Well…I’m no expert by a long stretch of the imagination. But I’m not sure that sort of leadership can be fostered. Ghandi lead a people rather fearful of British military (I’m being purposefully broad here), MLK was offering an alternative to the beginnings of violence in the name of civil rights after rising on the crest of a wave of building resentment for illiberal law. I don’t know East Timor so I don’t know the environment that surrounded their leaders, nor how their people were in their constitution.

I believe that Palestine is a lost cause in the short term (say… a few generations?) unless they are actively ceded to by Israel or wiped out. Their leadership have violence in the blood it seems, and the brutal way those leaderships treat each other is not going to breed any kind of environment to see a peaceful leader rise. It could happen with Israel, but whereas in India, with the US civil rights, and in East Timor the people were facing persecution and striving for freedom, Israeli’s don’t really suffer that. As terrible as the Palestinian militant rockets are, the Israeli’s are not in anything other than a dangerous environment…not one that pushes them to look for inspiration, I believe you only have to look at their approval for this current conflict to see that.

So without Israeli’s being in the situation of seeking out a new leadership because they (generalising, I accept not everyone in Israel will be) have a big eye on security, and without Palestinians having a hope of an inspirational and peaceful leadership that isn’t born from huge civil strife and bloodshed, I just can’t see it happening on either side.

Essentially I think the time frame for that type of leader being able to emerge has passed, and it’s going to have to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. If I’m wrong about Hamas or Fatah then perhaps they could let someone rise, maybe in their own ranks, but to me they seem too bent on control and violence rather than freedom and reason. Although maybe we should be hopeful and see this latest conflict in similar terms as to when the IRA devastation reached it’s height here, and urge more nations to get involved (especially the US, and maybe that’s why we can be hopeful now?) in mediation.

Thanks for responding to my post.

There is one point in Daniel’s article that actually set me off on my train of thought and that I think needs re-emphasising:

>>>Further not choosing between Palestinians, regarding Hamas supporters alike all other Palestinians is a terrible insult to many Palestinians. It disregards efforts of 1000s of courageous violence rejecting Palestinians (MEND, Political arm of Fatah, Palestinian members of Combatants for Peace and Women in Black to name a few). Hamas as an Islamist movement by definition also is not the representative of the many Christian Palestinians, a point often forgotten, as many assume that Arab equals Muslim.>>>

And yet we will not hear their voices at these demonstrations or on these platforms. So it is very helpful for you to name these groups as well as the many initiatives in Israel. It is also useful to mention J Street – the American pro Peace, Pro Israel organisation.

To be clear, I did not mean to imply that we can or should set aside acting on the Israeli/Palestinian issue and only turn to other issues. I simply no longer have the will to participate in the kind of UK-based politics within which these discussions are framed and action taken. A couple years ago I started to time how long it takes before some one talks about how utlimately it is because the ‘Israelis’ control US foreign policy because the Jews (or at best ZIonists) control the US foreign policy establishment/media/electoral system: 7 minutes was typically the maximum (a few big exceptions) and with (to varying levels of applause) . I even used to try to discuss Mearshemer/Walt vs Mead seriously, but no more…

As a non-Jew, I am deeply concerned about the growth in the extent and depth of anti-Semitism indulged and licensed amongst UK liberals and leftists (and I do not use the term lightly to cover appropriate criticism of Israel) and how it has become part of mainstream political discourse. I have come a long way from my hippy-happy-hazy days of thinking that a ‘single state’ solution was an ‘ideal’ and practical solution to now supporting Israel as constituted as a Jewish homeland (and therefore not accepting the ‘right of return’ of Palestinians) – despite retaining concerns about discrimination (I do not accept that it is an apartheid state). In my experience, the constant questioning/denial of Israel’s ‘right to exist’ is at best disingenuous and almost always (there are exceptions) linked to anti-Semitism, simply because there are equally valid questions that can be put about a large number of countries. And fighting against anti-semitism and supporting the right of Israel to ‘exist’ is one of my responsibilities as a human being.

