorism:

  • When innocent people die because of someone else’s beliefs, either political or religious”
  • Activities linked to physical, economic and psychological damage
  • “It is what destroys peace.”

A final prominent theme involves value judgments concerning the nature of terrorism:

  • Unacceptable way of reaching your goal, kind of illness”
  • “Barbarism”
  • “An insidious irrational cowardly style of murder”

What do you think of these definitions? Does your definition fall into one of these thematic categories? Would you change your definition in any way now that you have seen these definitions?

In our earlier post on definitions of war, we ended with several questions about gender differences in types of definitions. The answers to these questions varied by geographical and cultural context.

For example, women from English-speaking countries (the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and Australia) were more likely than men from those countries to make moral judgments concerning war, whereas men from those countries focused more on criteria for calling a conflict a war. Women from Latin America were significantly more likely than Latin American men to refer to concrete outcomes of war in their definitions.

Are any of these differences surprising to you?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Can hatred be an ideology?

The Ideology of HatredIn her book The Ideology of Hatred: The Psychic Power of Discourse, Niza Yanay argues that conflicts formerly identified as struggles for national autonomy or self-determination are now being viewed as products of hatred. We heard a lot of that after 9/11: “Why do they hate us?”

Perhaps the answers would have seemed too embarrassing if the media had asked questions such as, “Why do they want control of their own oil, of their own territory?”

Yanay argues that hatred is not the opposite of love but rather is intricately intertwined with it. Think about it. On a personal level, how often do husbands, wives, lovers, and children say “I hate you” to the people they love and need most?

Yanay categorizes hate into two types:

  • Hatred by the oppressed toward an oppressor
  • Hatred by the oppressor toward the oppressed.

The first, she points out, can be easily understood. The second type, however, requires the development of an ideology to support it—an  ideology that portrays you and your particular group as moral, good, and just, and any “Other” as hateful and dangerous.

While political-military leaders and the media may reinforce such an ideology–for example, referring to an “Axis of Evil” or “Muslim terrorism”—people have an unconscious desire to connect with the “enemy.” For example, sometimes Israelis refer to Palestinians and Arabs refer to Jews as “our cousins.”

Yanay offers a way out of the sort of hatred promoted in the Middle East and elsewhere: form friendships, even in the face of conflicts, just as we do in our personal lives. Most of us have good friends who occasionally frustrate us, anger us, refuse to see that we are right and they are wrong. In general, though, we value those personal friendships enough to work things through.

Nations can do that too.

Kathleen Malley-Morrison and Majed Ashy

An earlier version of this two-part review was recently published in the American
Psychological Association journal, PsycCRITIQUES, August 2013.