“Palestinians need a Gandhi.” It’s become commonplace to hear Western observers lamenting the absence of a nonviolent movement in Palestine, an appeal that is especially resonant after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The violence against civilians perpetrated that day was morally unjustifiable. And practically speaking, nonviolent campaigns have historically been much likelier to achieve their goals compared to violent rebellions.
Yet all too often, calls for nonviolent action in Palestine come devoid of context, delivered as moralizing lectures rather than forthright and sober assessments of the possibilities for effective nonviolent action against Israeli occupation.
To begin with, faulting Palestinians for their purported failure to embrace nonviolence elides a lengthy history of Palestinian nonviolent activism. As with many other nonviolent movements, Palestinian activists have not always been perfect models of Gandhian ahimsa. Nevertheless, they have frequently employed various nonviolent tactics, suffering courageously for nonviolent principles. Thus far, those efforts have yielded largely bitter fruit.
Moreover, Palestinians face major impediments to nonviolent action against an entrenched Israeli occupation—even a fully rejuvenated Palestinian nonviolent movement is unlikely to succeed on its own. Instead, the best hope for progress is the emergence of parallel nonviolent mobilization among Israelis, providing a necessary ally for change that would embody sustainable Israel-Palestinian peace and could substantially strengthen a peaceful anti-occupation campaign.
Pundits rarely ask about an “Israeli Gandhi.” Ultimately, however, peace will likely require Gandhian nonviolence on both sides of the Green Line.
Persuasion and Pressure in Palestine
Nonviolent action works along two fronts. The first is persuasion: Principled nonviolence exemplifies moral righteousness and an earnest desire for peaceful coexistence, generating popular support that drives broad coalitions for change. The second is pressure: Mobilizing peaceful yet disruptive tactics, such as mass protests and strikes, undermines existing power relations and generates costs—bad press and lost profits, for instance—that opponents may not wish to bear.
In theory, nonviolent persuasion and pressure reinforce one another, simultaneously cultivating and exerting civic power for change. In practice, however, Palestinians face obstacles to both persuasion and pressure that inhibit effective nonviolent activism.
First, peaceful Palestinian activism does not strike a moral chord with many Israelis, who see Palestinians as fundamentally hostile. Several recent studies conducted prior to Oct. 7 show that Israelis perceive nonviolent protests by Arab Israelis as violent, associate objectively nonviolent Palestinian advocacy with terrorism and strongly endorse repression of peaceful Palestinian activists. This association between Palestine and terrorism is fueled by past conflict but also by official Israeli rhetoric, as when President Isaac Herzog branded support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, or BDS, movement as “economic terrorism,” or when Israeli diplomats describe Palestinian advocacy at the United Nations as “diplomatic terrorism.”
Israeli preconceptions about Palestinian violence have understandably hardened since Oct. 7 and could take years of determined effort to mitigate. For the foreseeable future, then, Palestinian activists face an uphill struggle to establish moral credibility with Israeli audiences even if they are entirely peaceful.
To speak of a “Palestinian nonviolent campaign” as separate from nonviolent action in Israel is to artificially divide an anti-occupation movement that inherently bridges both societies.
Palestinians also have comparatively weak leverage, a consequence of the occupation’s profound physical separation of Palestinians and Israelis. Most clearly, Gaza is isolated, so protests there have almost no direct effect on daily life in Israel. This lack of leverage is one reason why Gaza’s 2018-2019 Great March of Return, which was largely peaceful, produced few results.
The situation is somewhat different in the West Bank, where Palestinians have at least some contact with Israeli society. For instance, the Strike for Dignity in May 2021, in which Palestinian day laborers from the West Bank refused to show up for work, temporarily disrupted sectors of the Israeli economy.
Nevertheless, serious obstacles remain. The West Bank is a deeply segregated territory, with a maze of checkpoints and segregated roads dividing Palestinian communities both from one another and from Israeli settlements. Freedom of movement is heavily restricted—Palestinians need scarce permits to enter Israel, and travel within the West Bank is sclerotic, channeled through corridors that are arbitrarily blocked by Israeli security forces. Collective action in the West Bank is also heavily and violently policed by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. As intended, these structures of control constrain Palestinians’ ability to collectively shift the balance of the cost-benefit scales by which Israel weighs the occupation.
