It may seem obvious to us

But it's equally obvious that plenty of people just don't get it. Ali Baba asked me today why the Palestinians haven't used Gandhi-style tactics of nonviolent resistance to attain their goal of independence. Good question.

The answer is that some Palestinians are just dumb. In technical terms, they're acting out of their enlightened self-interest and they're following an irrational strategy. Not all Palestinians of course, but if you give a few idiots bombs, it's amazing what they can do.

But indulge me for a moment... just imagine that starting in 1988, a mass movement of strikes and peaceful protests had begun in Palestine. Many Israeli Arabs would have taken part, and plenty of Europeans who had nothing better to strike against. The Peace Process would have been started by 1990, most likely, and with much more unified international pressure on the side of the Palestinians. The process might have been stalled by a few loose cannon suicide bombers (as it was in real life in 1996), but the success of the nonviolent movement would keep most Palestinians from deserting it. Imagine... you could encourage Westerners to boycott Israel, and pressure citizens and government alike. Also, Israelis wouldn't feel as threatened by having a Palestinian state next door if the foundation of that state was a successful non-violent movement. So why didn't this happen?

For a number of reasons. The principle reason was the lack of a charismatic, unifying leader championing nonviolence, and with an aura of righteous indefeatability, such as Gandhi and Mandela had. Instead they had Arafat; eminently defeatable, sleazy, and exiled in luxury. The only thing he has in common with Gandhi is the Yoda look. Another important reason is the demography of Israel-Palestine. Palestinians, with a few exceptions, live separate from Israelis. They could have pulled off mass urban demonstrations in the late 80's, but since then it's been very hard for Palestinians to get into Israel, and to participate in a protest of any kind is to risk your work and/or travel permit. By putting the Palestinians in Bantustans and making their economic survival dependent on Israel, the latter has made it very hard for the former to do anything. A pity for both, though the Palestinians have suffered far more since 1988 than have the Israelis.

Could a nonviolent movement work now? I think so. It wouldn't work immediately, but it would definitely work better than the continued guerrilla resistance. Funny how it works... peace brings peace. War brings war. So when one group attacks another group in the name of peace, I find it really, really hard to believe.