Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Israel's Greatest Fear

Widespread nonviolent Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation is the Jewish state's greatest nightmare.

3 comments:

Will said...

Hence why Americans who give to organizations devoted to training Palestinians (and others) in nonviolent techniques can be designated sponsors of terrorism?

Charles said...

One of my pet theories is actually that the growing use of nonviolent civil disobedience, boycotts, labor strikes and tax resistance tactics, during the First Intifada, were the primary reason that the Israeli government effectively brought the PLO back in from exile in order to serve as counterpart for the Oslo accords and to manage the PA: when put to it, they needed a conventionally political and paramilitary organization that they could make treaties with, manage and control as necessary; whereas the leaderless resistance and the use of non-compliance and economic tactics, in the occupied territories was rapidly spinning out into something fundamentally unmanageable. The presence of a traditional political entity was necessary to co-opt it, and thus ultimately make it possible to manage and contain it.

Sheldon Richman said...

Charles, that is an entirely reasonable conclusion.