[...] it's immensely important to say, clearly, that violence is not just wrong, but ineffective. -- Hilzoy

A bit like torture ("enhanced" interrogation techniques), eh? Although, IIRC, when the wrong-right claims "but it works!", we prefer to use the "no, it doesn't" argument last of all, after "it's immoral and it's illegal" ones.

Whether violence is effective or not dependent on your goals. The aim of many of those committing violence is not their stated ultimate goals, but often unifying their own power by rallying against an outside enemy.
It's not as if we haven't been guilty of that ourselves.

decline depends positive address decade

The people react violently because they become so suffused with rage at being ground down day after day by people to whom they are animals that eventually, nothing but violence will suffice. I'm sure they don't deliberately shoot unguided ballistic rockets that can only be pointed in a general direction with the hope that they will hit children or old women. That said, I can remember photographs of Israeli schoolgirls writing slogans on the heads of artillery shells that were going to be fired into Gaza (you can see them here http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/07/17/photo-of-the-day-israeli-kids-sends-gifts-of-love-to-arab-kids/ ), and accounts of Israelis packing picnic lunches and lawn chairs to the hilltops to watch the bombardment as over 1000 people were slaughtered, as if it were a production staged by the IDF for their enjoyment.

If I were Palestinian, things like that might make me feel a little less sorry for the kiddies and the old women. Violence begets violence, and neither side should be asked to just surrender and trust to the humanitarian instincts of the opposition.

notes amplified globally forward

Beautifully stated. I truly love the way you break things down, hilzoy.

"But it was not violence that won full and equal rights."

Civil War.

But high rhetoric does not have to be logical. Audiences are very susceptible to dramatic flourishes, no matter that they mean nothing. Ever try to make any logic out of "Ahsk not what your country can do for you..."?

"That's why it's immensely important to say, clearly, that violence is not just wrong, but ineffective. This has always seemed clear to me: of all the ways to try to achieve Palestinian statehood, why on earth would you pick violence, where the difference between Israeli and Palestinian strength is greatest?"

Gee, I guess FDR should have told the French NOT to fight back against the illegal military occupation by the Nazis, eh ? Why would the French resistance even bother when the difference between their and the Nazis strength was the greatest ?

* Article 51 of the UN Charter details the right of people, individually or collectively, to self-defense when they come under military aggression.

* The Geneva Declaration on Terrorism states:

"As repeatedly recognized by the United Nations General Assembly, peoples who are fighting against colonial domination and ALIEN OCCUPATION and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination HAVE THE RIGHT TO USE FORCE TO ACCOMPLISH THEIR OBJECTIVES within the framework of international humanitarian law. SUCH LAWFUL USES OF FORCE MUST NOT BE CONFUSED WITH ACTS OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM."

"This has always seemed clear to me: of all the ways to try to achieve Palestinian statehood, why on earth would you pick violence, where the difference between Israeli and Palestinian strength is greatest? And why would you not begin to wonder, after decades of violence with nothing to show for it besides blood and bitterness, whether some other approach might be better?"

I was recently rereading Jean Genet's The Prisoner of Love. An amazing book, if you haven't read it.

As most know, it tells primarily of Genet's time living with Palestinian refugees. One of things you get, while reading the book, is that Palestinian violence, especially in its early manifestations, often had nothing to do with instrumentality. One did not commit violence to achieve some geopolitical goal. Violence often had its own justification. Genet, at one point in the novel, is having a conversation with an elderly Palestinian woman, and he is asking a very similar question that you are asking hilzoy, "Why violence when you know you will lose." And the woman responds by talking about all the ways that the colonialism of Israel has made one feel unreal, insubstantial. Then the woman gives one of my favorite quotations in the whole book, that in order to exist one has "to have been dangerous for a thousandth of a second".

I did not say that violence was never effective. I do think it has been, and in all likelihood will continue to be, ineffective in this case, for the reasons I stated in the post.

I think another reason why the lesson that violence does not work is that the people most eager for violence, the Saudis and Iranians etc. and end-of-days sympathetic Christians, don't suffer the consequences. Same reason why support for the IRA lasted in Boston long after the Nothern Irish Catholics were sick of it.
But in Israel and Palestine, the amount of the fighting that is funded from the outside is particularly high.

"People who shoot rockets at sleeping children and blow up old women on buses are heroes in parts of the Arab world"

I'm confused - who we are talking about here? Hamas? Hezbollah? Al Qaeda? And "parts of the Arab world" sounds pretty offensive, but it might be true depending on your definitions. Sounds like crap though.

"That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered."

Said the superpower military to the ragtag guerrilla fighters. And they would say that, wouldn't they? "Come out, stand in a line and let us shoot you!"

