I haven't gotten into the debate over non-violence on this site for a few reasons, mainly because other articulate voices are engaged, though I tend to be on the non-violent side, because this moment is just too important in reaching out to Americans who are finally opening their eyes but are turned off by the cycle of violence. And when people say, But look, you're a privileged American, I say, You're right, and we want privileged Americans engaged.
That said, I've been reading I.F. Stone from the '50s and it interests me that when it came to the Jim Crow South--a situation somewhat similar in the American experience to what the West Bank represents today (let alone Gaza)-- he was for the use of force to bring about integration. His writings leave me no doubt that he would have called for state force to evict the settlers from the West Bank, long ago, to save Israeli society. And now?
Let's go to the videotape.
I'm reading Stone's book The Haunted Fifties. Two columns are of interest. Back in '56, white mobs for a time prevented the integration of schools in Alabama and Kentucky. In both cases, Stone called for the state to crush the mob.
In the University of Alabama case, Stone even likened blacks to Arabs. He viewed the white mob as similar to French hoodlums in then-colonial Algeria, who in 1956 kept a liberal French minister from assuming power and granting more freedom to the Arab elite.
That French mob cut the ground from under the French-educated Arabs... That Tuscaloosa mob, and the cowardly way the University and Governor Folsom gave in to it, is doing the same to the moderate elements in our Negro community. The longer that responsible white leadership delays the unpopular step of enforcing educational integration which is now law, the harder it will become, the stronger the mob will grow. This lawlessness is a monster best killed in its cradle.
Later on in September 1956, in the case of an elementary school in Clay, Kentucky, Stone went even further in his denunciation of racism and its effects (and pushed for Adlai Stevenson over Eisenhower):
There will be no orderly determination without some show of force. A false dichotomy has been set up about force and persuasion. Both are needed... mobs can never be merely persuaded. They will overwhelm the good people of the community unless dealt with firmly. What progress has been made in Kentucky and Tennessee was made because Governors Chandler and Clement to their credit called out the militia to show that they meant business...
Unless some firm moves toward enforcing compliance are soon made from Washington, the lines may harden for a long, long fight in which the South, its destiny and its good people, will more and more come under the control of the worst elements and poison the political life of the whole country. Behind the school struggle is the shadow of a conflict as grave as slavery created. The South must become either truly democratic or the base of a new racist and Fascist movement which could threaten the whole country and its institutions. On this, more than any other issue, fresh leadership in the White House is urgent.
Wow, what a scenario Stone foresaw! Some may call it paranoid, but I call it wisdom when applied to Israel. The thrust of Stone's thoughts must be clear even to liberal Zionists. A racist movement representing the worst of Israel (the settlers) has been allowed to grow. Their mob rule of an entire region should have been prevented by force. It has not, and it has poisoned the whole society and truly threatened all Israeli institutions.
Stone clearly would have supported the use of force against the settlers by the state. Would he condone the murder of settlers? I am sure he would not. But as he indicates in the southern situation, the problem has so degenerated in the Jim Crow West Bank-- lack of freedom for millions of Palestinians for decades now, as the advanced world is moving toward multicultural democracy-- that we have a political problem as bad as slavery in the U.S. I am not even talking about Gaza; and again leading U.S. institutions are corrupted by it.
I pray for a bloodless transition to democracy. But reading Stone, it's hard to imagine such a transition without a strong militia making its appearance.
P.S. I'm stuck on Stone in the '50. In Prophets Outcast, a fine collection of Jewish non-Zionist thought, edited by Adam Shatz of the LRB, Stone in the 60s urges his beloved Israel to climb the "steep and arid mountains of prejudice" against Arabs. I'll get to that later....
Phil, the settler movement hasn’t been “allowed” to grow. The state has been behind it all the way. Ariel Sharon used to meet with the settler leaders to plan their next steps. The state actively uses force to support the settlers.
