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Nonviolence in the Middle East: Obama's Cairo Speech

by Starhawk

June 7, 2009

Note: this first appeared on the Newsweek/Washington Post blog on faith. Visit the blog site at http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/starhawk/

On Thursday, President Obama made his speech to the Arab world in
Cairo, a speech that did what he does so well, expressing
contradictions and nuances in clear, simple poetic language that
calls on everyone to be better than we are. My first reaction,
reading it, was "This speech makes us all safer, and does a better
job of it than a thousand drone attacks or military forays." By so
clearly expressing respect for Islam, and knowledge of its history
and contributions, he drains extremist venom of its potency.
Obama also tackled head-on the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian
problem: Israel's continued building of and support for illegal
settlements. I suspect many people are still unclear on the concept
of 'settlement': the word creates an image of a stalwart, noble
outpost in the wilderness. In reality, settlements are more like
gated suburbs plunked down in the midst of Palestinian territory,
villages, farms and cities that have always been in Palestinian hands
and that the Oslo agreements and the Road Map define as destined for
a Palestinian state.

Settlements are created on land quite simply stolen-taken from
Palestinian farmers and villagers with no compensation. In order to
protect the settlements, Israel maintains military control over vast
reaches of the Palestinian territories, builds a separate set of
roads Palestinians are banned from, that carve up an already tiny
land base into miniscule islands, separated by a network of
checkpoints that make daily life for ordinary Palestinians untenable.
Imagine if, in the U.S., everyone who lived in a suburb of Chicago
or New York or San Francisco could only get into the center of the
city by passing through a military checkpoint that might or might not
be open each day, where lines might regularly back up for hours,
where the soldiers might detain you on a whim or a breath of
suspicion for hours or summarily place you in 'administrative
detention' for months with no trial or appeal, where your land and
home might be seized at any time by an occupying power. And this is
in the West Bank, where conditions are relatively good. In Gaza, the
Israeli's have simply sealed the border, refused to allow in
rebuilding supplies and many of the necessities of life, and turned
the place into one giant, open-air prison.

It is in this context that Obama presses for a two-state solution.
The positive alternative: one, democratic state in which all people
have equal rights, regardless of religion, is so unacceptable to the
current Israeli regime that they are attempting to make it illegal
for anyone to suggest that Israel be anything but an explicitly
Jewish state. The less positive alternatives are simply genocide of
one or another of the region's peoples, a horrific outcome whether
the ultimate victims are Palestinians or Israelis.

A two-state solution cannot succeed if Israel continues to eat away
at Palestinian land. It cannot succeed if the current settlements
remain, with their network of exclusive roads, checkpoints and
military control that make free movement impossible for Palestinians
within their own territory. Netanyahu has proclaimed his intention
to continue building and expanding settlements. If Obama's speech
signals a true commitment to rein him in, to use America's enormous
influence and power to constrain Israel's destructive and ultimately
self-destructive course, then we will have a slight hope of achieving
some small measure of peace and justice in that region.

Obama also called on the Palestinians to renounce armed struggle and
embrace nonviolence. Now, I'm a passionate believer myself in
nonviolence. I share his assessment that a powerful, nonviolent
movement could advance the cause of justice in a way that violence
can never do. However, there is something disingenuous about the man
who is ordering troops into Afghanistan and drones to bomb Pakistan
telling another people 'Violence is a dead end.' I credit Obama with
a distaste for violence and a strong preference for diplomacy, and
truly, I like the guy. I think he's a great leader in a rotten time,
and a brilliant man of real integrity. But there's no denying that,
from the moment he took office, he's had blood on his hands. For the
powerful to demand that the less powerful renounce violence, without
making the same demands on themselves or on their allies, is simply
to say: "I reserve the weapons of death for myself and my friends."
I would have like Obama to urge nonviolence on all of us: Americans,
Israelis, and Palestinians alike. I would have liked him to at least
acknowledge that
indeed, many Palestinians have chosen nonviolent means of struggle,
that for years now, villages have resisted the confiscation of their
land for Israel's 'security wall' with peace camps, nonviolent
demonstrations and civil resistance. He might have also mentioned
that some courageous Israeli supporters regularly cross the line to
stand with them and share the risks, along with internationals from
groups like the Christian Peacemaker Teams, the International
Solidarity Movement, the International Women's Peace Service and more.
On Friday, the day after Obama called on Palestinians to practice
nonviolent means of struggle, the Israeli army fired on the weekly
demonstration in Ni'ilin, a West Bank village protesting the wall.
Five people were shot with 22 caliber ammunition. Yousef Akil Srour,
age 36, died from his wounds after being shot in the chest. Mohammed
Mouslah Mousa, age 16, may be paralyzed. Three others were wounded
but will survive. This is not an unusual response to the practice of
nonviolence in Palestine-it is so common for Palestinians to lose
their lives that it rarely even makes the news unless an
international supporter is killed or wounded.

I've worked in that movement, I've trained Palestinians, Israelis and
internationals in nonviolent resistance. I've stood in those
demonstrations. There's always a squirrely feeling in the pit of
your stomach when you stand up against police and state power. But
when that power is unrestrained, when you know that live bullets may
thud into your body, that attendance at the protest may cost you a
limb or your brain functioning, your freedom or your life, well,
let's just say the squirrels run Nascar races in your gut and your
knees literally shake.

That people do take that risk is a cause for wonder and celebration
of the human spirit. A few do so because they are Gandhi-like in
their saintliness, but most are simply ordinary people who have come
to believe that nonviolence is a more moral and a more effective
means of struggle. They take that risk because they have seen small
successes and slight glimmers of hope.

Obama has the power to increase that hope-hope is his trademark, after all.
The civil rights struggle in the American South succeeded because the
nonviolent resistance of Freedom Riders and marchers and sit-ins
caught the attention of the world and outraged a larger public
opinion. Laws were changed, and the pressure of the Federal
government was brought to bear.

For nonviolent resistance to succeed in Palestine, it needs the
United States to exert its influence to restrain Israel's
disproportionate response to protest and its military assaults on
Palestinian populations, to stop its incursions into Palestinian
Territory and to end the siege of Gaza. It needs the support of
global outrage that cannot be silenced by shrill cries of
'anti-semitism' every time Israel's policies are challenged. Then we
will also be able to silence the hoarse shouts of extremist
propaganda, ground the rockets and still the hands of suicide bombers
that menace Israel's children, by bringing about a fair and just
solution that can allow everyone in that region to live a life of
dignity and freedom. Ultimately, justice is the true counter to
violence, for only on a foundation of justice can peace be built.

-- Starhawk

Starhawk is an activist, organizer, and author of The Earth Path, as well as Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising, The Fifth Sacred Thing; and eight other books on feminism, politics and earth-based spirituality. She teaches Earth Activist Trainings that combine permaculture design and activist skills, and works to offer training and support for mobilizations around global justice and peace issues.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Starhawk. All rights reserved. This copyright protects Starhawk's right to future publication of her work. Nonprofit, activist, and educational groups may circulate this essay (forward it, reprint it, translate it, post it, or reproduce it) for nonprofit uses. Please do not change any part of it without permission. Readers are invited to visit the web site: www.starhawk.org.

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