Daniel’s other point about ‘fundamentalists’ is also something that gives a lot of food for thought.

Best wishes in your work, but do remember that there are non-Jews who for progressive reasons feel similar responsibilties (and even emotional resonance) with many of the issues you are confronting.

I think Lee’s point is quite important and we need to figure out what fosters/allows such leadership -whether individual or group to emerge and develop and how we can contribute to enabling it. Maybe that is exactly what we should be doing in relation to Israel and Palestine? Lee — what do you think about this?

Off the top of my head, what distinguishes those who we value as truly progressive leaders of ‘resistance’ – whether Martin Luther King or Mandela or some of the East Timorese leadership – is the emphasis on a positive, humane and inspiring vision for the future that does what you say — asks people to be better and to dream better and to work together on the long road to achieve it. But who also ensure that their methods do not undercut their message.

However, I am not a pacifist (Daniel -are you?) and do accept the legitimacy of certain forms of violence to achieve aims. But even within that, there are ways to frame it and to execute (bad choice of word) actions that minimises the brutalisation of people and distortion of the purposes.

Throughout 25 years of resistance, the East Timorese leadership were emphatic that ‘derogatory racial statements’ about Indonesians were not permitted, that Indonesian civilians were never to be subject to violence (and there was never even any question of attacking US UK or Australian targets); despite the incendiary attacks on Catholic churches (ie you can still see the bullet holes in many where actual – not metaphorical – massacres occurred), significant jihadist rhetoric (not least Bin Laden’s numerous statements about East Timor), there was and has been tremendous effort put into combating anti-Muslim attitudes.

East Timorese regarded Gusmao as quite a charismatic figure: he could hold people rapt for hours, and I never heard of him calling for revenge or of him stoking up hatred — and believe me, the crimes to which the East Timorese were subjected to covered the full range of horrors – aerial bombings, massacres, executions, actual human shields (fence of legs operations), rape, torture, forcible resettlement, starvation, etc. etc, There was more of a sense of ‘sorrowing’ and facing the future with even more determination.

However, I don’t want to paint some rosy picture, there are problems with violence in East Timor, alongside other problems. There are also serious questions about balancing justice and reconciliation. I personally think that the occupation left the country traumatised and that this has never been addressed enough.

Hamas have offered Israel a decade of piece if they retreat to the 1967 borders, perhaps longer.

and in that way the prime minister of Israel did state he wanted to offer peace if the rocket shooting stopped?

The Israelis breached the ceasefire. See here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KntmpoRXFX4 but also bear in mind that a full blockade was resumed on November 4th by the Israelis, remember that date. That’s a full month before it was due to end, and clearly breached its terms.

As for the rocket-fire: that largely came from Islamic Jihad, the Safalists or other assorted even-more-extremist groups that Hamas has no control of. So far as can be told Hamas honoured the ceasefire, while Israel did not. Note also that Israel began the bombardment during a 48 hour truce and shot a member of the UN during their 3 hour truce.

Now tell me, Mr. Z, that considered, which faction here has respected calls for peace thus far? Which side has even issued them in concrete terms?

Unbelievable as this may seem, even the dreaded Islamist nationalists can be nationalists first and Islamists second. It should be fairly obvious that the present campaign is, in no way, good for Palestine.

Great comment Elaine. However, regarding the paragraph above, do you not feel that how a set of people react to persecution or violence is down to their leaders, and thus down to the ability of a set of individuals to be “the better person”? It sounds very much in cases where peaceful ends to conflicts have been found it is through inspiring individuals or sets of individuals that have the fortitude to act against what some may say is natural instinct. Can we be surprised (if not ashamed) that some Palestinians will act this way, or indeed that Israel will retaliate as it does?

Beyond that we all should care more what happens in many other places. Isn’t it shocking how many years there has been fighting in Congo too, with few caring? Perhaps “the Zionists” who “own the media” have interests there….???

