Commenter Ziska writes:
The guerrilla war/ terrorism distinction escapes me. The difference, as far as I know, is that you can have terrorism without guerrilla warfare (mostly because you can’t manage guerrila war) but that you seldom have guerrilla warfare without terrorism.
Well, you’ve got part of it. Terrorist tactics are a subset of guerilla tactics, but applied without the military discipline or tactical and strategic intent. Typically guerilla tactics will focus on the actual forces of the opponents…in this case, it would be Israeli military outposts, reservists staging areas, etc….while what we are seeing is attacks against photogenic targets of opportunity. In my mind, there’s a significant difference in the moral standing of the two, as noted in my post earlier.
I’m not at all convinced that non-violence would work in Israel/Palestine, or that it worked in India, or that it worked anywhere. There was also a violent resistance in India, and England had many practical reasons to exit.
You’re kidding, right? As long as the Indian Revolt was violent, supressing it maintained huge support in England, despite the fact that colonies were simply no longer economically viable. If tyou read the contemporary accounts, it was Gandhi’s campaign which unlocked the English opposition, and allowed them to move to the center of the political stage.
One form of “moral parity” that I would argue is that if a tactic being used by some present insurgent group was also used by some successful insurgent group in the past, one that has been admitted to the family of nations such as Ireland, Israel, and Algeria, then we must find some additional reason for denouncing the present-day group. Not just because of the tactic.
Again, I’ll suggest that you review your history. My late father-in-law fought with the French in Algeria (as well as Indochina), and he and I had a number of discussions about both, and about the tactics used by and against the French in both cases. Terror was used by the FLN against the Pied-Noir leadership, and to enforce discipline and secrecy within the FLN (and doubtless to purge the occasional political rival within the FLN) but primarily it was a straight-ahead guerilla war against the French military itself. Ireland waged war primarily against the British colonial apparatus (including the tax-collectors) and the much-hated landlord class.
Date: 09/04/2002 00:00:00 AM
Mike-non-violent resistance works if the targeted audience can be swayed. It would not have worked against the Nazi’s, nor would it work against the Israelis who using the same tactics.If you really think the Israeli’s are using Nazi tactics, as opposed to falling for cheap rhetoric, your command of history weak enough that you are damaging your cause by posting……I’ll suggest one book for you: A Surplus of Memory: Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Date: 09/03/2002 00:00:00 AM
I disagree Mike. While it is true that Nazi Germany would’ve simply killed the non-violent protesters more easily, I believe that the current environment in Israel makes non-violent resistance especially effective today. Most people are tired of the kilings. And more than ever before in Israeli history, the conflict is bloodier and more drawn out, and vividly beamed to billions of people’s living rooms, than ever before. Non-violence would draw the mood back to the left of where it is currently. The Likudniks would be hard-pressed to justify keeping the settlements and a couple of rogue suicide bombers would make that even more difficult. In short, non-violence would work in Israel today, but not without a backdrop of violence (the undesirable alternative). Also, the Israelis are nowhere near as brutal as the Nazis, if they wanted to wipe the Pals out, they could’ve. If anything, the Israelis are more analogous to us when we were pushing the Native Americans out, but they aren’t even that bad.
Date: 09/03/2002 00:00:00 AM
non-violent resistance works if the targeted audience can be swayed. It would not have worked against the Nazi’s, nor would it work against the Israelis who using the same tactics.
Date: 09/03/2002 00:00:00 AM
I think the issue is the audience; nonviolent resistance wouldn;t work against Saddam; he’d simply kill and torture it into nonexistence. It can and does work against modern, liberal Western societies. I’ll acknowledge the issue of ‘pairing’; it’s the old Jerry Rubin quote: “Martin Luther King is only as powerful as the crazy nigger behind him who is holding the Molotov cocktail.” But the paring can be largely symbolic as well, and as in the Civil Rights movement, depends largely on the internal restraint of the dominant power.In the 19th Century, these internal restraints weren’t very well developed.A.L.
Date: 09/03/2002 00:00:00 AM
I would echo and reinforce zizk’as comments. Nonviolence only works against a backdrop of violence, when it is presented as an alternative to a very real and present threat of violence. I’m not aware of any non-violent movement that succeeded without this pairing, and this definitely includes Gandhi in India.
Date: 09/03/2002 00:00:00 AM
Nonviolent and violent tactics worked in pair. Nonviolent tactics alone wouldn’t have.When the Dutch invaded Bali in the XIX C., the Brahman elite practiced a kind of non-violent resistance and were all killed. Since then Balinese Hinduism has an oddly skewed caste system lacking in Brahmans (source: Clifford Geertz somewhere). Non-violence works under some circumstances, not most. For all we know the Armenians practiced non-violence against the Turks ca. 1920. I will have to look things up. My memory is that Algerian violence against civilians was an issue in the war against the French.The much-hated landlord class in Ireland were civilians, no? Did any of their families ever get dragged in? I’ll try to check these things.