Calling for nonviolence does not mean abandoning the right to armed self-defense. It means the tactical use of these methods in the same way that the civil rights movement did.
Across the international community there is a growing awareness that what has been happening on the ground in Israel-Palestine is morally unacceptable. Palestinian leadership must respond by presenting an alternative vision that rejects ethnic domination in favor of justice and equality for all who live between the river and the sea.
Israeli nostalgists like to argue that Israel was an idealistic country till Netanyahu. For instance, Chemi Shalev of Haaretz brags on a record of backing MLK Jr and African liberation movements. The records of the Israeli National Archives directly contradict these claims, and show Israel propped up several African dictators, and sought to gain diplomatic and material advantages, such as a monopoly on diamonds in the Central African Republic.
When Donald Trump race-baits minorities, the New York Times offers his targets space to respond. But the Times published Netanyahu’s smears of Palestinian political parties as terrorists without giving them space to respond and repeatedly diminished their achievement in the election, in which they finished behind the two leading Jewish parties.
After protests from a American Jewish organizations, the California Democratic Party leadership undertook to water down resolutions that were critical of Israel and supportive of Palestinian refugees, put forward by progressive activists. But as Jack O’Dell, the civil rights activist, advised James Zogby long ago: Never be devastated by setbacks and never become overly confident due to progress.
Cory Booker’s secret speech to AIPAC is so fulsome it’s hard to believe. Booker would cut off his right hand before abandoning Israel. There is no “greater moral vandalism” than seeking to divide the US and Israel. Booker lobbied black congresspeople not to boycott Netanyahu’s 2015 speech because we need to show a “united front” with Israel. And Donald Trump is endangering Israel’s security in Syria.