POTSHERD- I agree. Add to that the fact that the “settlers” (paramilitary occupiers) are a significant component of IDF personnel. In many ways, these “settlers” are to the Israeli government what Irgun and Lehi were to the Yishuv. They provide plausible deniability for the terror operations which Israel basically supports and sees as an essential part of the ethnic cleansing intrinsic to Zionist expansionism.
I thought Phil’s article looking back on the old US South and pied noir Algeria was penetrating; I also agree with the astute caveats of potsherd and Keith. Look at the package of incentives the government Israel offers to immigrant settlers and those from pre-1967 Israel itself. Look at the enmeshment of the IDF with the settlers.
I wonder, Phil, how you’d really feel and think if you and your family lived in occupied Palestine – the pressure and responsibilities of trying to raise good kids and keep mondoweiss going strong day to day?
Somehow, I think some, not all, of your nice and genteel thinking would be dissipated.
I’m not pro-violence, but I’m realist enough to know sometimes it’s unavoidable – I mean we ARE talking warfare and revolution here.
And in times of war EVERYTHING should be on the table: dialogue AND violence.
Just the way it is, Phil – and always and forever thus shall remain.
Phil might read The esteemed El Haj Malik Shabazz to gain a better understanding of self defense.
Obviously, Phil’s tendency to be on the non-violent side would decrease the closer it hit home.
A commitment to non-violence, or more accurately , does entail respect for law and due process. I.F. Stone was calling for the feds to enforce the law AND abide by due process. That is, I’m sure he wasn’t calling for them to arrest people and throw away the key. In contrast, see
And in Palestine, there is no just law or just process. What passes for the law is the occupation force, which is a law unto itself, even in defiance of the highest Israeli court.
In Palestine, there is only force and violence. Why should it be only on one side?
Commitment to non-violence, or Satyagraha entails respect for law and due process. I.F.Stone was calling for both. That is, I’m sure he wasn’t calling for the feds to arrest people and then throw away the key. In contract, see, Why Israel imprisoned my best friend.
I don’t think the use of force is accurate language to describe Stone’s points.
The nucleus of his argument is law. His argument was to support the enforcement of law (well-constructed law consistent with humane values).
“His writings leave me no doubt that he would have called for state force to evict the settlers from the West Bank, long ago, to save Israeli society. And now?”
“A racist movement representing the worst of Israel (the settlers) has been allowed to grow. Their mob rule of an entire region should have been prevented by force. It has not, and it has poisoned the whole society and truly threatened all Israeli institutions.”
Stone was NOT a revolutionist. He’s assertions about state use of force were to implement law that was duly legislated and/or judicially clarified.
The use of force to displace the settlers would be in violation of Israeli law.
Prior to the formation of civil rights law, Stone consistently focused on changing the law.
I get it RW. But the US government made laws that trumped State laws, being implemented by the local white population.
Israel has made laws that contravene international law, which therefore it is “righteous” to refuse to obey, and even to fight against.
The way that the laws were passed and the supreme court ruled that the interpretation of “equal due process under the law” was the result of literally decades of legal, artistic, dramatic, cultural, electoral work by thousands of committed individuals.
The work was often passionate, often angry, but not violent, not revolutionary.
That is what is necessary in Israel, persuasion.
International law is the wrong law to parade to support Palestinian liberation and improvement. There are elements of international law that support Israel’s actions (for example, there are many that plausibly argue that the blockade is legal by international law), and many that conflict with Israel’s actions.
International law is NOT analagous to US federal law. International law does not compel a central authority to enforce, but most often requests remediation almost voluntarily. It is only when the UN votes to enforce statutes by general assembly and security council resolution which includes voluntary commitments of member states to fund the enforcement.
Otherwise, international law has not ruled.
It may be a tragedy, that may motivate you to attempt to reform international law, but its not yet a description.
RW
“Not violent”?
No lynchings, murders or beatings then? No daily humiliations?