In short, Palestinians faced high barriers to nonviolent resistance even prior to Oct. 7. These challenges do not mean that Palestinian nonviolence is a lost cause—nonviolence can succeed even in repressive circumstances. Nor do they excuse terrorism. But it is important to acknowledge that Palestine is a tough case for nonviolent action, and that Palestinians’ disillusionment with nonviolence is grounded in decades of lived experiences with these hardships.
Nonviolence in Israel
Contrast these challenges with recent events in Israel. This year, hundreds of thousands of Israelis mobilized to oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial judicial reforms. They launched days of “disruption” and “paralysis,” blocking highways and erecting a tent city outside the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Some refused to report for military reserve duty.
The protests were an inspiring display of nonviolent action that Israeli peace activists should hope to emulate, as sustained anti-occupation mobilization in Israel is a necessary component of an effective Palestinian nonviolent campaign. Peaceful demonstrations in Israel that unite Israeli Jews and Palestinians are needed to soften Israeli preconceptions of Palestinian violence, restoring the moral force of nonviolent activism. Activists in Israel can also directly engage Israelis who are otherwise isolated from Palestinians, both through persuasive coalition-building and through peaceful pressure tactics that would assign tangible, day-to-day costs to the occupation. And Israeli activism could also demonstrate to Palestinians that nonviolent activism can bear fruit, restoring confidence in peaceful methods.
Israeli peace activists have long promoted this vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace. For years, Israeli civic organizations like Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem have documented abuses in the occupied territories, conducting co-resistance activities to promote Palestinian human rights. Others, like Standing Together, mobilize Israeli Arabs and Jews to jointly oppose the occupation. Their efforts are paralleled by diaspora activism, as global Palestinian and Jewish advocacy groups now organize civil disobedience against Israel’s ongoing invasion of Gaza, which has exacted a horrific toll on Palestinian civilians.
Unfortunately, Israeli peace advocates have historically faced difficult headwinds. Sociopolitical dynamics have led Israeli politics to shift steadily rightward since the signing of the Oslo accords, evidenced by growing Israeli skepticism about the prospects for peace and a dwindling pro-peace movement. Notably, this summer’s recent protests in Israel were essentially silent on the occupation.
In turn, the Oct. 7 attack has exacerbated the situation by dramatically increasing Israeli trauma and social pressure for loyalty. Israel is undergoing a sustained crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech, with right-wing activists harassing and threatening Palestinian sympathizers while police arrest Arab Israelis for social media posts on grounds of incitement to terrorism. Popular sentiment on Palestine is at a nadir, and Israeli-Palestinian cross-community linkages are likely to be further strained as the conflict drags on.
For the time being, then, major anti-occupation protests are wishful thinking. A hard truth about nonviolent action is that there are often no easy shortcuts to building broad-based nonviolent coalitions.
Nevertheless, mobilizing a peaceful anti-occupation movement is certainly no more demanding a task in Israel than it is in Palestine—and if we want to support the latter, we must encourage the former. To speak of a “Palestinian nonviolent campaign” as separate from nonviolent action in Israel is to artificially divide an anti-occupation movement that inherently bridges both societies, thereby depriving Palestinians of an essential ally for peace.
As the war rages on, the situation in Gaza remains critically desperate and highly volatile. But one way or another, eventually the violence will ebb. When it does, external actors should endeavor to support nonviolent activists in Palestine and Israel alike, as they labor against the odds to lay the necessary groundwork for peace.
Matthew D. Cebul is the lead researcher for the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Program on Nonviolent Action, where he conducts research on the dynamics of nonviolent action and external support for nonviolent movements. He received his doctorate in political science from Yale University and holds a bachelor’s degree from Haverford College. The views expressed in this commentary solely represent Dr. Cebul’s personal viewpoint and do not necessarily represent those of USIP.