Palestinian militancy has accomplished nothing but increasing the misery of the Palestinian people. If Palestinians instead turned more to huge Gandhi-style nonviolence resistance campaigns, the resulting videos would reverberate around the world and Palestine would achieve statehood and freedom.
Non-violence should be a tactic - not an ideology preached from the sidelines to victims of massive violence.
For me, nonviolence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon.
This 1965. We went to trial on our city. We were obviously borrowing tactics and strategy from the Black freedom movement, and we were echoing their approach to things.
I think the core problem is much closer to recognizing where force is of value, where it is useful, and to distinguish that from situations in which war is not useful or is indeed counterproductive.
We want to go in for suffering, and there may be torture. If we put the women in front the Government may hesitate to inflict on us all the penalty that they might otherwise inflict.
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.
Active nonviolence is necessary for those who will offer civil disobedience but the will and proper training are enough for the people to co-operate with those who are chosen for civil disobedience.
Our nonviolent tactics are not as effective. We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works.
