Boost nonviolence in Mideast
On the street, Arabs and Israelis recognize need for peace

February 13, 2003

BY HADY AMR

Once again the Palestinian part of the "Arab Street" has proved to be wiser than its leaders. Moreover, the "Israeli Street" seems to be commensurately ahead of its leaders as well.

Although you wouldn't know it from the nightly news and the recent Israeli election results, a poll commissioned by the American nonprofit group Search for Common Ground shows that a remarkable 72 percent of Palestinians are willing to embrace nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation as part of a process that leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state. An identical proportion, 72 percent of Israeli Jews, would accept a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders if Palestinians would stop using violence.

If there is such a substantial constituency for peace on both sides, why are we seemingly further away than ever from finding a solution? The answer may be that about one-third of those Israelis and Palestinians who expressed support for peace do so only conditionally.

The poll shows that this "conditional constituency for peace" is still voting for fear -- in the form of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and suicide bombings. People continue to support hitting back through military means until the other side stops first.

How did we get to where we are today? The problem is that the incremental approach -- years of "confidence-building measures" -- was tried and failed. Nearly a decade after the Oslo peace accords were signed on the White House lawn, Israeli-Palestinian confrontations are claiming more lives and causing more suffering than at any time in at least 50 years.

The horror of violent acts hardens positions on both sides of this divide, among the Israelis and among Palestinians, and among their respective global Jewish and Arab communities.

Some emphasize that the burden lies on the Palestinians, and that it is up to them to undertake a nonviolent approach. I disagree. The burden lies on all of us -- Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish, Arab and just about everyone who can influence the thinking of people and leaders, including Europeans and Americans whose foreign policies play powerful roles in allowing the conflict to continue.

I don't know what Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat is thinking. Since negotiations broke down two years ago, leadership has not been his strong point. His strategy seems to be political survival. Similarly, if Sharon has any strategic vision it is confined to winning votes.

Arafat is still in his office and Sharon's Likud party came out on top in the Israeli elections. The more the cycle of violence continues, the more, as the Search for Common Ground poll shows, Israelis support a tougher crackdown on Palestinian civilians, thereby strengthening support for Sharon and his hard-line policies.

So community leaders in Israel and Palestine need to bypass their elected executives and undertake direct action in a forceful but nonviolent way, to demonstrate to the "conditional constituency for peace" that they mean business.

A particular imbalance in the process is the remarkable blind spot of Israelis for the regular nonviolent protests by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. A suicide bombing that kills only a few speaks louder than thousands of hours of Palestinian nonviolent protest.

Some 80 percent of Palestinians closely follow the news of the various nonviolent forms of resistance under way in the West Bank and Gaza. But fewer than 10 percent of Israelis, living a few miles away, seem to know that large numbers of Palestinians -- more than half, according to the poll -- have participated in recent nonviolent forms of resistance.

Why have Israelis failed to see that Palestinians, on a routine basis, are loudly engaging in nonviolent protests against the Israeli military occupation? And why have Palestinians failed to see that suicide bombings undertaken by a desperate few drown out the voice of the nonviolent majority?

Those who want to blame others can say that the answer may have a lot to do with media bias. But it may have even more to do with leadership -- the lack of it at the top and the need for its advancement at the bottom.

Those in leadership positions among the 50 percent of Palestinians who have participated in nonviolent protest need to multiply their efforts. They must go to great lengths to prevent attacks by others against Israeli civilians, lest such attacks delegitimize their nonviolent efforts.

Similarly, leaders among the 65 percent of Israelis who believe that their army should show restraint, so as to encourage a shift toward nonviolent forms of Palestinian protest, need to step to the fore before the Palestinian constituency for peace is crushed under the weight of Israeli military occupation.

Waiting for the other side to act first is a sure recipe for disaster.

HADY AMR of Arlington, Va., is former national director for ethnic American outreach for Al Gore's presidential campaign. He spent a substantial part of 2002 in the West Bank assessing living conditions.

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