Don’t be so daft. The violence tended to be one-sided, that one side often did advocate revolution to maintain its “rights” – BUT didn’t have a foreign supporter funneling in vast sums of money & weapons to enable the situation to continue.
Not violent actions by the opponents of Jim Crow.
But, determined, disciplined, persuasive argument, and still it took a long time.
The civil rights movement didn’t have much money either, and many radicals were angry that the NAACP for example spent so much money and effort on legal defense and legislative efforts, rather than more direct action.
They were right. That we now have the affirmation of “equal due process under the law” is due to the determined incremental work of the lawyers, speakers.
Please actually try to understand what I write, rather than some caricature that you form from others’ malevolent rants.
>> It may be a tragedy, that may motivate you to attempt to reform international law, but its not yet a description.
The laws are on the books and the intent is ever-present, but because they’re “not a description” – thanks to the fact that “we” get to decide what is and what is not “a description”, based on sound “what’s best for us” jurisprudence – it’s bombs away and Israel Über Alles for you! What a humanist!
You are a disgusting, hateful hypocrite, no nuances about it.
“That we now have the affirmation of “equal due process under the law” is due to the determined incremental work of the lawyers, speakers.”
You know, I hate to say it, but the armed might of the Federal government hovering in the background is what made the work of those lawyers and speakers worth something. The lawyers and the nonviolent street protests and hovering at the edges, the threat of radical violence all worked towards prodding the Federal government into acting on their behalf, but if there had been no Federal government, overcoming Jim Crow would have been a much tougher and probably far bloodier task. I grew up in the South right after Jim Crow ended–if you think that coercion wasn’t part of what persuaded white people to treat blacks as equals then you’re living in a dream world. Well, we knew that already.
Not that I’m dismissing nonviolence–I favor it. But there’s a coercive aspect to many (or maybe all, but I don’t know) successful nonviolent campaigns.
“if you think that coercion wasn’t part of what persuaded white people to treat blacks as equals ”
Of course even that’s overstating what the results were. Anyway, coercion worked. And gradually more and more whites (though not all) came to realize that their racial prejudices were wrong.
Again,
You are describing what you would like international law to conclude and enforce, not what it actually is and does.
There are elements of international law that support your contentions and are enforceable and elements that conflict with your contentions and are not enforceable.
For example, the phrase often stated by biased, selective solidarity with resistance is “armed resistance to occupation is a right embodied in international law” is partially true but barely.
The corollary, “establishment of order and prosecution of crime, even politically described, is a RESPONSIBILITY of occupation”.
How do you reconcile those two conflicting statements? Well, if you are a solidarity activist, an anarchist maybe, you regard states responsibilities’ as irrelevant. You are a vanguard of the people.
You frankly LIE about my recommendations. I do not passively “accept” Israeli suppressions of Palestinians. On the contrary.
But, I reject the habitual hateful statements that imply that Zionism is an evil in the world. For my people, it was a salvation and is currently where half of us live, and those that do so choose to remain.
During the “Troubles” a number of prisoners,probably in the low hundreds, were considered to be “political prisoners” whether or not their involvement led to the murder of others. And whether or not the British government of the day considered them common criminals. In the deal to end the situation, they were released. Murderers and all. They had a lot of support from the US. The thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have just about disappeared from world consciousness. The MSM is silent until occasional prisoner swaps are mooted, when it generally takes the Zionist/Israeli line, being firmly on the side of the oppressor.
My view is that Zionism had a time and a place in the original establishment of the state of Israel, but yes, has now become an evil in the world with its continued determination to take by force more lands, and to oppress, humiliate and dispossess and expel those who were already living in the land.
Yeah, Witty, well the Nazi regime had its own laws too. Time for Israel to publish a Constitution; then the argument of organic or “living law” versus literal or historical constitutional intent can begin.
“The use of force to displace the settlers would be in violation of Israeli law.”
