.Stirrings of less violent protest in Hamas-ruled Gaza

[Jefferson23]

by Adel Zaanoun Adel Zaanoun – Wed Apr 14, 3:16 am ET

GAZA CITY (AFP) – They walked across shelled-out no man's land on the edge of the Gaza Strip, drawing within 200 metres (yards) of the Israeli border before gunshots snapped over their heads.

And yet the Palestinians who made their way towards the border last week had not come to fire rockets or bury explosives, but to wave flags and hurl stones in protest against Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory.

After years of armed struggle, growing numbers of Gazans are now taking up the kind of "popular resistance" pioneered in the West Bank, where similar weekly protests against Israel's controversial separation barrier have emerged as a central expression of the Palestinian cause.

snip* Organisers of the protests insist they are not trying to replace the armed struggle, which they argue is justified under international law because of Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands.

But the sheer scale of the war and its lop-sided results may have convinced many Gazans that a less violent strategy may be in order.

"This will have a greater impact than bullets and rockets," Zaq said.

in full: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100414/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictgazademo_20100414071615

[ProgressiveMuslim]

1. Gazans non-violently resist Israel's deadly siege by waking up, drawing breath and refusing to die.

Long live Palestine.

[Jefferson23]

2. Damn right!

[ProgressiveMuslim]

3. Damn right is right on! ;)

[Dick Dastardly]

6. Throwing stones and other similar tactics are not non violent.

The article doesn't even claim its non violent only less violent

Typical of the anti Israel factions we see he usual conversion of the facts to something else to either excuse Palestinian actions or demonize Israeli.

[Ken Burch]

8. You can't really be sanctimonious about rock throwing.

It's arrogant to demand that Palestinians make themselves totally helpless in the face of the IDF. Unless you're going to agree that, in exchange for Palestinians not even throwing rocks, that the IDF also give up all violence. You can't say it's ok for the IDF and ONLY the IDF to use force.

[ConsAreLiars]

4. I won't condemn any form of resistance to oppression, but the non-violent

component is essential. The Vietnamese fought those who would take control of their lands and resources and dominate their lives. But even though the US killed 2,500,000 Vietnamese while the Vietnamese were weak enough to kill under 60,000, something close to the I/P ratio, they also had right on their side. Not some nonsense jackassery in some delusional religious books or We're-Number-One supremacist blather, but the simple fact that they had been living there and regarded it as their home, and that those who would subjugate them could not. See Edwin Starr - War (What Is It Good For?) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX7V6FAoTLc

I can't measure the non-violent aspect of the resistance movement, from the Quakers here to the extreme forms, the monks who set themselves afire, and at least one in the US. Human rights campaigns everywhere have always had both.

My belief is that this aspect has always been there but barely visible and deliberately hidden by the Corporatist Media. Getting it seen is important.

(add some)

[Ken Burch]

5. Glad to hear it.

No one has the right to demand non-violence of an oppressed people, but we can praise those people when they choose it freely.

[Scurrilous]

7. IDF fires at group of demonstrators on Gaza border

<snip>

"The IDF opened fire Saturday on a group of demonstrators that approached the security fence on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

The IDF reported that one Palestinian was wounded while Palestinian sources reported that six people were wounded, including one in serious condition. According to the Palestinian reports, the demonstrators were unarmed.

The Palestinians reported that a foreign activist Bianca Zammit was shot in the leg.

"They had no reason to shoot us. We posed no threat to them whatsoever," Zammit told AP Television News from a hospital bed.

The demonstrators were protesting what they call "the IDF's intention to create a security buffer zone around the Gaza Strip."

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