Ziad Abu Ziad, Palestinian Leader, Calls for Strategy of Non-Violence   

Well known Palestinian leader calls for a Strategy of Non-Violence

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Ha'aretz journalist Gideon Levy presents the evidence that Israelis would prefer to hold on to the Golan than give it up in exchange for peace with Syria.

From Haaretz: Last update - 13:26 05/03/2010

The power of nonviolence

By Ziad AbuZayyad  

There are signs of mounting distress among the Israeli police and other security forces in the way they are dealing with the Palestinians who stage weekly demonstrations in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. These protests, in which Palestinians are joined by foreign sympathizers and activists of the Israeli left, are intended to express opposition to the eviction of Palestinians from their homes, which are then inhabited by Jewish families.

The edginess of the security personnel has spilled over beyond Sheikh Jarrah and become particularly noticeable in a number of villages where protests are held regularly against the separation fence, land confiscations and restrictions on residents? freedom of movement, as is the case in Bil?in, Na?alin, Nabi Saleh and Deir Nitham, in the Ramallah Governorate, and al-Ma?sara, in the Bethlehem Governorate.

What appears to be turning into a source of worry for the Israeli side is the fact that these protest activities are crystallizing into a weekly tradition, and are bound to draw increasingly larger numbers of participants - especially Palestinians who have become fed up, and who see the demonstrations as an opportunity to express their rejection of Israel?s policies of discrimination, persecution and abuse.

In addition to the steady increase in the numbers of protesters, there is also a "qualitative" rise. Among the prominent Israeli figures who joined the Sheikh Jarrah demonstrations in recent weeks were MK Haim Oron, the chairman of New Movement-Meretz. In a statement made at the site, Oron strongly criticized the policy pursued by the Israeli government and the Jerusalem Municipality against Arab residents of the city holding blue ID cards. Another figure is the respected writer and intellectual David Grossman.

As the number of participants in these peaceful demonstrations grows - whether in East Jerusalem or in West Bank villages threatened by the separation fence or settlement activity - Israel's reaction is becoming increasingly tougher. After all, the Israel Defense Forces has long been used to countering Palestinian violence with even harsher and fiercer measures, which it has justified to itself and to the world by saying they were a response to violence. Today, however, with the widespread adoption by Palestinians of peaceful means of protest, the task of repression has become more difficult, with the use of excessive force unjustified and subject to Israeli and international condemnation.

There is a lesson to be learned here by us Palestinians: We cannot quash the Israeli repression machine with violence, because our violence will be used to justify and legitimize the brutality of the strong against the weak. Furthermore, Palestinians need to take into account the fact that they have allies on the Israeli side who share their rejection of the occupation and of discrimination; it is crucial to reinforce and nurture this relationship with them.

Disseminating a culture of passive resistance against the oppression and atrocities of the occupation is the most efficacious method for fighting it: It should be promulgated and its circle expanded. It must not remain restricted to pockets of protest here and there, but should become a generalized modus operandi that encompasses all points of contact with the occupation and the settlements, which are trying to gobble up the land and obliterate all features of Palestinian identity. It must be clearly said that nonviolence is morally superior to force.

Spreading such a culture is not an easy matter: Palestinians have grown accustomed to opting for force in all its forms in opposing the occupation. Some of their actions allowed the occupation to use this violence to tarnish Palestinians? image as civilized and humane people and to portray them as bloodthirsty and given to indiscriminate killings of children, women and the elderly. This eventually turned local and international public opinion against them. Being victims of the occupation and having the legitimate right to resist should not mean compromising on moral values.

In their asymmetric battle with the occupation, Palestinians must turn to peaceful resistance. It is the only way to tilt the balance of power in their favor, by neutralizing the arms of the occupation and its military and technological capacities, while at the same time gaining the respect, sympathy and support of the world for their battle against racial discrimination, the subjugation of peoples and the denial of their freedoms.

Ziad AbuZayyad is editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal, and a former minister and PLC member in the Palestinian Authority.

From Haaretz: Last update - 03:30 04/03/2010

Peace not wanted

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz Correspondent  

Israel does not want peace with Syria. Let's take off all the masks we've been hiding behind and tell the truth for a change. Let's admit that there's no formula that suits us, except the ludicrous "peace for peace." Let's admit it to ourselves, at least, that we do not want to leave the Golan Heights, no matter what. Forget about all the palaver, all the mediations, all the efforts.

Let's face it, we don't want peace, we want to run wild, to paraphrase an Israeli pop song from the '70s. Don't bother us with new Syrian proposals, like the one published in Haaretz this week that calls for a phased withdrawal and peace in stages; don't pester us with talk about peace as a way to break up the dangerous link between Syria and Iran; don't tell us peace with Syria is the key to forging peace with Lebanon and weakening Hezbollah. Turkey isn't an "honest" broker, the Syrians are part of the axis of evil, all is quiet on the Golan - you know how much we love the place, its mineral waters, its wines - so who needs all the commotion of demonstrations and evacuating settlements, just for peace?

It's not only the current extreme right-wing government that doesn't want this whole headache, and it wasn't only all of its predecessors - some of which were on the very brink of withdrawing from the Golan and only at the last moment, the very last moment, changed their minds. It's all the Israelis - the minority that is really against it and the majority that doesn't give a damn. They'd rather pretend not to hear the encouraging sounds coming out of Damascus in recent months and not even try to put them to the test.
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Everyone would rather wave the menacing picture of Bashar Assad alongside Hassan Nasrallah and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his partners in the axis of evil, with the hummus and the bulgur. That on its own should have made Israel try 10 times harder to make peace. But in Israeli eyes, the picture of the banquet, as one Israeli paper termed the "modest meal," is worth more than a thousand words. After that, do you really expect us to give up the Golan? Don't make us laugh. We'll make peace with Micronesia, not Syria.

When the Syrians talk peace, it is all "empty words," "deception" and a wily way of getting closer to the United States. But when Assad poses with the president of Iran, that's the truth, that's Syria's real face. Even when he merely says, on the same occasion, that Syria must prepare for an Israeli attack, he is immediately accused of "threatening" Israel.

Do you want proof that we really don't want peace with Syria? Well, there has not yet been one Israeli prime minister who has said that we do. Because, after all, the order would have to be the opposite of the usual Israeli haggling. A prime minister who really wanted to achieve peace would have to say one terribly simple thing: We undertake in advance - yes, in advance - to hand back the entire Golan in exchange for a full peace. But no, not one prime minister has declared readiness to leave the Golan - right up to the last grain of sand, as we did in Sinai - in exchange for a peace like that which we have with Egypt.

Why on earth do we always have to hold onto this card so it can be played last? And what kind of a card is it, anyway? What kind of end does it ensure? After all, if the Syrian reply is negative, nobody will make us leave the Golan Heights. And what if the reply is positive? Why not start off with a promising, invigorating declaration, one that will give the Syrians hope and thereby at least put their intentions to the test.

But we are not the only ones who don't want peace. The United States has turned out to be a true friend that extricates us from every briar patch. It doesn't want peace enough either, praise the Lord. It's a fact: Washington is applying no pressure. Here's another marvelous pretext for doing nothing - America isn't pressing us and the redeemer will come to Zion, in the words of the prophet Isaiah. Yet we are the ones who have to stay in the dangerous and menacing Middle East, not the Americans; we should be more interested than anyone in preventing another war in the north, in creating a new relationship with Syria and then with Lebanon, and in weakening Iranian influence; in trying to integrate, at last. An Israeli interest, no? And what do we do to advance it? Half of nothing.

So what is there left to do? At least admit the truth: We do not want peace with Syria. That's all there is to it.