[Some] people will refuse to obey what they consider to be unjust laws. Whoever resists has a right to due process. Israel law as applied in the territories fails on all counts: Its laws do not conform to international law, and their implementation continually violates and subverts the basic rules of due process. Meanwhile, the apparatus of the State of Israel actively encourages illegal behavior, as defined by international law.
I agree that the dual systems of law for Israeli citizens (including applied to settlers) and occupied Palestinians is horridly unfair, more than unfair, and needs to be changed.
There are only three ways to change a state’s laws.
1. Revolution – Violent and imposed usually by a minority
2. External war – Violent and imposed
3. Persuasion – Long, tiring, confusing, non-violent, and long-lasting with the power of law rather than of force.
Revolution and external war are literally lazy approaches, especially for those that claim to be arguing, rather than shooting (thankfully).
So, you disapprove of the American Revolution? When did you realize that the American ideology filled you with such disgust, Witty? When did you come the the conclusion that the founding fathers of the United States were “literally lazy?”
Witty, please provide us with a few successful examples of your option #3 and the role of economic pressure and established media in them.
During the fifties when troops were used to enforce civil rights for Blacks, the struggle to open up the South was completely nonviolent. In occupied Palestine, however, there’s always been a violent component to the struggle, made necessary by the viciousness of colonialism. Whiat makes Jim Crow days not quite analagous to the situation in the West Bank and Gaza is that the Palestinians struggle has both violent and nonviolent components, such that, at any given moment one goes up, the other down, and vice versa, depending upon how much punishment the settlers are inflicting upon the Palestinians. What’s more, as noted by other posters to this thread, U.S. troops were enforcing civil rights laws, whereas, what’s behind the settler-state’s use of force is it’s insatiable quest for yet more land – kind of like full speed ahead and international law be damned. As it’s turning out, though, justice for Palestine won’t require international troops, reason being that increasingly now the word is getting out that it’s the Palestinian who’s the victim, the settler (every Jewish Israeli*) who’s the victimizer. Which is to say that the tide is turning, the settler-state’s (not its people’s) days numbered. But even though ultimately it’s nonviolence that’s going to bring down the settler-state, until nonviolence can stand on its own, thereby rendering violence not only unnecessary but obsolete, the imbalance of power between victim & victimizer may require a certain amount of force. And if/when Palestinians chooses to use force against the occupiers of their land, rather than our wasting time & energy denouncing them, once again, what’ll shift the equation towards nonviolence is our trying even harder to get the word out.
Where do the firing on Ft Sumpter (sic?) and the 14th Amendment that followed fit in here? The Civil Rights movement could not have happened
without the Civil War first. What would happen if the government of Israel ordered the IDF to boot out the settlers, and the non-jews were not continually stopped from forming an effective coalition in Israel’s parliment? Would universal conscription into the IDF help?
from: link to corax.com
Russell even mentions Stone.
Bertrand Russell
On Israel and Bombing
1970
The latest phase of the undeclared war in the Middle East is based upon a profound miscalculation. The bombing raids deep into Egyptian territory will not persuade the civilian population to surrender, but will stiffen their resolve to resist. This is the lesson of all aerial bombardment. The Vietnamese who have endured years of American heavy bombing have responded not by capitulation but by shooting down more enemy aircraft. In 1940 my own fellowcountrymen resisted Hitler’s bombing raids with unprecedented unity and determination. For this reason, the present Israeli attacks will fail in their essential purpose, but at the same time they must be condemned vigorously throughout the world.
The development of the crisis in the Middle East is both dangerous and instructive. For over 20 years Israel has expanded by force of arms. After every stage in this expansion Israel has appealed to “reason” and has suggested “negotiations”. This is the traditional role of the imperial power, because it wishes to consolidate with the least difficulty what it has already taken by violence. Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression. The aggression committed by Israel must be condemned, not only because no state has the right to annexe foreign territory, but because every expansion is an experiment to discover how much more aggression the world will tolerate.
