New York Review of Books runs a piece highly sympathetic to the Palestinian resistance to occupation, by Eyal Press:
At one point in the film [Budrus], Palestinian youths barrage the soldiers stationed nearby with stones. “No guys! Guys, do not throw stones!” Ayed Morrar yells, to no avail. The scene does not evoke Gandhi’s peaceful marches in India. Yet describing the stone throwing in this case as “incitement” seems a tad unfair. When the youths start throwing stones, Israeli troops have already encircled the village and imposed a curfew on it. As stun grenades explode and bullets fly through the air, terrified residents scurry for cover. Morrar, whose demeanor throughout the film is calm and unflappable, looks visibly shaken, clutching a cell-phone and telling a reporter, “It’s like Fallujah—shooting everywhere.”
Reached by phone a few days after Israel’s bungled raid on the Mavi Marmara, Morrar seemed in far better spirits, not least because, in his view, the botched flotilla operation showed how civil disobedience can triumph over violence. (The Netanyahu government, of course, rejects this notion, portraying the ship as a “hate boat” whose passengers were “violent supporters of terrorism.”) He described unarmed struggle as the best way for Palestinians to show that they are “not against Israelis” but simply “against the occupation.” But he did not downplay the obstacles to building a broader non-violent movement. “For both Hamas and Fatah it’s easy enough to find a few people to get involved in an act of armed resistance,” he said. “In a nonviolent struggle they must persuade all the people—the kids, the young, the women, the old people—to work together.”
