For years prominent corporate media pundits have told us that the world—and the media—would embrace a dramatic, non-violent Palestinian resistance movement. If only such a movement—perhaps led by a Gandhi-like figure—were to finally emerge, we are told, the media coverage will come, and sympathy from across the world will strengthen support for the Palestinian cause.
This is nonsense—there has been non-violent Palestinian resistance for years. But that fact hasn’t stopped pundits like Time‘s Joe Klein, as recently as last year, from wondering why Palestinians haven’t found their Gandhi. Or New York Times columnist Tom Friedman from writing a column (5/24/11) arguing that if Palestinians would simply adopt peaceful resistance “it would become a global news event. Every network in the world would be there.”
Or consider New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, writing (7/10/10) under the headline “Waiting for Gandhi,” that if Palestinians would finally pursue nonviolent resistance, “Those images would be on televisions around the world.”
“So far there is no Palestinian version of Martin Luther King Jr.,” Kristof wrote—though he singled out one possible candidate, activist Ayed Morrar, who “spent six years in Israeli prisons but seems devoid of bitterness.”
Perhaps that is the standard—jailed by the Israelis, but not bitter.
But what about someone, right now, resisting Israeli detention practices? Someone whose hunger strike is attracting attention around the world? That is Khader Adnan. As Ali Abunimah tells his story:
The 33-year-old Palestinian baker, husband, father and graduate student has refused food since December 18, a day after he was arrested in a nighttime raid on his family home by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank. He has lost over 40 kgs and his wife Randa and young daughters have described his appearance as “shocking.”
Adnan, whom Israel says is a member of Islamic Jihad, was given a four-month “administrative detention” order by the Israeli military—meaning that he is held without being charged for any crime or trial, a practice continued by Israel that dates back to British colonial days.
Yesterday an Israeli military court rejected Adnan’s appeal against the arbitrary detention. Having vowed to maintain his hunger strike until he is released or charged, the judge—an Israeli military officer—might as well have sentenced Khader Adnan to death, unless there is urgent international intervention.
Though the life in his body hangs on by a thread, his spirit is unbroken.
The pundits who tell us that they crave a dramatic nonviolent Palestinian narrative can write the story of Khader Adnan, who has drawn comparisons to celebrated Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands.
But they are not writing his story. His plight is sparsely covered in the U.S. corporate media, and would seem to go unmentioned by these pundits who seem eager to tell stories like his.
It might lead one to believe that Friedman and his ilk don’t really mean what they write.
Bitter?
These bastards become bitter over a frigging parking ticket – assuming that can’t get it fixed.
And they have the nerve to counsel against bitterness?
I have news for these schmucks. There are plenty of people who are “bitter” about being jailed, beaten, tortured – and have every right to be.
But we’re not really talking about bitterness, are we? What the corpress really desires is a lack of anger, and the action that it fuels.
Meekly accept your oppression, ask nicely for your rights, and maybe we’ll give you a little column space or a few seconds of airtime.
That’s not what King and so many others did, but that’s the revisionist history we’re being fed to deny us the inspiring examples of the courage and humanity of those who’ve come before, and live among us today.
It’s a better start.
Martin Luther King was completely different and not analogous to anything that is going on in he Middle East. It can be argued from different points who is repressed and oppressed to the point that it is meaningless.
If American blacks had a monolithic belief that the US should be destroyed and not exist at all, and were committed to that, how far do you think Martin Luther King would have gotten?
Also, logically, just because he is on a hunger strike does not make him non-violent or “like” Martin Luther King.
Adnan is not the first non-violent protester against Israeli occupation. There have been many, including ones using tactics of specifically putting their bodies in the way of the occupation for many years (I remember the first in-depth report on the tactic in 1988, reporting a contrast to violent means). The anti-settlement Israeli left regularly works together with non-violent Palestian organizationas and individuals. The opposite of the Klein/Kristof/Friedman hypothesis is closer to the truth: Israel seeks actively to delegitimize its peaceful opposition so that it can keep the conflict on military terms, where it enjoys overwhelming superiority.
“Administrative detention” sounds so benign, sort of like what happens to the banks and Wall St when they take the money and run.
I cannot believe that the world is ignoring this man, Mr. Adnan. Dragged from his house and jailed with no charges, and now he will probably die. “Humantarian aid” is starting to sound like a suspicious term too. I got mail today from Doctors Without Borders. They included a big map of the world. I looked to see if they were in Palestine, because the Palestinians certainly need all kinds of aid, but I couldn’t tell if Doctors Without Borders went there because Rand McNally doesn’t show Palestine on their map, they only show Israel.
