HEBRON, Occupied West Bank: ‘A new Palestinian movement in the West Bank advocates peaceful protest and civil disobedience as a means of ending Israel’s hold on the land and erasing the image of Arabs as terrorists.
The activists say they are marching in the steps of Mahatma Ganhi, whose non-violence resistance helped free India form British colonial role, and Philippines President Corazon Aquino, who led street demonstrations to overturn the Marcos government.
But the Palestinian Center for the Study of Non-violence is still striving to win acceptance among the 1.4 million Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, many of whom believe it is their right to resist with force Israel’s 19 year ‘occupation of the West Bank.
Some Israelis see the movement as significant because it is the first in the West Bank to openly call for peaceful resistance.
“This organization points to ‘what will be the next phase in the struggle against Israel’s occupation,” says Meron Benvenisti, a former Jerusalem deputy mayor.
“We can expect the trend to really take hold in the next decade, when all hope for a radical solution in the territories evaporates,” adds Benvenisti, who has published a series of West Bank studies funded by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations.
Benvenisti believes Jewish settlement is too far advanced for a territorial compromise.
Mubarak Awad, founder of the center, says 700 Palestinians are involved in his Jerusalem-based group, which operated on an annual budget of about $35,000 donated by Arabs in the United States.
The 15-month-old center organized a tree-planting demonstration in the West Bank that stopped Israelis from razing and clearing disputed land. The case is now pending in court.
Volunteers also distribute posters in defiance of an Israeli ban on provocative public displays of Palestinian nationalism, and have called for a once-a-month boycott of Israeli-made products.
One of the center’s demonstrations was in Hebron, 20 miles south of Jerusalem. The city with an Arab population of over 50,000 has been a focal point of the heated dispute surrounding Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
Israel’s military government blocked off 10 Palestinian owned stores after Jewish settlers moved in upstairs in March. The soldiers erected a chain link fence and two dozen 50-gallon drums and maintain daylong guard in front of the stores.
Shopkeepers claim the real object of the Israeli government is to drive away customers and force the stores to close. They say the soldiers have frightened away 90 percent of their clients.
The volunteers of the center for non-violence organized a “buy-in” shopping spree as a show of solidarity with the shop owners. They also set up a raffle to give away prizes to those who shop in the 10 stores.
The shop owners called the steps well-meaning but doubted they would do much good.
“We feel like we are in prison now. I don’t think this visit will help get us out,” says one shop owner, sipping a cup of strong, sweet Arabic coffee.
Despite deep splits the Palestinian resistance movement, most still support Palestine Liberation
Organization chairman Yasser Arafat, whose “gun and olive branch policy mixed armed struggle with political action.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 4, 1986
