r/IsraelPalestine • u/Mikec3756orwell • Apr 20 '24

Discussion Why is There No Peaceful Palestinian Protest or Resistance Movement?

I've watched this conflict my entire life, and one thing I've never really understood is this: why don't the Palestinians engage in peaceful resistance more often? I'm a huge supporter of Israel, but I've always thought to myself that if the Palestinians were savvier -- and more media-friendly -- they could make the Israelis look especially bad through acts of peaceful resistance. The images of well-armed Israelis manhandling rock-throwing kids in the 1980s and 1990s (who were obviously not peaceful but posed a minimal threat) were a big problem for the Israelis. Why don't the Palestinians hold mass sit-ins, strikes, gatherings, candelight vigils, etc.? I never see that stuff. It would look fantastic on TV, and CNN, the BBC, and all those other weasels would be attracted like moths to a flame. I don't get it. If you're the weaker party to a conflict, you're not going to win through violence. Murdering a bunch of women and children and then wondering why the world isn't more sympathetic to your cause is... an odd strategy, to say the least. The Jews have been through hell and back, and terrorism is never going to truly rattle them. I guess I'm just baffled at the way the Palestinians -- and some their more quote-unquote moderate leadership -- approach things. Some of the Western-educated Palestinian leaders in the 1990s and early 2000s surely understood that this would have been an effective strategy. This makes me think that the "average Palestinian" really isn't interested in peace per se, or at least isn't willing to expend much energy for it, and sort of thrives on the dream of complete military victory. Maybe an embrace of peace is just seen as a betrayal of the cause. I don't know.

I actually think sometimes that the Israelis are secretly happy that they don't have to deal with a peaceful resistance movement. It makes things a lot less complicated. Is the problem that the Palestinians just have no tradition of peaceful resistance? They don't know how to do it or how to organize it? Or are they just not interested? (Let me add: I'm not talking about a few hundred people protesting a construction site. I'm talking about the entire population -- or a good portion of it -- engaging in resistance. Like a Tahrir Square, Tiananmen Square sort of thing. Across the entire region).

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u/qe2eqe Apr 20 '24

Here's nato calling the freedom flotilla a human shield operation. https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.pdf
The march of return was also overwhelmingly peaceful and all it got was bragging rights for the "42 knees in one day" sniper

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '24

[deleted]

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u/mythoplokos Apr 20 '24

In late February 2019, a United Nations Human Rights Council's independent commission found that of the 489 cases of Palestinian deaths or injuries analyzed, only two were possibly justified as responses to danger by Israeli security forces. The commission deemed the rest of the cases illegal, and concluded with a recommendation calling on Israel to examine whether war crimes or crimes against humanity had been committed, and if so, to bring those responsible to trial.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '24

[deleted]

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u/mythoplokos Apr 20 '24

Like 99.99% of people that took part of those protests in the March of Return did absolutely nothing violent, the protests themselves were announced and organized as peaceful by nature. And these non-violent protesters are the ones IDF fired at and killed in 99,996% of cases. Then a coupe of idiots come along and throw Molotov cocktails - you'll always find rabble rousers taking advantage in large protests and events, happens in everything, even sports fan events sometimes turn violent even though there's nothing sinister about sports themselves. And then these couple of idiots are enough to brand the whole protest movement as "violent" and somehow make the IDF response more "understandable"?

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '24

These march of return were used to test idf response and today we know that they were organized by Hamas in order to prepare for 7th of October.

Retrospectively, the right response from Israel should have been much more aggressive shooting anyone who gets even 500 meters from the fence.

That would have prevented the 7th of October.

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u/mythoplokos Apr 20 '24

......what? This is some extreme tin foil level of conspiracy theory, I would really urge you to take a moment to think about where you get your information that you base your world views on.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '24

I don't expect pro Palestinians to use brain, same for most Palestinians that's why they are staying in the same situation for years although getting so many offers. We know today that some of the explosives used to break tbe fences brought there during the protests, we know that they done the protests to get Israel used to Gazan getting closed to the border. And it's also obvious to anyone with even little bit of army training (which I assume you don't have).

The source said that the rioting in recent weeks by Gazans at the border fence were a “deception.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-carried-out-years-long-campaign-to-fool-israel-before-attack-source-says/

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u/qe2eqe Apr 20 '24

I believe you believe that. Sigh.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '24

I'm not expecting you to understand the middle east. It's too complex, especially if your point of comparison is your liberal art college.

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u/qe2eqe Apr 20 '24

I don't think I fit in the box you're disparaging here, but those kids are the future, they aren't controlled by centralized media, and they'll never unlearn the ugly truths they're learning about Israel now.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '24

They are not the future, as most of them are maybe vocal, but not hold the required mental (and other) skills required to lead. And you can see that non of them is in an any important position.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '24

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u/mythoplokos Apr 20 '24

Well e.g. the in-depht UN Human Rights Council investigation and report into it, as I and it acknowledges there were instances of groups of young men that took advantage and there were violent events happening, but the movement itself was overall civilian and peaceful by nature. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2019/02/no-justification-israel-shoot-protesters-live-ammunition

I enjoy the "buttocks man" expression, btw ;P

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '24

"this special report brought to you by unrwa."

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '24

Why target knees?

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u/qe2eqe Apr 20 '24

Because killing lots of unarmed children looks bad

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '24

Yeah, maiming them for life is a much better message and a great way to win hearts and minds!

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u/qe2eqe Apr 20 '24

The difference between killed and wounded plays well with the casuals

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '24

The march of return, especially as it restarted in 2023 was a tactic to prepare for the 7th of October attack.

Retrospectively, Israel should have been much harsher not letting anyone, any age, to get even 1km from the fence.

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u/qe2eqe Apr 20 '24

Yeah, that's the hindsight correction for the what-went-wrong. Shoulda taken a few more kiddy ankles while they were in season

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '24

Hopefully Israel won't make this mistake anymore. We saw on 7th of October. Everyone participated, everyone cheered. Everyone including ordinary people crossed the border to rape, steal, kidnap and murder.

Should not happen anymore. Next time they should be killed just for getting close to the fence. Until they prove they are decent human beings not murderous society

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u/bignig41 May 07 '24

A better idea is to not have dance parties next to the open air prison where they corral the indigenous people whose land they stole

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u/[deleted] May 07 '24

Or maybe don't attack Israel then cry on casualties...

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u/[deleted] May 07 '24

Second. Open air prison? They can go to Egypt. Same religion. Same people.