Peace marches should have multiple themes and be informed by these.

Thank you very much for taking your time!

I definitely will not attend any demonstration organised in London: I do not want to give weight to this kind of politics. I am too old in the tooth to be relieved and reassured that the official slogans and most protestors don’t call for the destruction of Israel (but actually that is what the slogan Free Palestine originally meant and still means to very many) or display overt anti-Semitism.

I think one of the major problems with protest and progressive campaigns here in the UK is that they are inevitably ‘captured’ by the mentality and organisational death-grip of the tired old trotskyite/trotskyist male left; whether SWP or not, the approach to issues and organisation is fundamentally drawn from that to formulate the form of political action, the slogans, and the choice and style of speakers.

Hence while a million people marched to Stop the War, the anti-war movement ended up as a rump of Islamists and their soi-disant anti-imperialist allies shouting “we are all Hezbollah.”

I know many people for whom the Iraq war was a galvanising moment, but, who in the end, decided that the anti-war movement was just an inversion of Bush’s simplicities. It shut down discussion rather than opening it up, it became a ritual of smaller and smaller marches and meetings. Similarly with the Social Forum …instead of developing it became a sectarian playground. I could name a vast number of campaigns and projects that have suffered the same fate – including the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

Noq allied with this political force is Islamism (the left found the working class not revolutionary enough, Tariq Ali wrote about how the Vietnamese betrayed its supporters, etc.) — the current hope of the soi-disant anti-imperialists (a term pretty vaguely framed so that it can morph fairly comfortably into a discourse about Zionist plots).

So Darrell, I am very happy to be isolated from the ‘movement’ but then face the dilemma of how to register my objections.

So (if you agree with that), we need to think about new forms/way of talking about/organising responses/campaigns that are truly progressive…. but I no longer know what to do about that other than focus on small scale campaigns that the tired old men of the ‘left’ and their current allies find uninteresting. So yes, I always go on demonstrations about Darfur and Burma because (as they told us about East Timor) these are not the “important issues” and there the body count on a demonstration really matters. (Although I have been told many many times that Darfur is just a US/Zionist distraction from the real issue of Palestine).

I think we need to think about new forms/way of talking about/organising responses/campaigns that are truly progressive…. but I no longer know what to do about that other than focus on small scale campaigns that the left’ find uninteresting. So yes, I always go on demonstrations about Darfur and Burma because (as they said about East Timor) these are not the important issues and there the body count really matters.

At the risk of being considered a troll, I must bring up East Timor again. It is important and linked for three reasons: firstly it was largely dismissed as ‘unimportant’ by the organised left here (except that its arms sales to Indonesia could serve as a footnote in the critique of the Tories); secondly, the Timorese suffered a real (not metaphorical genocide) and yet rejected terrorism and finally, they actually did effectively resist occupation and achieve freedom.

East Timor was invaded and occupied in 1975 by Indonesia. It was not the outcome of a war between Indonesia and anyone else (unlike the 1967 war which gave rise to the Occupation of ) and no Indonesian nationalist movement ever claimed East Timor as part of Indonesia – so there was no historical claim however far-fetched to hook on to. It was a very straightforward illegal invasion and occupation.

They suffered a real – not a metaphorical – physical and cultural genocide: between 1/4 and 1/3 of the population were killed; the use of their own language forbidden except in Church; their history denied, etc. The International Red Cross and various UN agencies never made anything except the most feeble attempts to get access to provide relief to people who were starved and starving; they provided no food aid or educational faciliities … and so it goes on (I could give some examples of quite callous comments from the ICRC) …. despite it being an unequivocal situation of invasion and occupation and recognised as such by the UN.

Fretilin – the resistance/ liberation movement – after a few nasty months of internal fighting in which some civilians were killed in utlimately came up with a strategy that utterly rejected terrorism: internal or external, that also rejected attacks on Indonesian civil adminisrators (ie occupying powers) because of the brutal and brutalising effects of such tactics. Fretilin actually survived and grew into a wider coalition; there were guerilla attacks on Indonesian military in the mountains (although captured soldiers were often disarmed and released) and build up an underground student movement as well.

