Official PA daily op-ed: Stabbings don`t serve Palestinian interests, best resistance against Israel is to ‘brainwash’ Israelis with the Palestinian narrative
Headline: "The smart resistance"
Excerpt of op-ed by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist of the official PA daily
"If we take the Palestinian cause and the nature of the conflict with the Israeli ethnic cleansing state and carefully examine the forms of resistance, then in principle every form [of resistance] against Israel, whatever it may be called – political, diplomatic, economic, cultural, social, media, educational, tourist, sport, military, etc. – is included under the 'resistance' clause. But while deepening our examination of the forms of resistance, [we discover that] not all forms bring the desired results…
If we take as an example the model of resistance by knives (i.e., stabbings), which characterized the popular uprising from the beginning of October 2015 through May 2016 (see note below –Ed.), [we will discover that] even though this method succeeded in sowing fear amidst the Israeli army, the herds of settlers, and even within Israeli society, as an individual act, not consolidated and without a plan and guidance, it has unfortunately had a negative influence on the conflict, and has whetted the appetite of the Israeli extremist right government led by [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to legislate a series of laws and to issue a series of criminal military orders - which has expanded and deepened the blow to the members of our people…
Therefore, the Palestinian people has not achieved the desired goals from the resistance by knives, but rather opposite results.
If we discuss the method of peaceful struggle and what the [PA] Committee for Contact with Israeli Society is doing – one of the smart methods of resistance – we are talking about a method that is new in its content, even if formally it has existed since the beginning of the 1970s.
This method meets with resistance from some of the forces of the [Palestinian] left and from the religious forces that see it as a type of 'normalization' which 'serves' Israel. However, if these forces would think in a rational manner, isolated from emotions and reverberating demagogic slogans, they would notice that this method is productive and beneficial, and serves the campaign to penetrate Israeli society…
This smart form of resistance is still subject to changes, and requires an intense effort of dialogue with the political forces, who think that it 'contradicts' the national interests as they analyze its achievements in a manner that is not objective and do not differentiate between the two forms of normalization, one Israeli and one Palestinian. The [Palestinian] normalization - or the Palestinian brainwashing of the Israeli political mind – is not subject to the [Israeli] normalization logic, which is hostile to the interests and rights of the [Palestinian] people. The National Committee for Contact rejects all of the formulas of normalization with Israel, but this does not prevent it from building bridges with the Israelis who are willing to listen to the [Palestinian] national narrative and the option of a political arrangement."
Palestinian terror wave (2015-2016) – Palestinian violence and terror attacks against Israelis, including stabbings, shootings, throwing Molotov cocktails, and car rammings. It started in September 2015 and as of July 2016, 40 people were killed (36 Israelis, 1 Palestinian, 2 Americans, and 1 foreign worker from Eritrea) and over 500 wounded.
Excerpt of op-ed by Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, regular columnist of the official PA daily
"If we take the Palestinian cause and the nature of the conflict with the Israeli ethnic cleansing state and carefully examine the forms of resistance, then in principle every form [of resistance] against Israel, whatever it may be called – political, diplomatic, economic, cultural, social, media, educational, tourist, sport, military, etc. – is included under the 'resistance' clause. But while deepening our examination of the forms of resistance, [we discover that] not all forms bring the desired results…
If we take as an example the model of resistance by knives (i.e., stabbings), which characterized the popular uprising from the beginning of October 2015 through May 2016 (see note below –Ed.), [we will discover that] even though this method succeeded in sowing fear amidst the Israeli army, the herds of settlers, and even within Israeli society, as an individual act, not consolidated and without a plan and guidance, it has unfortunately had a negative influence on the conflict, and has whetted the appetite of the Israeli extremist right government led by [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to legislate a series of laws and to issue a series of criminal military orders - which has expanded and deepened the blow to the members of our people…
Therefore, the Palestinian people has not achieved the desired goals from the resistance by knives, but rather opposite results.
If we discuss the method of peaceful struggle and what the [PA] Committee for Contact with Israeli Society is doing – one of the smart methods of resistance – we are talking about a method that is new in its content, even if formally it has existed since the beginning of the 1970s.
This method meets with resistance from some of the forces of the [Palestinian] left and from the religious forces that see it as a type of 'normalization' which 'serves' Israel. However, if these forces would think in a rational manner, isolated from emotions and reverberating demagogic slogans, they would notice that this method is productive and beneficial, and serves the campaign to penetrate Israeli society…
This smart form of resistance is still subject to changes, and requires an intense effort of dialogue with the political forces, who think that it 'contradicts' the national interests as they analyze its achievements in a manner that is not objective and do not differentiate between the two forms of normalization, one Israeli and one Palestinian. The [Palestinian] normalization - or the Palestinian brainwashing of the Israeli political mind – is not subject to the [Israeli] normalization logic, which is hostile to the interests and rights of the [Palestinian] people. The National Committee for Contact rejects all of the formulas of normalization with Israel, but this does not prevent it from building bridges with the Israelis who are willing to listen to the [Palestinian] national narrative and the option of a political arrangement."
Palestinian terror wave (2015-2016) – Palestinian violence and terror attacks against Israelis, including stabbings, shootings, throwing Molotov cocktails, and car rammings. It started in September 2015 and as of July 2016, 40 people were killed (36 Israelis, 1 Palestinian, 2 Americans, and 1 foreign worker from Eritrea) and over 500 wounded.