The Time Has Come For The Mandela Alternative

Samir Rantisi     Al-Hayat     2003/08/17

In the midst of the first Palestinian Intifada, a few months before the 1990 Madrid Conference, I adopted an unusual form of non­violent resistance against the Israeli occupation. I headed from my place of residence in Al-­Bireh to the entrance of the Israeli military occupation headquarters in Beit Eil, carrying banners with slogans demanding the Israeli occupiers leave the land they occupied in 1967. I placed the banners in front of the Israeli military leadership headquarters and chained my body to a light post.

Within a few moments, Israeli soldiers congregated around me, with one soldier contacting his superiors to report what I had done while the others looked on with confused and astonished eyes. Soon, it was clear that the soldiers thought I was a foreigner collaborating with the Palestinian people. They could not imagine for one moment that the person in front of them was one of the Palestinian youth who had been throwing stones at them. I had, after careful consideration and thorough examination, decided to try this form of non­violent resistance instead of throwing stones at occupation forces and exposing myself to their fatal gunfire.

The soldiers were confused as to how to deal with this new form of protest; and highlighting the confusion was the arrival of various television stations' cameras documenting my persistence in continuing with my protest. The soldiers stood unable to take any action, until a high­ranking officer showed up and asked me in English what I was doing. I answered him in Arabic, further increasing his surprise. He could not believe his eyes when I threw my orange­colored identity card in front of him, which indicates that I am a Palestinian. He boiled with anger, ordering the soldiers to untie me from the light post and take me to jail immediately.

Indeed, I was jailed, but released after a few hours of interrogation, during which I emphasized my full rights, supported by international agreements and conventions, to reject military occupation and to resist it peacefully with any means I see appropriate. In spite of the Israeli interrogating officer's attempts to belittle this type of non­violent resistance, he and his security organization were confused at this individual initiative, because it represents a new form of resistance that the Israeli security institution is not familiar with.

The following week, the Israeli security institution was again faced with another new tactic of non­violent resistance. I arrived at the West Jerusalem commercial center carrying a back­pack filled with olive branches and a sign saying: "I stretch out my hand to you in peace, and I give you an olive branch if you agree to end your occupation of my land and your oppression of my people." I placed the sign in the middle of what is called "Zion Square," the central square in East Jerusalem that is frequented by hundreds of Israelis every day.

There were mixed responses from the Israeli pedestrians. Some welcomed me warmly and tried to protect me when others from the extreme right and settlers attempted to assault me physically. Supporters of the Israeli "Peace Now" movement protected me by forming a human chain between me and the Israeli extremists, in spite of their surprise at my action. Indeed, Border Patrol cars arrived soon after, and apprehended me once more.

I am citing these two examples to shed light on non­violent resistance from the Israeli occupation and its effectiveness. The Palestinian response to the Israeli military occupation has carried with it, since its start, a number of obstacles that prevented the provision of the right circumstances in the Palestinian Territories to practice methods of non­violent resistance. The methods of oppression practiced by the occupation have formed obstacles and basic impediments to the Palestinian people's potential to practice any form of peaceful struggle and resistance.

The first obstacle is the Israeli military occupation's reliance on the 1945 British Mandate Emergency Law, which gives the Israeli military absolute powers to extinguish any form of mutiny (protest), including arbitrary detention and administrative detention (jailing any individual without legal charge or trial). In spite of that, many Palestinian attempts were made to organize a national non­violent resistance movement against occupation, especially in the first few years of the occupation. But these attempts were aborted in light of the magnitude of the Israeli occupation assault and oppression against all forms of peaceful resistance.

Second, the failure of the Palestinian non­violent remonstrations to achieve the national goals during the British Mandate period, in addition to the absence of any support from Arab countries later on in the fifties and sixties, which instigated the national Palestinian resistance movement to adopt and deepen violent means instead of using peaceful struggle methods.

Third, and most important, is the fact that the contemporary Palestinian revolution, and specifically its backbone organization Fatah, were formed outside the Palestinian occupied lands. Since the outset, the movement was deprived of the ability to direct its struggle and develop its forms of resistance to suit the Palestinian situation inside the occupied territories. When the Fatah leadership realized the importance of establishing its resistance in its various forms inside the occupied territories, which were supervised by the Palestinian leader and martyr Khalil Al Wazir (Abu Jihad) at the end of 1979, Fatah always insisted on supporting the non­violent struggle inside Palestine with external "armed struggle" operations, even during the first Palestinian Intifada.

Both the Israeli and Palestinian sides have contributed to aborting the non­violent alternative resistance of the Israeli occupation. The Israelis did so through extensive repression of peaceful Palestinian resistance movements, compelling Palestinians to abandon this approach and adopt violent resistance methods. The Palestinians did so through their rapid impatience and short breath in practicing non­violent resistance. The Israeli security apparatus often participated, through its agents, in aborting non­violent resistance options through planting agents in peaceful protest activities and events to sabotage their peaceful nature.

Getting the Palestinian elite leadership to adopt the non­violent resistance strategy, and convincing the leadership of the Palestinian national movement of the validity of peaceful protest method, is the only means remaining of reviving the Palestinian non­violent peaceful resistance option. This option is capable of transforming the Palestinian struggle against occupation to a peaceful protest movement and will enable it to enjoy the largest possible international support and assistance. Most of the leadership of the Palestinian resistance movement, whether belonging to the old or the new generation, have not yet perfected non­violent resistance methods against the vicious Israeli occupation, in spite of the rich and outstanding experience of popular Palestinian non­violent resistance, especially during the British Mandate and the first Intifada.

The time has come for the Palestinian elite leadership to make use of the experience of Nelson Mandela and his colleagues, in transforming the resistance strategy of the South African national movement to non­violent resistance options.

* Mr. Rantisi is the coordinator of the Palestinian Peace Coalition.

* This article is part of a series of views on nonviolence published in partnership with the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).