Con­flict has erupt­ed in Israel and Pales­tine after the dis­cov­ery of the bod­ies of three Israeli teenagers ear­ly last week, whom the Israelis say were kid­napped by Hamas. The West­ern media, for its part, has focused on the street bat­tles between young Pales­tini­ans and the Israeli mil­i­tary, rush­ing to print pho­tos of young Pales­tin­ian men throw­ing rocks and of masked Hamas mil­i­tants armed at a press con­fer­ence. How­ev­er, these images are far from the whole sto­ry. On the ground Pales­tin­ian groups are act­ing to turn this rage into long-last­ing non­vi­o­lent organizing.

The response in the streets, Juma maintains, has largely been neither obedient nor violent, but careful: marches and protests rather than 'people shooting each other.'

Last week, the Israeli mil­i­tary sent tanks and troop rein­force­ments to the bor­der between Israel and the Gaza strip and began heavy airstrikes that have killed at least sev­en Pales­tini­ans — the most recent devel­op­ment in the crack­down on Pales­tin­ian life that fol­lowed the dis­ap­pear­ance of three set­tler teenagers approx­i­mate­ly two weeks ago. Even before the bod­ies of the teens were found last Mon­day evening, Israeli had launched a large-scale incur­sion into West Bank cities, raid­ing some 2,200 homes, arrest­ing 419 Pales­tini­ans and killing at least six.

The dis­cov­ery of the boys’ bod­ies elicit­ed sor­row, fury and — for some Israelis — a desire for revenge. Last Tues­day evening, crowds of Israelis chant­ed ​“death to Arabs” as they stormed through the streets of Jerusalem. The next morn­ing, the body of 16-year-old Pales­tin­ian Mohammed Abu Khaider, who had been seen being forced into a car the night before, was found in a for­est. In many ways, the vio­lence and loss is unsur­pris­ing for Pales­tini­ans: It is, after all, an every­day real­i­ty here. But the inten­si­ty of the raids, scale of arrests, and very vis­i­ble increase in threat­ened and actu­al vio­lence from right-wing Israelis means the sit­u­a­tion now feels dif­fer­ent. For those work­ing in the resis­tance move­ments, these are chal­leng­ing and uneasy times. But they are also far from hopeless.

Jamal Juma, the coor­di­na­tor of Stop the Wall, a coali­tion of Pales­tin­ian orga­ni­za­tions, has expe­ri­enced crises like these before.

​“Stop the Wall start­ed in 2002, in a very dif­fi­cult and bloody sit­u­a­tion,” he said. ​“We had mas­sacres all over Pales­tine. But, despite that, we start­ed orga­niz­ing peo­ple in pop­u­lar resistance.”

​“At the moment,” he con­tin­ued, ​“we are expe­ri­enc­ing very bru­tal inva­sions, which remind us of the inva­sions that hap­pened in 2002. They are send­ing a strong mes­sage to Pales­tini­ans: that noth­ing will be tolerated.”

The response in the streets, Juma main­tains, has large­ly been nei­ther obe­di­ent nor vio­lent, but care­ful: march­es and protests rather than ​“peo­ple shoot­ing each oth­er.” When the Israeli army launched Oper­a­tion Brother’s Keep­er last week in Hebron, groups like Youth Against Set­tle­ments mobi­lized by sup­port­ing fam­i­lies whose homes had been raid­ed with calls and sol­i­dar­i­ty vis­its — essen­tial prac­ti­cal sup­port in the con­text of enor­mous iso­la­tion and fear.

Next week, begin­ning on July 9, the Stop the Wall coali­tion will launch what it hopes will be a broad­er and more uni­fy­ing cam­paign. Sched­uled to begin on the anniver­sary of the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court’s deci­sion on the ille­gal­i­ty of the sep­a­ra­tion wall, the cam­paign will focus on two areas. In Hebron, a city frac­tured and closed off by Israeli set­tle­ments, the aim is explic­it­ly to ​“lift the siege” through a burst of non­vi­o­lent demon­stra­tions. In the Jor­dan Val­ley, where full Israeli con­trol and set­tle­ment activ­i­ty mean home demo­li­tions are a con­stant threat, Pales­tini­ans plan to launch the Pop­u­lar Coun­cil to Save the Jor­dan Val­ley, which seeks to unite the work of activists work­ing across the region to doc­u­ment vio­la­tions, coor­di­nate resis­tance and sup­port in the case of resis­tance, and mobi­lize media coverage.