The leadership made a choice and led on this issue: and the population which was/is desperately poor, traumatised (I have yet to meet an East Timorese who did not have a relative, neighbour or friend killed by the Indonesians), largely illiterate with no access to any experience of political participation via Portuguese colonialism or Indonesian occupation (no UN/NGO food aid for them – let alone schools during the occupation) by and large followed this approach from 1975 – 2000 and voted for independence from Indonesia – with quiet determination and extraordinary bravery in September 1999.

In response, the Indonesian military and its Timorese militia assassinated thousands and literally burned down 90% of the schools,destroyed the university, many villages and almost all of the infrastructure – electrical and irrigation, the UN abandoned them- fleeing to Australia for almost three months.

There were a handful of people utterly dedicated to the issue here and worlwide, especially in the USA, Australia and Ireland. Aside from John Pilger(who made films about it), there was never really any interest on the organised left here (thank God) Certainly some of those prominent figures of the left at the last ‘anti-Israeli invasion ‘ rally either refused to do minimal things on the East Timor issue at critical moments (Benn has since explained how he was misled by the Foreign Office!!) or simply said ‘It is hopeless and not important’

The nature of the ‘solidarity’ campaigns mattered: the media was banned by the Indonesians from entering East Timor but a few brave journalists such as Max Stahl (and Pilger) and in the UK and two US journalists were able to smuggle out material on massacres. Here in the UK a few NGOs kept it on the aid and human rights agenda, but it was also the work of individuals inspired by the East Timorese who managed to build solid resources for campaigning: for example, relentless quality documentation kept up by the UK based TAPOL – Carmel Budiardjo, systematic lobbying of US congress, and the imaginative campaigns launched by an Irish bus driver – Tom Hyland on Dublin buses). Other actions include UK women peace activists who tried to disable Hawke jets and who were then acquited by a UK jury, etc. I personally did very little after the mid-80s, but even in the darkest days when the issue was ignored by everyone, there were people who kept on working.

I don’t want to romanticise this. East Timor has experienced some violence since independence. This is partly due to the development of a culture of impunity: people have not been brought to justice; the overwhelming emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation pursued by some of the leadership ( eg Ramos-Horta – the President – forgave those who shot him last year more or less as soon as he awoke from his coma) can be counterproductive. For their own reasons, the UN and other international bodies also never really pressed for war crimes and crimes against humanity to be pursued against the Indonesians although all judicial experts agree the case is overwhelming. There are many economic, cultural and political factors that make its road quite rocky. But the East Timorese won and they never resorted to terrorism; the leadership did not arouse passions through hate-filled rhetoric or injunctions to take revenge. .

Okay, why is this relevant? I guess because it is another story, another trajectory, about another way of doing politics, about leadership of a reistance making other choices. We must all learn from one another.

In the end, I guess that while I feel enormous sympathy for the Palestinians, I find the claims for their ‘exceptionalism’ unwarranted and ultimately annoying,

Palestinians suffered the triple whammy of decolonisation (which created artificial states throughout Europe, ME, Asia and Africa), the fall-out of WWII (which created mass displacement, refugees, as above) and being used as a political pawn (by their Arab brothers, by Israeli politicians and by Palestinian leaders) in power games.. and since 1967 occupation and a lack of self-determination. So there have been tremendous injustices and suffering for the Palestinians, but other peoples suffered similar fates at that point in history and faced or face horrific problems and injustices now; they too make choices about how they will fight for their rights and address their problems.

You misunderstood my point.

The people in the West Bank and Gaza who self-identify as Palestinians are not Israeli citizens. We are talking about Israeli violence against Palestinians, not discrimination sufferred by Israeli Arabs.

If Israeli Arabs took to arms then appealing to the example of Sri Lanka might make sense as this could be an insurrection.

