Norman Finkelstein’s lecture of two years ago on Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What We Can Learn From Gandhi:
A massive mobilization of Palestinians building on the non-cooperation tactics of the first intifada (commercial and tax strikes, popular committees) could again make the Israeli occupation ungovernable. Is it so far-fetched to imagine an “army” of Palestinian satyagrahis converging on the Wall, their sole “weapons” a pick in one hand and a copy of the ICJ [International Court of Justice] opinion in the other? The ICJ stated that the Wall was illegal and must be dismantled. The Palestinians would only be doing what the world should already have done a long time ago. Who could fault them for enforcing the law? No doubt Israel would fire on Palestinians and many would be killed. But if their supporters in North America and Europe publicized the ICJ opinion, and if Palestinians found the inner wherewithal to persevere nonviolently, it seems probable that far, far fewer than 5,000 Palestinians would be killed before Israel were forced to desist. No one writing abroad from the comfort and safety of his study can in good conscience urge such a strategy that entails so much death. But Gandhi’s point nonetheless stands: if Palestinians have repeatedly shown a willingness to pay the ultimate price, doesn’t it make sense for them to pursue a strategy that has a better likelihood of success at a smaller human price?
A high profile publicity campaign in the West complementing nonviolent Palestinian civil resistance in the Occupied Territories would enhance the prospects of its success. If the campaign targeted Israeli intransigence as the sole obstacle to a settlement, it would pave the way for making of Israel a pariah state, and then the implementation of sanctions against it. The tenability of such a sanctions campaign depends, however, on international public opinion being first (or simultaneously) primed with knowledge of both the consensus for resolving the conflict and Israel’s refusal to abide it.
Lyrics of Peter Gabriel’s song Biko, based on the 1977 death in police custody of South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, 30:
You can blow out a candle
But you can’t blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja
-The man is deadAnd the eyes of the world are
watching now
watching now