​“In the first Intifa­da we had strong trade unions, strong women’s insti­tu­tions, youth move­ments,” Juma says. ​“These were the main caus­es of the Intifa­da, in fact. But now these struc­tures are weak. We need to invest in them, to build them up.”

In recent years, Pales­tini­ans have respond­ed to the human­i­tar­i­an issues like dis­pos­ses­sion or evic­tion, and the broad­er ques­tions of occu­pa­tion and colo­nial­ism, with a slew of cre­ative tac­tics. Protest vil­lages like Ein Hijleh, estab­lished in an aban­doned vil­lage in the Jor­dan Val­ley, have drawn inter­na­tion­al media atten­tion. Although the camps them­selves are often quick­ly destroyed, the net­works and aware­ness cre­at­ed by these projects are hard­er to break.

In Israeli soci­ety, too, non­vi­o­lent resis­tance and sup­port for Pales­tini­ans still exists. And espe­cial­ly after the alarm­ing vio­lence and fright­en­ing racist incite­ment of the last few days, the aware­ness of a need for this orga­niz­ing is stronger than ever. Ruth Edmonds explained to WNV that, while racist and nation­al­is­tic Israeli dis­course is being ampli­fied by social media, it is clear­ly on the rise. As a result, she said it’s impor­tant that we pay atten­tion to the voic­es for peace inside Israel that are being ignored.

​“It is utter­ly vital we rec­og­nize and pay atten­tion to the voic­es which do not grab so much atten­tion,” she said. ​“In Jerusalem over the next few hours there will be a num­ber of vig­ils orga­nized by var­i­ous Jew­ish Israeli orga­ni­za­tions to end the vio­lence and racism now, before it gets out of hand.”

Of course, after the events of the past two weeks the appetite and patience for non­vi­o­lent resis­tance could well be wear­ing thin for many. The sit­u­a­tion on the ground, Juma explained, is ​“boil­ing” — and as the tem­per­a­ture ris­es, it could like­ly explode. Issa Amro, an orga­niz­er with Youth Against Set­tle­ments in Hebron, is keen­ly aware of the dif­fi­cul­ty of pro­mot­ing non­vi­o­lent orga­niz­ing in this con­text. ​“Unfor­tu­nate­ly, not all of our cam­paign­ing works so well,” he said. ​“The inter­na­tion­al media con­tin­ued to focus on just one side, as if set­tlers were the only civilians.”

The feel­ing that non­vi­o­lent means of resis­tance is ignored by the world leads to immense dis­il­lu­sion­ment. In April, for exam­ple, Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers embarked on a hunger strike in Israeli jails to protest admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion. Despite the fact that detainees — who are effec­tive­ly being held indef­i­nite­ly with­out tri­al — went on hunger strike for more than 50 days, their plight was large­ly ignored by the world. Even­tu­al­ly, it came to an end when the Israeli gov­ern­ment hur­ried through a bill that legal­ized force-feeding.

​“We spread the mes­sage of non­vi­o­lence, but unfor­tu­nate­ly the vio­lence peo­ple expe­ri­ence does affect us,” Amro said. ​“A small protest we held was met with tear gas and rub­ber bullets.”

He explained that move­ments like Youth Against Set­tle­ments are grow­ing, but that vio­lence such as the con­struc­tion of new set­tle­ments inevitably has an effect.

​“This oper­a­tion [by Israel] is a mas­sive bar­ri­er to the goal of cre­at­ing a non­vi­o­lent move­ment in Pales­tine,” he said. ​“Israeli author­i­ties are doing this to pro­voke people.”

To Juma and oth­er orga­niz­ers, the impor­tant thing is that people’s rage at the vio­lence that is inflict­ed on them get orga­nized into long-last­ing movements.

​“When 400 peo­ple con­front the Israeli mil­i­tary in Bal­a­ta or Ramal­lah or Shuafat, there’s not a move­ment behind them, it’s just peo­ple defend­ing them­selves, react­ing to provo­ca­tions,” he said. ​“We saw that in the first Intifa­da. It was a people’s reac­tion, going to the street and demon­strat­ing. But at some time this need­ed to be orga­nized. That’s how we need move­ments to form, through lead­er­ship, and through organizing.”

Reprint­ed with per­mis­sion of Wag­ing Non­vi­o­lence.