[deadbea7]

> Even in India, the nature of non violence movement was not completely non violent

It's difficult, if not impossible, for non-violent movements to succeed without the existence of credible threat of violence. Sad, but generally true. This was true of Ghandi and Bhagat Singh's India, as it was for ANC (or MK) and Mandela's South Africa.

The Israelis have little motivation to come to the negotiating table towards a diplomatic solution because the threat of violence against them is not credible enough to act as a deterrent. It is rational for Israel to not show restraint and act in the most aggressive manner possible.

[kamaal]

I think it was Thomas Friedman who said this, if the Palestinians resort to terror attacks, Israel will just use that to attack them more. They remain silent, and they will just go on building settlements. Either way they will lose.

Gandhi's non violence movement was successful because he won the PR war by a very heavy margin. Greatest intellectuals of his time were writing essays on him, images of a thin old man, wearing just a homespun cloth marching on streets, giving speeches to keep restraint and never to submit co operate to bend to the British. Combined with his cause for the poor, and fighting against traditional caste based problems in India made him a hero among rural masses. All in all it made the British look very bad to be even putting up a fight against him.

If there is a every a break out of videos or pictures of Palestinians going on mass hunger fasts. Or that of they standing in the line of fire embracing bullets in the face of a F-16 firing on them and they not retaliating back. Things like that can do far more damage than rocket attacks can.

In fact there was some Palestinian guy and a couple of women who fasted in the Israeli jails and got their way some months back. Its surprising who much 'not fighting' can be powerful than 'fighting' provided you get the Press coverage.

Palestine's Gandhi movement can be very dangerous for the Israelis.

[mikevm]

The problem is that the offered solution to the conflict (2-state solution) is horribly wrong, and will never work out in the long-term. The only way to solve this conflict is with the 3-state solution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-state_solution).

So first, they need to have a proper solution in mind, so that everyone agrees on a trajectory for negotiations, and then do whatever they can to end the conflict. The thing is, whenever talks of a 3-state solution start, the other Arab nations show us that they don't really care about the Palestinians because they tend to reject it.

[MichaelSalib]

Things like that can do far more damage than rocket attacks can.

No, not really. We have cases like this:

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/05/17/201019/non-viol...

and it doesn't seem to change anything.

Also, is there any writer on foreign affairs more ignorant than Thomas Friedman?

[kamaal]

Many cases like that existed during the Indian Independence movement too. One that is very famous is the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre) In which a general ordered his army to fire at a crowd of innocent women, children and men totally unarmed and assembled to celebrate a festival. Its a very famous lesson taught in history classes in schools here in India. Read the wiki article.

Despite such a heinous act of cowardice.

Dyer was removed from duty and forced to retire. He became a celebrated hero in Britain among people with connections to the British Raj.

It worked in his native country, but by and large it did do a lot of damage and paved a way for national awakening to fight for independence in India.

Actually the best way to help the Palestinians currently is give them cameras, ways to publish their stories. And then teach these principles of non violence. World will listen sooner or later and its far better than firing rockets and killing innocent people at the other end. And it fulfills their purpose very well.

[MichaelSalib]

best way to help the Palestinians currently is give them cameras, ways to publish their stories

I've seen lots of videos like that on youtube and read lots of stories like that over the years. It doesn't seem to be helping.

far better than firing rockets and killing innocent people at the other end.

There are 2.5 million people living in Gaza. Do you expect every single one of them to agree with you? And if you don't have perfect consensus from all 2.5 million, can your plan still work? Because it seems to me that if even a small number reject your plan and fire a few $100 rockets, the non-violent efforts of the rest will be ignored and they'll be tarred with rocketers. Right?

[guelo]

There are definetly lessons to be learned from India's struggle but I think a big difference is that Brittain didn't have the religious motivation for occupation that Israel has. It makes it much more difficult for Israel to back off.