Long History?

Edith Garwood of Concord, N.C., is a member of the Middle East Coordination Group for Amnesty International USA (*). Here's her letter in the NYTimes today:

To the Editor:

“Palestinians Try a Less Violent Path to Resistance” (front page, April 7) seems to propagate the notion that the Palestinian struggle has been only violent. Just because the media choose to ignore the long history of Palestinian nonviolent resistance does not mean it hasn’t always existed.

Saying that “nonviolence has never caught on here” does a great disservice to the many Palestinians who have been killed since the early 1900s while nonviolently resisting injustices and ignores the Palestinians, Israelis and others who have acted nonviolently for years.

Israel has increased harassment of nonviolent protesters in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem with nighttime raids and arrests of both leaders and participants, including children. These people, and those who came before them, deserve to be acknowledged and supported, not erased from history.

Long history of nonviolent resistance?

What "long history" of nonviolence?

The conflict can be said to begin in April 1920 when Arabs conducted a violent riot against Jews in Jerusalem. In the following 90 years, we have these highlights:

- 1921: Jaffa riot, spreading to Petah Tikva and Hadera; Jlm violent demo
- 1929: country-wide attacks
- 1933: violent riot in Jlm
- 1936-1939: country-wide attacks
- 1947-1949: war
- 1949-1956: Fedayeen terror
- 1964-present: PLO terror
- 1987-1992: Intifada
- 2000-2006: Intifada

and much in-between.

Thousands of dead Jews, foreign workers, tourists and others in Israel and in airports and restaurants all over the world.

I say there was no long history of Arab nonviolent struggle.

There was only a long and protracted and evil campaign to kill Jews and prevent the international guarantee of a reconstituted Jewish national home from being fulfilled. And in doing so, by linking up with the Nazis, they effectively contributed to the Holocaust.

What do you say, Edith?



__________

(*) And more:

Here.