I've always said that if the alestinians were to get a Gandhi or an MLK, the Israelis would be fucked. Universal hatred and senseless violence the Israelis know how to handle - 2,000 years of living in ghettos surrounded by people who hate Jews was excellent preparation for living in Israel surrounded by Arab countries.
Non-violent opposition, tax refusals, strikes, refusal to participate in the occupiers' civil service, sit-ins, prayer vigils, hunger strikes... the Israelis wouldn't know what the fuck to do.
Same goes for the Americans in Iraq.
Sadly, I don't think that non-violent resistance is part of Arab culture. Mind you, it wasn't part of Hindi and Moslem culture, either, but Gandhi still persuaded them. And I don't think Protestants were too keen on it, either, but then along came MLK...
It'd be nice, but I'm not hopeful.
I think the venture was fucked before it started and it will never be fixed until we leave.
See, we went in to "spread democracy". We figured that would work because, as Georgie keeps telling us, the people of the world want to be free.
Right there we were fucked.
WESTERN people want to be free. They value it more than anything else.
MIDDLE EASTERN people don't give a fuck about freedom. Their central societal ethos is based around justice and equality (equality does NOT equal freedom either- if everyone is oppressed equally- that's perfectly ok).
See we keep expecting them to be happy that we freed them from an oppressive dictator.
But instead, what you have a snowball effect where EVERY wrong, according to their social mores, needs to be redressed.
This is what's been going on between the Israelis and the Palestinians for decades.
It's why the WWII analogies are useless and it's why the Britian-Northern Ireland analogies are useless.
We went looking for WMDs and they were either never there or they are gone. We also went to remove a psychotic dictator from power and we did.
We are a living affront to their pride and their sense of justice. Some people said that before the invasion.
Now what we need to do is just get the fuck out and apologize profusely.