Passive Resistance

     I’m writing this on Martin Luther King’s birthday and wondering when and where his sort of political movement has been successful in the past, and whether it might have a place in the future. I can only think of four times where pacifism has had a major impact on the course of history; King’s American civil rights movement, Indian independence led by Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela’s South African anti-apartheid campaign, and Lech Walęsa’s Polish Solidarity. All were essentially peaceful in nature, though they had their violent moments, and all were remarkable achievements. That all were also twentieth century phenomena suggests that in the right circumstances pacifism just might be an idea whose time has come. Note that I added the “right circumstances” caveat. I’m not about to adopt the empty philosophy of the “what if they gave a war and nobody came” crowd. Most of history is of peaceful people being dominated by the warlike. But when one’s opponent doesn’t really want to be a brute, passive resistance can be an effective strategy.
     I think modern Palestine may be one of those opportunities. Again don’t get me wrong. I don’t think for a minute the Palestinian cause is a noble one. Their desire to destroy Israel is rooted in religious bigotry of the worst sort. But then so is Zionism, isn’t it? The idea sounds innocuous enough to Christian ears. What’s wrong with re-establishing a Jewish homeland in biblical Judea? This is. Israel can no more survive as a democratic Jewish state with an Arab majority than South Africa could survive as a white democracy with a black majority. When Joshua led his people into the Promised Land three thousand years ago he annihilated the people he found living there. He knew the Israelites couldn’t live peacefully among neighbors they had taken land from. When the walls of Jericho fell he killed every man, woman and child in the city, sparing only the family of Rahab, the harlot who had sheltered his spies. Don’t remember that? Read up on it. Today’s West Bank settlers aren’t practicing genocide but the only way they can survive the long term is to evict Arabs in a twenty first century equivalent of Joshua’s campaigns. Advocates of a greater Israel extending from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates know that. So do the Palestinians.
     So what’s the solution? If Palestinians really want to destroy Israel the way to do it is to let the Jewish expansionists have their way. Let Israel incorporate the remainder of Palestine and start demanding the vote but do it passively. Boys throwing rocks at tanks are a lot more effective than suicide assassins blowing themselves up on buses. Jews have no qualms about retaliating against violence but most of them don’t really want to see themselves as villains. That’s what forced the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon after a twenty two year occupation. As long as Israelis saw occupation as a security measure they supported it. But when they began to see themselves as aggressors public opinion forced the army to withdraw.
     Not that I see a Palestinian version of Martin Luther King emerging, certainly not any time soon. Hatred is such that a new Yasser Arafat seems more likely. But the Jews do have a demographic problem, even inside their security fence. It seems likely that Israeli Arabs will become a majority within not so many decades and when they do they will almost certainly take over the government. It’s not hard to envision a German style “reunification” somewhere down the road. Maybe it can even happen peacefully.