Is the difference really so great between (1) deliberately targeting civilians in hopes of turning the target's public opinion away from some murderous policy, or (2) prosecuting a war (as an overwhelmingly superior force) such that you kill at a 1/99 (fighters/innocents) ratio? Is the difference that you didn't *deliberately* target innocents (but you did *know* that would be the result of your actions).

What about invading a killing 3000 civilians as part of a drug bust (Noriega). Using people as ends seems awfully evil, but I don't think in real the demarcation between just and unjust acts is so clean.

Obama's not quite right on Indonesia. I'm from the Netherlands; we spent four years fighting a shameful war trying to bully that country into staying a colony. It's our Vietnam, in many ways, without the national trauma, because no one ever speaks about it anymore. Anyway, they won and kicked us out, and then declared independence. Violence was definitely effective and necessary then.

Not saying at all that this means the Palestinians should also use violence -- that's the last thing I want. The example just wasn't that great.

"It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus."

Which could, of course, apply to Israel as well...

"For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip..."

So, the Palestinians should just sit back and take it for another couple of hundred years?

While there have been several violent acts (which is unjustified IMO), Obama made the mistake of framing it in the context of Palestinian resistance. Palestine is occupied. It has the right to resist under the U.N. Charter.

As for Israeli violence, under international law the occupying country is responsible for maintaining peace and do everything it can to protect those within the occupied country. That hasn't been met.

I know that's off tangent. But Obama needs to be careful in how he frames Palestinian violence, because they have the right to resist under international law.

for the president of the United States, which expanded using first and foremost violence, to ignore that history in his preachings to the palistinians, seems most disingenuous. Moreover, when considering the slave revolts, the Civil War, and the groups like the Deacons of Defense in the history of the Black Freedom Struggle in the colonies and the United States, his characterization of the Civil Rights movement appears simplistic, even childish. I am all for non-violence, but also honest history and against hypocrisy.

Absolutely Steve! Very powerful speech and not the least bit apologetic. Why are there not more people on the left stepping up for the president when the right does nothing but criticize?

I'm reposting something I said before because it bears directly on the subject here.

Although I agree with most of Obama's speech, I have a problem with his blanket statement that "Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed" and that "violence is a dead end." That's not always true, and for him to pretend it is is dishonest and unfair. There are cases where people who are being oppressed need to use violence. The Algerians wouldn't have won their independence from the French by completely nonviolent means. Before the Algerian War of Independence, they had repeatedly tried to hold free and fair elections, but the French would simply rig the elections. And would Gandhi's nonviolent tactics have worked if India had been controlled by Stalin's Soviet Union rather than the British? Furthermore, there was certainly a good deal of "terrorist" violence involved in the founding of Israel itself (by the Irgun and Lehi and others).

In addition, it's rather misleading for Obama to use the civil rights struggle of African-Americans as a model for the rest of the world. Although violence against civil rights workers often occured (for example by the KKK), the civil rights movement took place in a society where those involved had recourse to the laws and power of the federal government, and could work within the system. This is quite different from a situation where one group is under military occupation by another (the Palestinians in the occupied territories, for example).

While I understand the basic message Obama is trying to convey to the Muslim world, I feel it is wrong to do so by making historically simplistic and questionable statements. Doing this only runs the risk of weakening his message in the end.

Violence worked pretty well for the Israelis against the British, and they certainly aren't reluctant to use it against the Palestinians. Why is only one side called on to renounce the use of violence?

This is spiraling into another Israel vs. Palestine argument rather than a criticism of the resonance of Obama's speech, specifically the quote offered. Although at the root of the concept I agree with Hilzoy, that violence can never be effective as a means of achieving statehood, I disagree that the message was meant only for the Palestinians; Obama is more subtle than that.

Israel and a Palestinian State is different from every other conflict that might appear similar, because nobody has an opponent so clever at manipulation of the western media, so accomplished at lobbying for financial and material support of its aims and so deeply entrenched within the culture of its primary donor. The Palestinians might be forgiven for feeling that only violence gets them noticed; that otherwise the world would go on about its business while Israel slowly squeezes them to death. Sadly, that's probably true, but each incident of violence is promptly spun into a reason to continue subjugating the Palestinians, further restricting them and appropriating more of their land.

I don't think only one side was being called on to renounce violence, and I hope the Israeli lobbying machine has an ear for subtlety. The Palestinian lobbying machine as well, if there can be said to be such a thing, will have to dust off its chops and compete for believability. Israel's is at an all-time low just now, and the Palestinians could make real gains.

