Advocates Nonviolent Ways to Oppose Israeli Rule : Dissident Palestinian Tries Mahatma Gandhi’s Path

On the wall of an office in East Jerusalem there is a bookcase that contains “The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi”--shelf after shelf, 76 volumes in all. Nearby hangs a picture of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Nowhere to be seen are the posters commonly displayed elsewhere in this part of the city, the ones showing defiant Palestinian children with hands raised in the victory sign, or steadfast Arab men and women with their clothes in tatters but determined expressions on their faces.

The unusual trappings befit the tenant. This is the Palestinian Center for the Study of Non-Violence.

Source of Resistance

Mubarak Awad, 43, who founded the center about 14 months ago, said its goal is to tap new sources of resistance to Israeli rule over the 1.4 million Arabs of East Jerusalem, the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip, by offering these people an alternative to the “military struggle,” which he sees as doomed.

Mohandas K. Gandhi and King are models for Awad’s nonviolent campaign. He said he hopes to achieve the same things for his people that the Indian nationalist and the American civil rights leader achieved for theirs.

His success is admittedly limited so far, but Awad’s efforts have begun to attract attention. And they are part of what appears to be a growing political ferment among the one-third of all Palestinians who live under Israeli rule.

There is no clear pattern yet to this activity, but the fact that it exists is notable given the traditional deference of these Palestinians to outside forces such as the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Arab Risks Cited

As the recent assassination of Mayor Zafer Masri of Nablus proved, there can be considerable risk for West Bank Arabs who choose to take independent political action. Two hard-line Palestinian groups have claimed responsibility for killing Masri, a moderate who replaced an Israeli military administrator last December.

It is not clear how the killing will affect political activity on the West Bank.

Most Palestinians here are still loyal to the PLO, but there is clearly a growing impatience among some of them, particularly the better-educated, with what is seen as the ineffectiveness of the outside Arab world’s efforts on their behalf. They feel that if they are ever to be more than second-class citizens in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip--lands Israel occupied in the Arab-Israel War of 1967--new methods must be found.

Sari Nuseibeh, a Palestinian writer and philosopher, said in a recent, much-discussed article in the Arabic weekly Al Mawkef that West Bankers would be better off if Israel annexed the area, with all the obligations and privileges that this would entail.

Annexation Benefits Seen

“As a citizen of the (Israeli) state,” Nuseibeh argued, “I will be able to fight for my standing and my rights.”

These new currents of Palestinian thinking are diverse in terms of methods and goals, but they have one thing in common: a rejection of the principle of sumud . The word was coined at the time of the 1978 Baghdad Conference--an Arab League summit that called on Egypt not to sign a peace treaty with Israel--and applies to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation; it means perseverance, grimly hanging on no matter what.

“I don’t believe in sumud,” Awad said in an interview. “I believe in action.”

Economic Boycott Urged

He urges Palestinians to boycott all Israeli products for one day a month. He organizes trips so that Palestinians can see their old homes in areas they fled during the Arab-Israeli War that followed partition by the United Nations, in 1948, of what was then Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

Most recently, he has organized peaceful protests against an Israeli program to clear away olive trees planted by Palestinian farmers in contested land along the so-called Green Line that divides pre-1967 Israel and the occupied territories.

“If you don’t choose to be occupied you have to resist,” Awad said. “You individually have to resist, not wait for someone else to do it.”

PLO Stand Is Limited

What the PLO calls the armed struggle against Israel “limits you to individuals who have a gun or can get a gun,” Awad said. “It paralyzes 85% of society.”

Like his hero Gandhi, Awad hopes that if enough victims of the occupation become involved in nonviolent resistance, they will move not only worldwide public opinion but the conscience of the occupiers as well.

Gandhi, a Hindu lawyer, led a nonviolent nationalist movement that freed India from British colonial rule. And the Israeli public, Awad said, constitutes “both the target for such action and potential allies.”

‘We Have Rights’

“With nonviolence,” he went on, “we can convince the Israelis that while we don’t intend to harm them, we have rights which we intend to insist on.”

Awad is a native of Jerusalem. He was educated at Bluffton College, a Mennonite institution in Bluffton, Ohio, and later lived with Quakers. His wife, Nancy, is a Quaker. Both are U.S. citizens. He said he was active in the anti-war and civil rights movements in the United States in the 1960s and early 1970s.

A psychological counselor, Awad returned to Jerusalem in 1983 to start a counseling program for parents, teachers and students at West Bank schools. The program is financed by a Geneva-based Arab welfare association, he said.

Funded by Professor

The Center for the Study of Non-Violence grew out of his interest in the subject, he said, and a $35,000 grant from Hisham Shirabi, a professor of European History at Georgetown University who is a prominent Palestinian-American activist.

Awad concedes that he is working against formidable odds. He said: “If you look at the Palestinians, from the time of the Turks we have submitted--to the Turks, to the British, to the Jordanians and now to the Israelis.”

He recalled that while he was visiting India last year, a follower of Mahatma Gandhi expressed skepticism that the Palestinians were ready to make the material sacrifices necessary to resist Israeli rule. “You have everything but freedom,” Awad quoted the Indian as saying, “while we have nothing but freedom.”

Urban Campaign Failing

Awad said that even when Muslim religious leaders call for a commercial strike against the Israelis, only about 60% of the Palestinians go along with it. “Nonviolence in the cities is a waste of time,” he said gloomily. “People are absorbed with their own commercial interests.” Until some way is found to ignite them, Awad said, he will concentrate on his more successful efforts among villagers and residents of refugee camps.

Another key difference between the Indians and the Palestinians, he said, is that Mahatma Gandhi’s followers were an overwhelming majority in a country run by a tired colonial regime, while many Israelis are motivated by a much stronger belief in the rightness of their claim to the West Bank.

Awad evaded questions about specific political goals--whether he favors an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza, a confederation with Jordan, a binational Jewish-Arab state, or something else.

“We purposely ignore that political message, because if I had such a message I might confront the PLO,” he said.

Believes in PLO

He described himself as “an individual who doesn’t believe in the armed struggle, but who does believe in the PLO.” In general, he said, “we want to have a Palestinian passport, to raise a Palestinian flag--I want to have that nationality so my children can be born Palestinian.” He predicted that “if a lot of people get involved with nonviolence, the PLO cannot stay out of it.”