Palestinians who live in the occupied territories, and who take to violence, is not the same — these people are fighting an occupying force (one may argue that their tactics, e.g. targeting Israeli civilians with suicide bombings are flawed).

The colonialism argument isn’t that easily refuted. I am not entirely convinced by it, but the ever-expanding settlements on the West Bank need some kind of explanation.

Woodbegone: “something being the last bastion of colonialism isn’t necessarily a good reason to care about it”

Clearly, others disagree. I don’t see how we can create some kind of objective test to show if some other instance of killing or death is ‘worse’ than Israel/Palestine. As is usual there are probably several factors that motivate people to march/protest.

Let me ask again, I don’t think we quite got there…but can you explain why it is we should ignore the slim though apparent prospects at stopping the persecution of one set of people at the decision of a separate government, and then somehow try to change the persecution of people by their own government or a splinter group?

One way or another (maybe sooner, thankfully…well done Egypt and France for doing something rather than sitting on your hands like Mr Brown), Israel-Palestine will die down and stop, if not only for a while…and in that down time we could and should shift our gaze. But when we do, to places like Zimbabwe and such, how can we do anything other than try to offer aid to those that are in an impossible situation for anyone but the country itself to sort out, and *should* we do anything other than offer aid?

People dying of diarrhoea is equally, as Shatterface puts it, because of inaction. Because not enough aid is received or because their governments can’t actually do what is required within their power or resources. We can give more aid, we can certainly make more of a fuss…but aren’t these situations of “worse things” just situations where we can only push money at the problem without radical global political change?

At least with Israel nothing radical, or financial, needs to happen…just enough public pressure with the right individual voices of power can stop the deaths, we’d be fools to pass up and ignore that because of other things happening in the world at the same time.

thabet: OK, the parallel is not exact, but it’s pretty close. I think you’re right about “Colonialism.”, but that’s my point, something being the last bastion of colonialism isn’t necessarily a good reason to care about it, if there are much worse things going on elsewhere…

I am not sure if Palestine / Israel is in deed the last stop of colonialism / anti colonialism. If you take the perspective of neocolonialism, the reign of Mugabe, the inability for poor South Africans to ascend, and the lack of stability in so many other fornmer colonies (often down to continued exploitation by their own elites in unison with Western exploitation) the last chapters are still being written all over the place. And it was Professor Stuart Hall, then Britain’s first professor of Caribbean background (as far as I remember) who stated famously that the last colony to be decolonized is………….. the island of……. Great Britain! I think that was an intersting statement too.

Sri Lanka is fighting an insurrection (and yes, it is doing so brutally). Tamils are Sri Lankan citizens. This conflict is analagous to Kurds in Turkey (and perhaps Iraq one day…) They are fighting for a homeland, or at the very least cultural recognition (e.g. oppression of Kurdish culture in the name of “Turkishness”).

Palestinians are not Israeli citizens. They never have been. They do not have rights from the Israeli state afforded (however imperfectly) to Tamils in Sri Lanka or Kurds in Turkey. They do not have any state to appeal to which is meant to protect them.

Instead, Palestine is an occupied territory and has been recognised as such by the ‘international community’ at large. And Israel is the occupying power. Not Sri Lanka.

However, I can understand your general unease at protesting alongside people who are really only interested in one side “winning”, not genuine efforts at justice or peace.

Therefore I sympathise with Daniel’s position. I can’t make it personally on Saturday and couldn’t last time but my inclination would be to go along, take a placard condemning both Israel and Hamas. See if you can find other similarly minded people on the day (and persuade those you know to go with you) and march alongside them. Try to show you’re demonstrating against Israel and Hamas but also against the nutters who support terrorists and burn Israeli flags.

Saturday is the sabbath for jews and therefore many of those that want to attend the march would not be able to. I believe that this is exactly what the powers that be want. A seggregated show where the muslims come out in support for the Gazans on Saturday and then the jews come out on Sunday and it is easy to make it look like an IDF parade.