Everyone in American schools seems to read the Diary of Anne Frank, and many read it and think how awful for a life to end that could have been so important to others. I wish that everyone would also think that there are Anne Franks, her brothers, mothers and fathers in need of help in so many places of the world.I also don’t think that looking for a new “Ghandi” or a MLK is necessary, because Mr. Adnan is right there in front of them.
“It can be argued from different points who is repressed and oppressed to the point that it is meaningless.”
Brux, your apology is pathetic and deeply dishonest. If an analogy in the US context has to be made, the Israeli Jews are Puritans and Pilgrims who fled religious persecution in England, and the Palestinians are the Native Americans. Who oppresses whom could not be clearer.
A better analogy would be to a nineteenth-century American Indian activist from the thenâ┚¬“Indian Territory who demanded equal rights within the US and room for a viable Indian country or a merging of the countries. But your “total destruction”/”drive them into the sea” narrative won’t allow that.
In your mind, of course any resistance is illegitimate, violent or otherwise.
Although Mahtama Gandhi was against a Jewish homeland in Palestine – his memory has been exploited by the Zionist crowed for the benefit of Israel.
Gandhi’s Jewish biographer, Joseph Lelyveld, wrote in “Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi And His Struggle With India’ that Gandhi was not a anti-Semite as he had a Jewish gay boyfriend, named Dr. Hermann Kallenbach.
Last month, Jerusalem Councilman Meir Margalit, proposed that city should set up a statue of Mahtama Gandhi and a mediation center on a disputed Arab plot in Jerusalem â┚¬Ã…“to illustrate how to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict through peaceful means, as Gandhi would have wished.â┚¬Ã‚Â
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/gandhi%e2%80%99s-secret-love-for-jews/
Didn’t Michael Moore say the same thing about Palestinians adopting nonviolence — in Stupid White Men, I believe? That was when he lost me, to a great extent, not because I knew about the already existing tradition of nonviolent activism of Palestinian nonviolence, but because it would have been more daring and far more pertinent to argue that Israel (and the US) should embrace nonviolence.
Well being sworn to non violence and acceptance of the Jewish state is really a pie in the sky idea for a lot of Arab factions..It can’t even be debated.It has never come close to happening.Sometimes it is quiet along the front and sometimes it is not.Till it is actually tried ….
I believe Israel wants peace with her Arab neighbors.Even friendship eventually.It is in her own best interests.I believe most of her neighbors want her driven into the sea.Even though THAT idea has never been in their best interests.I do believe that if the attacks on Israel,along with the terrorist campaigns and the cross boarder rocket attacks had not happened over all the years,along with the Israeli military responses that things would be far better.A little Gandhi goes a long way.Israel teaches her children to beware and even fear her Arab neighbors.Arabs teach their children to hate.You are wrong to think this is the oppressor over the oppressed.Arabs have felt this same way during WW2 and beyond.Long before their ever was an israel.What say you to that?Israel awaits a change of heart as old as the I
…..rocks in that desert
“I believe..” michael e
Believe whatever you want; the facts are that Israel today whether anyone likes to hear about it or not is in control of every aspect of the lives of Palestinians. The PA has so little control that it cannot ever register Palestinian deaths, marriages, or births. It’s about as far away from a “government” as could be. The PA in Ramallah is a gendarme, a native police force, an artifact of the colonial nature of Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians in the West Bank, E. Jerusalem, and Gaza.
As for Palestinians, 20% of Israel’s citizenry inside the Green Line are Palestinian. Their population continues to grow, and Israel instead of being sane and co-opting them by recognizing them as a national minority or giving them equal rights proclaims “see how generous and democratic we are–why, we even allow them to be citizens, to vote, and have members in the Knesset.” Except that the state of Israel almost killed one of the Palestinian Knesset members and has tried to strip her of all immunity which is granted to all members of the Knesset.
What is more there are Israeli politicians that talk seriously about “transferring” these citizens to a future Palestinian state. Now, it’s one thing to ethnically cleanse those who aren’t your citizens; it’s quite another to propose doing that to people with Israeli citizenship.
And if they are treated so “equally” and so “democratically,” then why would any Israeli politician call for them to be “transferred,” as the old Zionist euphemism from the earlier part of the 20th century is born again for purposes of the so-called “two state solution”?
Thanks for that, Deborah.
“How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less,” by American-Jewish cartoonist Sarah Glidden.
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/how-to-understand-israel-in-60-days-or-less/