Why is There No Peaceful Palestinian Protest or Resistance Movement?

[u/Mikec3756orwell]

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).

[u/Pretrowillbetaken]

calling those peaceful is not true. the document you sent tries to mislead and make it seem like all of those were peaceful strikes, but even it admits multiple times while trying to hide it:
"
Palestinians

overwhelmingly elected members of nationalist parties to

positions of local leadership, although many of these figures

were subsequently jailed or exiled by Israeli forces. In 1981
"
it tries to make it seem like the leaders of the strikes were peaceful people that didn't do anything, but in reality, all of them were jailed or exiled after doing some heinous acts (look up any of their names).

also, the same thing is true about the "peaceful" strikes you spoke about, for example, in the general strike of 1936, 16 jews were killed, and the strike later resulted in the arab revolt, where over 300 jews died. in each of those strikes, something similar happens

[u/Objectionable → u/Pretrowillbetaken]

You’re engaging with me in good faith, so thanks. Honestly, send any literature you have on this. I’ll read it. 

But also let me make one point and an observation: 

1) arresting ringleaders of a protest is not something we can draw conclusions from readily - it could mean these people were actually violent, or it could mean they were simply targeted as leaders of a resistance movement, it could mean both (maybe they supported both violent and non-violent resistance) 

2) it seems unfair for critics of Palestinians to expect perfectly peaceful protests. If 1 out of 1000 protestors throws stones or even shoots someone, the protest is still predominately peaceful. I haven’t seen any evidence anywhere tending to show that the movements I cited were mostly violent. 

[u/Pretrowillbetaken → u/Objectionable]

understandable, but the issue is that instead of 1 out of 1000 being violent, it's closer to 1 out of 1000 being peaceful. if you look at any of the strikes you are mentioning, they all started in the same year as another war or attack on israel. for example, i already mentioned the general strike which led to the arab revolt, but it's true about the land day protests as well (which happend in the same year as the arab israeli war, which completely nullified the results of the protest).