Abstract
This chapter explores the phenomenon of internationals and Palestinians working together in resistance against the Israeli occupation during the second intifada, most notably their understandings of nonviolence and violence and how these understandings affect their coordination with one another. International involvement with Palestinian resistance is generally thought of as nonviolent; however, in a society with an armed resistance at the background of a military occupation, it is critical to understand how those resisting “nonviolently” perceive violence. I do not assume it as inherent to their identities as Palestinians or internationals to think differently about violence. However, the different roles of each group (Palestinians and internationals) may nurture different perceptions.
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Notes
Some statistics on the increased visibility of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza include the construction of 90,000 new houses within Israeli settlements, 30 new settlements, 250 miles of bypass roads, the demolition of 1,200 Palestinian homes, as well as the expropriation of 200 square kilometers of Palestinian land (Mohammed Abu-Nimer, “Nonviolent Action in Israel and Palestine: A Growing Force,” in Bridging the Divide: Peacebuilding in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, ed. Edy Kaufman, Walid Salem, and Juliette Verhoeven (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006), 142).
Menachem Klein, The Jerusalem Problem: The Struggle for Permanent Status (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003), 97.
Kathryn Westcott, “Israel accused of ‘excessive force’,” BBC News, October 18, 2000, http://www.bbc.co.uk.
See these works by or about various principled nonviolent theorists: Joan Bondurant, Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958);
Robert Burrowes, The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996);
Diane Francis, People, Peace and Power: Conflict Transformation in Action (London: Pluto Press, 2002);
Mohandas Gandhi, Nonviolent Resistance (Satyagraha)(New York: Schocken Books, 1961);
Richard Gregg, The Power of Nonviolence (Exeter: Wheaton and Co., 1960);
Thomas Weber, “Nonviolence Is Who? Gene Sharp and Gandhi,” Peace and Change 28, no. 2 (2003): 250–270.
See these works by or about various pragmatic nonviolent theorists: Peter Ackerman and Christopher Kruegler, Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century (Westport: Praeger, 1994);
Robert Helvey, On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking about the Fundamentals (Boston: Albert Einstein Institution, 2004);
Jacques Sémelin, Unarmed Against Hitler: Civilian Resistance in Europe, 1939–1943 (Westport: Praeger, 1993);
Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973);
Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggles: Twentieth Century Practice and Twenty-First Century Potential (Boston: Porter Sargent, 2005); Weber, “Nonviolence is Who?,” 250–270.
James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).
Veronique Dudouet, “Nonviolent Resistance and Conflict Transformation in Power Asymmetries,” Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation (2008), 3, http://www.berghof-handbook.net/uploads/download/dudouet_handbook.pdf, accessed December 5, 2008.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: the Montgomery Story (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1958).
See Ho-Won Jeong, Peace and Conflict Studies (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2000), 22–23;
Christos Kyrou, “Peace Ecology: An Emerging Paradigm in Peace Studies,” International Journal of Peace Studies 12, no. 2 (2007): 12.
Mubarak Awad, “Nonviolence and the Intifada,” in Unarmed Forces: Nonviolent Action in Central American and the Middle East, ed. Graeme MacQueen (Toronto: Science for Peace, 1992), 83–94.
Mary Elizabeth King, A Quiet Revolution (New York: Nation Books, 2007), 133–139.
Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Nonviolence and Peacebuilding in Islam: Theory and Practice (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003), 137.
Julie Norman, “The Activist and the Olive Tree: Nonviolent Resistance in the Second Intifada” (PhD diss., American University, 2009).
Charmaine Seitz, “ISM at the Crossroads: The Evolution of the International Solidarity Movement,” Journal of Palestine Studies 32, no. 4 (2003): 60.
For more information on grounded theory, see Kathy Charmaz, Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis (London: Sage Publications, 2006).
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© 2011 Maia Carter Hallward and Julie M. Norman
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Scruggs, S. (2011). Understandings of Nonviolence and Violence: Joint Palestinian and International Nonviolent Resistance. In: Hallward, M.C., Norman, J.M. (eds) Nonviolent Resistance in the Second Intifada. Middle East Today. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230337770_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230337770_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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