The refugees who surround Palestine in their hundreds of thousands were described recently by the Washington journalist I.F. Stone as “the moral millstone around the neck of world Jewry.” Many of the refugees are now well into the third decade of their precarious existence in temporary settlements. The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was “given” by a foreign Power to another people for the creation of a new State. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their number have increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East.
We are frequently told that we must sympathize with Israel because of the suffering of the Jews in Europe at the hands of the Nazis. I see in this suggestion no reason to perpetuate any suffering. What Israel is doing today cannot be condoned, and to invoke the horrors of the past to justify those of the present if gross hypocrisy. Not only does Israel condemn a vast number of refugees to misery; not only are many Arabs under occupation condemned to military rule; but also Israel condemns the Arab nations only recently emerging from colonial status, to continued impoverishment as military demands take precedence over national development.
All who want to see an end to bloodshed in the Middle East must ensure that any settlement does not contain the seeds of future conflict. Justice requires that the first step towards a settlement must be an Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied in June, 1967. A new world campaign is needed to help bring justice to the long-suffering people of the Middle East.
In the U.S., equal rights under law had been on the books since the Civil War. It’s in the constitution, the 14th amendment. The legal end of jim crow was a matter of providing proof and convincing the supreme court that separate was not equal which had ample proof after so many decades of “separate but equal.”
As for Israel, it was founded on the premise of superior rights for Jews. Hence the mass murders of non-Jews by Zionists in order to cleanse the land of them.
I don’t know how aware Stone was of the planning and premeditation which went into the ethnic cleansing operations by the founders of Israel. Or if he fell for any of the Zionist lines, such as the Jews need a home therefore giving them someone else’s is justified, or the one that the Palestinians fled because Arab governments told them to or that 5 Arab countries attacked Israel on its birth but the plucky little country fought them off. is For a long time, I certainly was unaware and believed the Zionist lines about Israel.
Stone’s comment about undercutting “moderate” Arabs leaves me a little cold. After H. Clinton, Israel and the pro-Israel lobby expended tons of effort presenting the Palestinians as violent savages, who’s left? It isn’t so much a matter of undercutting “moderates” as murdering intellectuals and leadership who might have been open to diplomacy, deliberately causing disarray and weak leadership for the Palestinians. Who’s left are quislings, groomed by Israel and the U.S. to give up Palestinian rights.
I gotta agree with the commentators who say that it isn’t so much that the settlers have been allowed to grow, they’ve been encouraged, they’re the epitome of Zionism.
So, there is no state militia that’s going to remove the settlers and their mob rule, the only state militias there protect them, both Israel’s and the PA’s who are Israel’s contracted minions. Nor is simple persuasion likely to work. I favor BDS. To get rid of the settler mob rule, it’s necessary for Israel to climb that steep mountain of prejudice against Arabs, moreover, to change its very nature, but then it would not remain a Jewish state.
I don’t think the problem is with Jewish society, what I observe of it. The problem is Zionism itself, a philosophy which believes in superiority and superior rights for non-native Jews in former Palestine.
In Israel’s primary law, functionally a constitution, equal due process under the law is the law.
Constitutionally, it is supposed to more democratic than Jewish.
Appealing to law is a current path, as is electoral campaign to support the democratic interpretation of the law.
Revolution is lazy frankly, an admission of failure.
According to wikipedia, Israel’s basic law does not guarantee equal rights for all citizens.
And weirdly, while the basic law recognizes human dignity for all persons of Israeli nationality, the state of Israel doesn’t recognize Israeli nationality. Israeli “Arabs” are given “Arab” nationality on their ID cards. Whether Arabs qualify as human depends on which Jewish sect you ask, I’m sure Phil ascribes to the idea that Arabs are humans, but some sects, Chabad religious leadership for example (those wonderful, dancing rabbis) states that only Jews are fully human.
Israel was founded as a racist state, and as a state is racist through and through, as was the movement, Zionism, that founded it.
Seems to me you’ve made a good argument as to why Arab moderates should smash Fascist movements like Hamas and Hezbollah.