Peaceful Gaza protests may reflect an evolution in Palestinian understandings of power, suffering, and ultimately victory

By Jesse Wheeler

News

For the past several weeks, beginning the 30^th of March 2018 on the anniversary of Land Day, thousands of Palestinian protestors have been demonstrating along the border fence dividing the Gaza Strip from Israel. Referred to as The Great March of Return, non-violent demonstrations are planned to continue for a total of six weeks and are set to culminate on the 15^th of May in commemoration of Nakba Day. The Nakba (“catastrophe”) refers to the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their lands and homes in what now comprises the state of Israel by Zionist forces in 1948. Approximately 70% of those residing in the Gaza Strip, a population of around 1.85 million in an area smaller than 365 square kilometers (141 square miles), are refugees or the descendants of refugees. Under severe military and economic blockade by Israel (and Egypt), the situation in Gaza grows worse by the day with “some 80% of the population dependent upon humanitarian assistance.” The “Right of Return” for Palestinian refugees, based on United Nations Resolution 194 from 1948, has become one of the most contentious issues involved in any effort to establish a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Its promotion is the rationale behind recent demonstrations.

For its part, Israel has made headlines resulting from its decision to use live ammunition against unarmed demonstrators from behind the separation barrier. To date dozens of Palestinians have been killed and hundreds injured by Israeli sniper fire, straining the already short-supplied medical services within the territory. Zero Israelis have been injured. Shooting victims have included unarmed journalists, first responders, and children. While such actions have been praised by local politicians, with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdore Lieberman going so far as to claim there are no innocent persons in Gaza – and therefore deserving of extrajudicial execution – the international fallout from the shooting of unarmed demonstrators has been intense, and at times surprising. High profile American politicians have condemned Israeli actions, while typical supporters of Israel have kept silent or even openly condemned such acts. For example, Israeli-born American actress Natalie Portman recently made headlines for refusing a prestigious Israeli award, in response to the distress she felt at recent events. Former and present members of the Israeli military have likewise expressed their worry over the killings and reached out to advocacy groups.

Analysis

The situation in Gaza raises once again the debate surrounding appropriate strategies for resistance and pacification, particularly the efficacy of violence as opposed to non-violent protest. On the one hand, the intentional strategy of non-violent resistance in Gaza appears to be resulting in huge dividends for the Palestinian cause, generating international sympathy and condemnation of Israeli actions in a way even the devastation of 2014 could not. Whether support for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), which is increasing among those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, or the anti-Likud/anti-Netanyahu sentiments that are being voiced in greater numbers by worldwide Jewish communities, the move towards non-violence in Gaza has already had a tremendous impact. On the other hand, Molotov cocktails and stone throwing can hardly be counted as non-violent. Yet, neither does it count as terrorist activity deserving summary execution.

Furthermore, people have been suggesting Palestinians resist non-violently for years. And, they have been doing so for years. Yet, there exists a profound hypocrisy in the powerful telling the powerless how to respond to their own oppression. The very events of these past weeks, as unarmed demonstrators are shot down with live fire, prove to us that the goal-post for “appropriate” protest is always a moving target. Too often, peace is used as a pseudonym for pacification and the maintenance of an unjust status quo. The Peace Process has been accused of this very intent. Therefore, violent resistance is often justified as simply a response to the very real violence already perpetuated on the powerless by the powerful. Sayyid Qutb, for example, arguably the most influencial voice of Islamism in the twentieth century, believed that “unjust systems are enforced by the exercise of coercive power” and, as such, “could only be met by power in return.” So, he believed that it is contingent upon Muslims in their pursuit of universal justice to dismantle oppressive power structures which stand in the way of human freedom. For if there is to be peace, there must first be justice. Justice, in this line of thought, often requires violence.

Yet the issue here does not simply involve the ethics of violence, but its efficacy. Violent protests have brought little but destruction upon the people of the Gaza Strip, even as the Peace Process has itself proven a spectacular failure. In an interview with 34-year-old Abu Artema, credited as being the inspiration behind, and organizer of the demonstrations, the UK’s Guardian newspaper reports:

[Abu Artema] says he represents a rejection of armed resistance, in part because he believes that strategy has failed. “It’s not necessary to resist the occupation with bullets. You can resist the occupation with dabke, or by just sitting there.”

Political parties, most notably Hamas, openly support the movement and have sent members and fighters to participate, a decision Abu Artema says he accepts. “I’m not a spokesman for Hamas,” he said. “It’s positive that those people started to believe in peaceful struggle. [Israel] wanted to drag it to violence; they don’t want to confront people. They want to be confronted by a rocket or a missile.” Just because a small number of people threw stones, he said, that did not warrant live fire.

Recent political research has likewise pointed to the strategic effectiveness of non-violence in the pursuit of a movement’s stated aims, especially when compared with the often dismal success rate of violence. According to researchers Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, “Between 1900 and 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts.” But it is perhaps John Lennon who describes this seeming paradox most eloquently in his famous declaration:

When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humour.

The powerful understand retaliatory violence and use it to their advantage. Non-violence, on the other hand, unmasks the power dynamics at work in a given situation and serves to delegitimize the imperial ideologies used to justify violence and domination. It also works to humanize not only the oppressed but also the oppressor, as each begins to recognize his or her shared humanity with the other, making violence less and less attractive. To paraphrase Palestinian peacemaker Sami Awad: what would it take for the Israelis themselves to dismantle the instruments of occupation?

Theological Reflections

Ultimately, this points to the efficacy of the cross, whereupon the violence of empire is exhausted, and its true face, its naked brutality revealed. To retaliate in violence is to simply mimic the tactics of empire and become the very thing we most despise. But in the cross of Christ, the Pax Romana was exposed as a lie, as a justifying discourse, a mere cover for the machinery of death keeping the empire intact. In the resurrection, however, death lost its power.

While Christianity and Islam are increasingly being recognized as holistic in nature whereby the sovereign claims of God extend to all facets of life, including political, economic and social, the core distinction between these two faith systems has often resided not in their political and socio-economic holism but in their disagreement over the proper use of power – one epitomized by the road to Calvary, the other by the road to Medina. It now appears that the situation in Gaza may be reflecting an evolution in Palestinian theologies of suffering, occupation and exile.