Pfiffle. Historically violence has been an extremely effective method for achieving statehood. To argue otherwise in the general case is disingenuous. Several examples have been cited already and there are many more that could be.

hilzoy:I did not say that violence was never effective. I do think it has been, and in all likelihood will continue to be, ineffective in this case, for the reasons I stated in the post.

Alright, you didn't say that although Obama seems to have. You did say "it's immensely important to say, clearly, that violence is ... ineffective." So, violence actually is effective but it's important we claim it isn't? Why is that?

Additionally, I read your post twice and I didn't see you mention any reasons why violence would be ineffective in this case beyond the banal observation that Israel has superior military force. Is that really the entirety of your argument on this point?

Violence worked pretty well for the Israelis against the British, and they certainly aren't reluctant to use it against the Palestinians. Why is only one side called on to renounce the use of violence?
Well, violence against Israel clearly isn't working and hasn't worked these last 60 years. So why not try a different tactic as Obama says?

"But it was not violence that won full and equal rights."

Civil War.

Oh, of course. Blacks definitely had full and equal rights immediately after the Civil War. The 100 years of Jim Crow were nothing, and the Civil Rights Act signed by LBJ had no effect at all.

*sigh*

Oh, of course. Blacks definitely had full and equal rights immediately after the Civil War. The 100 years of Jim Crow were nothing, and the Civil Rights Act signed by LBJ had no effect at all.

You imagine the Civil Rights Act could have come about w/o the Civil War? That's just silly.

And LBJ had the good fortune and the good sense to work with a nonviolent political movement, but he could see the armed resistance waiting in the wings. Do you really think that didn't influence his outlook?

"Pfiffle. Historically violence has been an extremely effective method for achieving statehood. To argue otherwise in the general case is disingenuous. Several examples have been cited already and there are many more that could be."

One other example, of course, is the United States, Obama's own country.

For any American to condemn violence is just precious. Gaza is being bombed by us as much as Israel, as we fund them and supply the weapons, even in violation of our own laws. Did we ask the British politely to leave in 1776? Did we resolve our political differences in 1860 with sharing the peace pipe? Bush just admitted that you don't become a 2 term president unless you start a war, thus gaining the American people's respect. Violence is as American as apple pie.

What Obama really means is when you have no real weapons and the other side mercilessly kills you, while controlling the international press, you might want to consider other means, not for moral reasons, but for political pragmatism. This is the message that the Palestinians must hear. Dying for your cause is not moving us politically, so time to try another tactic with us. We have the copyright on violence. Why don't you try reasoning with us? After all, we have no idea what your cause is, after 60 years of your struggle.

Violence has worked in many, many places. But not when the balance of the ability to inflict violence is so totally one-sided as it is for the Palestinians and was for African-Americans in the South most of the time.

George;

That is a coherent argument that isn't contradicted by observable evidence. So kudos.

Near as I can tell, this argument rests on the premise that the Palestinians have relied on violence and only violence to advance their cause over the last 60 years, i.e. that no good faith effort at peace accords has ever been made.

I don't suppose this is an unreasonable assumption on its face, but it isn't one I share with you.

(You could, of course, argue that while the Palestinians have made sincere efforts towards peace they just haven't been dedicated enough to the peace process. Alternately, you could argue that they just haven't been sufficiently dedicated to violence. Neither argument strikes me as particularly compelling in the abstract.)

lou,

"Well, violence against Israel clearly isn't working and hasn't worked these last 60 years. So why not try a different tactic as Obama says?"

The Palestinians have been there done that.

It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.

How many civilians have we killed with air attacks in Afghanistan? How many wedding parties have we bombed? How many automobiles carrying people that our government alleged to be terrorists have been blown away? And how do we know that the people in those automobiles were in fact what our government alleged them to be?

That's why it's immensely important to say, clearly, that violence is not just wrong, but ineffective. This has always seemed clear to me: of all the ways to try to achieve Palestinian statehood, why on earth would you pick violence, where the difference between Israeli and Palestinian strength is greatest?

Ever heard of the American revolution? Britain was THE superpower of the day. Do you think that the violence of the revolution was unsuccessful?

Sorry, I call BS. The Palestinians may resort to violence, but if you pay attention you will find that when they resort to peaceful protest/civil disobedience, the Israeli's often kill them...and then bulldoze the homes of their families.

"neither side should be asked to just surrender and trust to the humanitarian instincts of the opposition"

This is the crux of the matter.

Non-violent protest works when there is a compassionate audience able to step in to put a stop to the unfair actions of the bullying state.

In the case of slavery, there was a large compassionate audience, but it took hundreds of years before that audience was able to step in (given the opportunity of the Civil War, which was not primarily about slavery at all but which gave an opportunity for good men to stand up and say that that too must be cast aside).

