Non-Violence is a skill

This photograph captures a moment that many people never learn about when they study the Civil Rights era here in the US. “We often remember the marches, the speeches, the sit-ins, the violence inflicted from the outside. What we talk about far less is the discipline that happened before any of that—quiet rooms, serious faces, controlled breathing, and young people learning how to protect their dignity under pressure…. The young students in these images are not being humiliated for spectacle. They are being trained.

Non-Violence, USA: How much of our legacy are we prepared to carry on?

Non-Violence, Palestine: It persists. . .

. . .despite ongoing oppression.

Palestinian nonviolent resistance has a continuous, documented history spanning a century:

British Mandate era (1920s–1930s)

  • 1920s–early 1930s: Palestinian Arabs organized protests, demonstrations, and processions against the growth of Jewish immigration under the Balfour Declaration, with the British mandatory government cracking down swiftly. A notable moment was the 1933 beating of elderly Palestinian notable Musa Kazim al-Husseini by mounted British police during a protest. Foreign PolicyForeign Policy

  • 1936 general strike: Starting in April 1936, Palestinian national committees called a general strike, tax withholding, and boycott of Jewish products to protest British colonialism and Jewish immigration, coordinated nationally by the newly formed Arab Higher Committee, chaired by Haj Amin al-Husseini. It's often cited as one of the longest sustained general strikes in modern history — six months. Importantly, this strike then gave way to the armed "Arab Revolt" of 1936–1939, so the episode is a mixed case: it began as civil, unarmed noncooperation before escalating into armed insurgency violently suppressed by British forces. Middle East Eye +

Post-1948 and pre-1987

  • Nonviolent action was less prominent during this period as Palestinian politics were dominated first by the 1948 Nakba/war and later by the rise of armed factions (Fatah, PFLP, and others) operating from exile after 1967, per historical surveys of the period.

  • Scattered grassroots activity continued inside the newly occupied West Bank and Gaza after 1967, including early strikes, petitions, and flag displays, laying groundwork for later mass organizing.

First Intifada (1987–1993)

This is generally considered the high-water mark of organized Palestinian nonviolent resistance:

  • Led by the clandestine Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU), a coalition of grassroots factions, unions, and student and women's groups that issued communiqués every two weeks describing coordinated actions Palestinians should take. Wikipedia

  • Tactics included labor strikes, tax strikes, boycotts of Israeli goods and institutions, mass demonstrations, underground classrooms and cooperatives, raising the banned Palestinian flag, and general civil disobedience. Wikipedia

  • The Beit Sahour tax strike (1989) is the best-documented single episode: residents of this West Bank town refused to pay taxes to the Israeli Civil Administration under the slogan "no taxation without representation", prompting Israeli seizure of property, administrative detention of residents, and a 42-day military blockade of the town. WikipediaWikipedia

  • Some Israeli reservists and peace activists supported the uprising from the other side: more than 500 Israeli reservists signed a petition in 1988 refusing to serve in the occupied territories, and the Israeli group Peace Now mobilized thousands demanding a negotiated resolution. In These Times

  • Note: the later phase of the First Intifada saw increasing stone-throwing and violence as UNLU's cohesion broke down, and it's debated among historians how "nonviolent" the uprising remained throughout, versus its unarmed early phase.

Village-based resistance to the separation barrier (early 2000s–present)

After Israel began building the West Bank separation barrier in the early 2000s, several villages organized sustained local campaigns:

  • Budrus (2003–2004): villagers led by Ayed Morrar mounted a nonviolent campaign against the barrier's route through village olive groves; this is widely cited as the only clear "success story," as protests eventually forced the Israeli army to redraw the barrier's path and restore appropriated land. (Documented in the 2009 film Budrus.) The New York Review of Books

  • Bil'in (2005–): became known for weekly Friday marches and creative tactics — protesters tying themselves to olive trees being uprooted, locking themselves in cages hauled away by cranes, chaining themselves to steel pillars. Israel's Supreme Court ruled partly in the village's favor in 2007, though construction still ultimately cost the village roughly a third of its land, at a price of many wounded and two protesters killed. (Documented in the Oscar-nominated film Five Broken Cameras.) Open DemocracyThe New York Review of Books

  • Nabi Saleh (2009–): weekly protests began December 9, 2009, over the takeover of a village spring, with a deliberate effort to include women and children in the demonstrations. Oaklandinstitute

  • These village campaigns were coordinated through a decentralized network of local popular committees under an umbrella Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, representing a dozen or more villages.

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) — 2005–present

Launched in July 2005 by a coalition of more than 170 Palestinian unions, professional associations, refugee networks, women's associations, and other civil society bodies, explicitly modeled on the anti-apartheid boycott of South Africa. Its stated demands are recognition of the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, the right of return for refugees, and Israeli withdrawal from land occupied in 1967. BDS is contested territory: supporters frame it as a nonviolent human-rights campaign; critics — including many mainstream Jewish organizations and the Israeli government — argue its underlying aims and some of its rhetoric amount to a challenge to Israel's existence as a state rather than simply its policies, and some jurisdictions have passed laws restricting it. Both framings circulate widely and I'd point you to sources across that spectrum rather than picking one. Encyclopedia BritannicaTime

Great March of Return (Gaza, 2018–2019)

Weekly protests at the Gaza-Israel perimeter fence began March 30, 2018, prompted by a Facebook call from journalist Ahmed Abu Artema for refugees to gather peacefully near the fence, demanding the right of return and an end to the blockade. Over roughly a year, a UN Commission of Inquiry found Israeli snipers shot over 6,100 demonstrators, killing 183, between March and December 2018 alone, and by the one-year mark 195 Palestinians including 41 children had been killed and nearly 29,000 injured. Characterization of the march itself is contested: Amnesty International's reporting noted most protesters were unarmed, though some engaged in stone-throwing, tire-burning, incendiary kites, and occasional Molotov cocktails, which Israel cited as justifying its response, while human rights groups argued the force used was disproportionate to the threat posed. Al Jazeera + 3