If people really want peace – they have to start at the minimum of making sure both religions are accomodated.

Another comment not published on Liberalconspiracy but on my own blog spoke about the right to resist. This was very applicable I thought. My answer to “Kim” whose post this point was, was that it is not the question that Palestinians or Hamas may not resist, but what method they use. Combatants for Peace and MEND make very clear points that violence only yields more violence, regardless what it may say in Mao’s urban war fare manual,or that Che’s, copied in different versions by many movements from Robert F Williams and Malik el Shabazz in the U.S. to Baader Meinhof and in a colonial context by Franz Fanon. Those who are familiar with urban guerillia war fare manuals, also know that fighting from within the civilian population is part and parcel of the tactic, because mighty armies can not battle these and the victims if they are one’s own innocent civilians can be used as a tool to pressurize the opponent. In that sense Hamas is not a barbaric Islamic movement out of Arabia, but loyal to the movements that preceded it around the world. Now my issue is with violence on both sides.

Peace Demonstrators who march because they supposedly object to violence must consider the ideological inspirations of peace or peaceful resistance. They are above all in the context of the oppressed and liberation Ghandi and King.

The same point motivates Israel’s peace movement leader Gush Shalom’s leader Uri Avneri, an ex combatant himself .MEND in Palestine subscribes to Kingian non violent resistance. Israeli and Palestinian “Combatants for Peace” have lived the path of violence and reject it.

Violence does not only yield violent response in the opponent, it also brutalizes and obscures values and sober thought in ones own society. This is what in aspects happened in my opinion in much of Israel (we shall exclude the 20 percent who oppose the current war), where Jewish people got to caught up with the promise of victory by the means of an armed response, based on the fear and traumatic history of being weak. Such victories, if they ever happen, seldom lead to a long lasting peace and even if they do – the human costs are immense. What does work in most human communities though is direct inter-personal engagement, listening and negotiation skills and these can not only solve an ad hoc crisis but enable people to come by with new problems as they may arise. There are some people who never may change their mind on something, but often people can be convinced that it is well worth reconciling with a former enemy and seeing the human in her or him.

On a level much closer to home I have done so not only in national conflict work, but take a neighborhood dispute I was in a good while ago. A neighbor of ours and us got into an argument over something small regarding the shared hall way. There was miscommunication, then shouting and then no communication. Both sides bedeviled each other, shouted made complaints to the landlord etc… until one day I thought enough, I am just gonna send them a nice card and re-engage. It was something that I would not do before, but attending a work shop on non violent imagination encouraged me to try the one thing I hadn’t tried before – it was speaking with the neighbor again and treating him as a human being. We never had conflict again. The desire to live in peace was greater than the conflict and hate that build up to make us both narrow minded. However we likewise could have continued the warfare and throw things against each other etc…

What do we promote when we demonstrate for peace then?

With that in mind, I cannot see why someone who wants peace in the Middle East would not attend. The media will just make the march on Sunday look like a pro-IDF march – which is what it actually looks like, right now.

I say this on the basis of the gazillions sent to Gaza and Africa – more then enough to make sure that Gaza residents enjoy a good enough standard of living and eradicating the cause of fatal diarrhea forever!

True true there is sometimes an acnoid brlliantined twerp in the corner playing what he imagines is a contemporary “Great game “. The overwhelming majority are not much fussed unless our security or interests are fairly tangibly threatened . Whe Iain dale accompanied David cameron on a hand wrining session to Africa , the reaction was almost universal mirth.

What can you do? Make a firm commitment as a set of nations to give a set amount of cash to charities to prevent it? How many people in this country that are already pent up about “foreigners taking our jobs” are going to be happy with income tax being increased to save lives they’ll never see?

The crux is not about what we do and do not get angry about, it’s about what we can or cannot stop without having to detriment ourselves. It’s why charity will always be the best route to helping to solve these problems, at least people then make a conscious choice to do so.