In the case of Palestine is there a large compassionate audience? I'd like to think so, but it's hard to know. All public opinion on the matter, not just in the US but around the world, is so intensely colored by the disgusting violence - perpetrated by both sides - that there is no way of knowing where the consensus would lie were the violence to cease.

Personally, I have a strong leaning towards the plight of the Palestinians. Given what I know today of the conflict, I'd support our government stepping in and forcing the Israelis to stand down. But, again, my sight too is clouded by the decades of violence and innocent blood shed.

Certainly, were one side to stand down (and in a meaningful way) and the other to continue fighting, I can see public opinion swaying swiftly and resolutely to the side of the victim.

So, let's match hypotheticals here.

Hypothetical 1: Israel and Palestine continue to slaughter each other until one or the other is wiped from the face of the earth. I don't know who will "win" in this scenario, but from an uninvolved observer's perspective it's the worst possible outcome in terms of human lives and the future of humanity as a whole.

Hypothetical 2: Palestine stands down and lays down its arms. Israel takes this as a sign of weakness and moves in on the Palestinian strongholds. I would give at least an 80% likelihood here that there would be significant Palestinian casualties, but that very quickly the rest of the world would sanction and push back Israel, forcibly yielding Palestinian lands (current and historic) back to the Palestinian people. This is hardly a "good" outcome, but better for all concerned than H1.

Hypothetical 3: Palestine stands down, and Israel follows. But neither irreversibly commits to the process, and some extremist on one side or the other blows himself and a hundred civilians up and we're back to H1. This has been tried many times in the past and is familiar to all. Outcome is H1, therefore, this is a bad path to take.

Hypothetical 4: Palestine stands down, as does Israel. Both commit to the process completely. Grievances and land disputes are settled with the eye of the rest of the world. Note that it's a lot better for Palestine to go down this path today, with Obama leading one of the most powerful voices in the outcome, than to wait for the next lobotomized cowboy to take the reigns. That aside, though, I'd give Palestine at least a 75% shot at achieving a large part of what it wants (its own state, partial control over Jerusalem, etc), but no chance at all of achieving the bellicose desires it has voiced in the past (a complete dissolution of Israel, etc).

To me, H4 is the best of all possible outcomes. To a Palestinian, though, it depends. Is the scant chance of actually eventually prevailing and dissolving the Israeli state worth another century of the best and brightest of your children dying early and brutal deaths? It's a valid question.

But, it's important to note that in NONE of these hypotheticals were we relying on the humanitarian empathy of Israel. There's a world outside the middle east, and that world is not so blindly polarized as it might seem for one on the inside looking out.

"Did we ask the British politely to leave in 1776? "

Um, yes. Remember the Declaration of Independence? Granted, we didn't expect them to just say "okay", but that declaration was instrumental in bringing together public support amongst our allies.

Now, another question: would we have possibly prevailed against the British were we unable to draw other strong allies alongside us (France, Germany, etc)? Would we have possibly prevailed by sending death squads in to bomb the south of Wales?

On the other hand, there was "public support" and there was "royal support". The latter tended to be given in return for selfish advancement of interests, and not so easily swayed by an impassioned moral argument. There is a good argument that France would have sided with the rebelling colonies even without a moral justification, purely because the loss of those colonies would place its chief rival in a sore position. However, ven Kings end up having to answer eventually to public opinion, and there is also a significant chance that they would not have stepped up with such force and vigor without the popular (amongst the ruling class, obviously; who cares what a provincial peasant thought?) support for our cause.

At the same time, the argument may be made that warfare has changed somewhat in the past 230 years, and that the onus has shifted somewhat significantly from a straightforward contest of armament into at least partially a battle for the hearts and minds of those affected. Obviously, there were hearts and minds involved in the American Revolution too, but the contest over them was relatively provincial given that the ones that mattered were *here* and the British voice was quite distant. In today's world very few voices are distant, and the contest for the hearts and minds of the world population is a real contest. Which in turn diminishes the simple might-vs-might tactics-oriented school of 18th century warfare in favor of a hearts-and-minds information and public relations warfare of the 21st century.

"Did we ask the British politely to leave in 1776?"

Um, yes. Remember the Declaration of Independence? Granted, we didn't expect them to just say "okay", but that declaration was instrumental in bringing together public support amongst our allies.

That's just asinine. The American Revolutionary war had been going on for more than a year before the Declaration was adopted. The Declaration was an explanation for the ongoing war, not some effort to prevent it.

Would we have possibly prevailed by sending death squads in to bomb the south of Wales?

Well? Would we? Please cite your evidence, one way or the other. Failing that, don't rely on lame counter-factuals to make your points.