Martin Luther King III will speak at an upcoming conference in Ramallah on “Strengthening Non-violence in Palestine,” the conference's host groups announced Monday. The groups – Middle East Nonviolence and Democracy (MEND) and the Center for Democracy and Community Development (CDCD) – said King would deliver an address on non-violence.
The speech will take place at the Best Eastern Hotel, not far from a square the PA recently named in honor of mass murderer Dalal Mughrabi.
King, whose father was civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., follows another famous non-violence namesake into the Palestinian Authority: on Monday, Rajmohan Gandhi, grandson of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, visited the village of Bil'in, where he praised local activists for their role in promoting what he termed “non-violent resistance.”
'Peace Intifada'
Non-violent protest is almost non existent among PA Arabs, but PA spokesmen for years termed anything short of bombing and shooting attacks as “non-violent resistance.” Thus, the weekly riots at Bil'in and Na'alin in Samaria are commonly referred to as “non-violent” although they involve rock throwing on a massive scale and have caused serious injury. MK Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli parliamentarian with anti-Israeli views, termed a campaign of rock attacks on IDF soldiers in 2000 "the peace Intifada." Rocks, however, have caused major accidents and deaths.
The non violent sit ins and marches of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi did not involve weapons of any kind.
The CDCD website notes that “one of the most important, but very difficult obstacles to overcome” in the PA's struggle is “the image of the Palestinians as terrorists.”
It claims that this image is "..unfair, but in feeding into Israeli fears, it undermines any possibilities for peace and perpetuates the cycle of violence; polls show that over 70 per cent of both Israelis and Palestinians would opt for a two state solution and see the major problem as lack of trust; it is these majorities that need to be reached and satisfied, and allowed to live the normal life they crave, not the few extremists.” It did not explain how that could be done.
Rajmohan Gandhi (wearing keffiyeh scarf) with Mustafa Barghouti in Hevron market Wednesday / photo courtesy of David Wilder