Violence and Nonviolence: Tuesday in Palestine

Evening Glory: Above Shepherd's Field outside Bethlehem

Street Graffiti in Ramallah

Street Graffiti in Ramallah

Praise and Dance in Ramallah

Poster on the Streets of Ramallah

Sam Bahour (ePalestine.com) in Bethlehem

Arafat's Tomb in Ramallah

Manal al-Tamimi (from Nabi Saleh)

Several themes emerged from today's second day in the West Bank.  First, our delegation struggled to understand the options, choices and strategies facing occupied Palestinians twenty years after Oslo.  Business leader and economic adviser Sam Bahour spoke passionately about the economic barriers to social progress and democracy in the West Bank; and he urged us to consider ways in which the occupation puts a stranglehold on Palestinian growth, business and culture here.  (Catch a part of Sam's discussion in a video here.)

Manal al-Tamimi spoke about her small village to the north and their efforts to save their lands, keep their children safe and protect their culture and traditions.  Our delegation struggled with questions of violence and nonviolence, oppression and resistance.  Do occupied peoples have a right, as Manal insisted, to defend themselves against occupying armies and settlers?  What might that defense look like?  What about kids hurling rocks at cars and people?  Does a nonviolent movement, in an occupied land, have an obligation to control the ways its villagers express dissatisfaction and reject the occupying act?  Can it still be called 'nonviolent'?  Manal's situation is so completely foreign to me, that I can hardly imagine it.  Watching my livelihood destroyed, day by day.  Experiencing a wall built to dispossess me of my ancestral lands and my economic future.  It's so far beyond my experience that I have to dig deep just to listen and stay with it.  

Our delegation has heard many stories from many distinctive perspectives.  What are the Palestinians' options in resisting oppression and the organized violence of occupation?  If not armed struggle, what else is possible and possibly effective?  Going back to the UN?  Putting diplomatic pressure on Israel?  Could Palestinians go the route of the American Civil Rights Movement and organize nonviolent civil disobedience aimed at exposing the violence they face every day for the world to see?

Along these lines, several speakers have mentioned the economic strategies promoted by many in the Palestinian resistance: boycotting products from the settlements or companies profiting from occupation (Caterpillar, etc.); divesting from those same companies; and urging sanctions on the Israeli state for violating international laws.  These strategies are particularly controversial abroad (and even among our delegation), and understandably so.  But leading Palestinian activists (like Sam Bahour and friends at Wi'am) insist that they are decidedly nonviolent and potentially effective in bringing pressure on Israel to negotiate in good faith.  If companies feel the pinch, will Israel also move to end an interminable conflict that costs everyone (and many companies) on all sides?

I'm particularly interested in the Christian perspective on this.  If the Christian Churches of the Holy Land--seeking nonviolent and peaceful strategies for pursuing an elusive peace--urge Western Churches to advocate for some kind of divestment, some kind of boycotting, are we not obligated to take their request seriously, with the deepest care and consideration?  If they insist that, resisting violence and terror and armed struggle, economic campaigns seem the wisest and most faithful form of resistance, are we not obligated to listen and pray and explore these options in solidarity?

Questions.  This is a journey of many, many questions.  And I pray God's blessing and wisdom on the struggle to answer and respond!