The next idiot who tells me that the Palestinians should find a Gandhi, I will punch in the nose

The latest idiot who’s seriously competing for the top of my list: Nick Kristof, whom I used to respect - and was joyed to have as graduation speaker years ago - but have come to realize that he’s just another wannabe Friedman.

In his latest article, "Waiting for Gandhi”, he takes his family on a leisurely trip to Palestine where he took his kids to watch - yey, how fun! - a weekly demonstration in Bil’in, in the West Bank. In fact, his son’s photos illustrate the article on the NYTimes' website.

Kristof from the tip of his cigar, brushes of those weekly demonstrations that have been going on for years now in a vain attempt to pressure the Israelis into restoring the village’s control over its own land, and attract the attention of the pretentious observers like himself, as they were seemingly only a facsimile of peaceful:

“these protests, aside from the fact that they aren’t truly nonviolent...”

The violence he’s so disappointed at is the following:

“The Israeli forces fired volleys of tear gas at us, and then charged. The protesters fled, some throwing rocks backward as they ran. It’s a far cry from the heroism of Gandhi’s followers”

Right. Stones, in the face of heavily armed soldiers charging, makes it an armed confrontation. Clearly the problem lies in the unarmed protesters ‘throwing rocks backward’. And ergo, it isn’t really peaceful, ‘a far cry from heroism’, and does not deserve Kristof’s divine respect.

Never mind that Gandhi himself approved of active self-defense when non-violent self-defense fails. Back to Gandhi own writings. Quotes are from: Thomas Merton (ed), “Gandhi: on non violence: selected texts from Mohandas K. Gandhi's non-violence in peace and war” (New York: New directions, 1965):

“I have been repeating over and over again that he who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden.” (p.50; first published in “Young India”, 10 November 1928)

Browsing further, in the book, I also enjoyed this quote:

" To allow crops to be eaten up by animals in the name of ahimsa (non violence) while there is famine in the land is certainly a sin.” (p.56)

Defending one’s crops is an honourable endeavour, says Gandhi-ji. And nowhere is this embodied further than in the struggle of villagers to regain control over their land, over the source of their pittance, from the hands of a violent army - especially when the little water they have is siphoned by Israeli settlers who consume 280 litres of water per day (compared to 86 litres for Palestinians, of which barely 60 are potable) and who regularly, in collaboration with the Israeli army, do their best - generally successfully - to violently deny Palestinian farmers access to their farming land and steal their crops [thus making them, in Gandhi metaphor, the animals].

Effectively, Kristof fields absolutely no objection on the Israeli army attacking peaceful demonstrators; he’s upset - and therefore blaming the failure of the entire Palestinian non-violence resistance movement on those few protestors “throwing rocks backward as they ran”. As they ran for cover from live ammunition or tear gas canisters deliberately shot straight into people, to cause maximum physical harm, rather than elliptically as they should.

Lest you be tempted to give Kristof the benefit of the doubt, he digs himself deeper in his blog.

After reveling in a tenet of Israeli propaganda, that there’s “No one to talk to” on the Palestinian side [“there is no unified entity that can deliver all Palestinians”] and then off-handedly giving away most Palestinian rights [“while we know what the final deal would look like — the Clinton parameters, or the Geneva accord”], he makes his final mistake:

The assumption that “the sight of peaceful men and women lining up to be clubbed [would] outrage the world” as it did for Ghandi.

Herein lies the real challenge: it’s the ignorance of the various Kristofs, Friedmans, and other ‘analysts’ of what really goes on the ground in Palestine. The assumption that, as he writes on his facebook page, that “Palestinians are beginning to dabble in Gandhian ideas of non-violent resistance”.

Because reality is that there are peaceful demonstrations daily. For years, if not decades. As I write on this Sunday morning I am following live incoming reports of a demonstration in Beit Jala. The army short sound bombs and tear gas at demonstrators. Will this demonstration be reported by Nick Kristof and his ilk?

Surely not.

Palestinian men and women ARE being clubbed daily. In its most visible forms, in the weekly peaceful demonstrations in Nil’in, Bil’in, Sheikh Jarrah. But more underhandedly,

As the children go to school in Hebron.

As workers try to cross a checkpoint,

And of course, the 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, including hundreds of minors, creeping in Israeli jails, and subjected to physical and psychological violence daily.

That the Palestinian society has been responding with self-control is nothing short of awe-inspiring, an deserves our admiration and respect.

That Nick Kristof is too blind to see it is to his own demerit, not Palestine’s.