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Read more: A New Palestinian Movement: Young, Networked, Nonviolent - TIMEFadi Quran is the face of the new Middle East. He is 23, a graduate of Stanford University, with a double major in physics and international relations. He is a Palestinian who has returned home to start an alternative-energy company and see what he can do to help create a Palestinian state. He identifies with neither of the two preeminent Palestinian political factions, Hamas and Fatah. His allegiance is to the Facebook multitudes who orchestrated the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and who are organizing nonviolent protests throughout the region. In the Palestinian territories, the social-networking rebels call themselves the March 15 movementand I would call Quran one of the leaders of the group except that it doesn't really have leaders yet. It is best described as a loose association of "bubbles," he says, that hasn't congealed. It launched relatively small, semisuccessful protests in the West Bank and Gaza on the aforementioned March 15; it is staging a small, ongoing vigil in the main square of Ramallah. It has plans for future nonviolent actions; it may or may not have the peaceful throngs to bring these off.
I meet with Quran and several other young Palestinians at the local Coca-Cola Bottling Co. headquarters in Ramallah, which tells you something important about this movement: we are not meeting in a mosque. I've known one of them, Fadi El-Salameen, for five years. He was an early volunteer for the Seeds of Peace program, which intermingled Palestinian and Israeli teenagers at a summer camp in Maine. In recent years, El-Salameen has spent much of his time in the U.S. and has achieved a certain prominencehe is quietly charismatic, a world-class networker, the sort of person who is invited to international conferencesbut he is now spending more time at home in Hebron, organizing the March 15 movement in the West Bank's largest city. "I met some of the leaders of the Tahrir Square movement at a conference in Doha," he tells me. "They don't fit the usual profile of a 'youth leader.' They are low-key, well educated but not wealthy. They are figuring it out as they go along, trying to figure out what works."
The young Palestinians don't seem as pragmatic as all that; they are somewhere beyond wildly idealistic. "The goal is to liberate the minds of our people," says Najwan Berekdar, an Israeli-born Arab who is a women's-rights activist. "We want to get past all the old identitiesFatah, Hamas, religious, secular, Israeli and Palestinian Arab and create a mass nonviolent movement." Berekdar has touched on an idea that might prove truly threatening to Israelis: a "one state" movement uniting Palestinians on both sides of the current border. But the young Palestinians have not focused on anything so specific. Their current political plan is to go back to the futureto achieve Palestinian unity by resurrecting and holding elections for a body called the Palestinian National Council, which took a backseat after the Oslo accords created the Palestinian Authority and its parliamentary component. This seems rather abstrusethe basic rule for people-power movements is, Organize first, bureaucratize later and it would be easy to dismiss these young people as hopelessly naive but for two factors. The first is that they've seized the Palestinian version of a suddenly valuable international brand: the Tahrir Square revolution. "We cannot discount their importance," a prominent Israeli official told me. "Not after what happened in Egypt."
So the stalemate continueswith one exception: the March 15 movement and the rush of history in the region. The young activists may be preoccupied by the chimera of Palestinian unity at the moment, but what happens if they turn their full attention to the Israeli occupation? What happens if they begin to organize marches to protest the near daily outrages perpetrated by Jewish settlers? What if they stage sit-down strikes to open roads that are used by settlers but closed to Palestinians? What if they march 10,000 strong against a settlement that is refusing Palestinians access to a traditional water supply? "If it is nonviolent, then that means, by definition, it is civilized," an Israeli official said. "We have no problem with that." But what if the Palestinians are nonviolent and the Jewish settlers are not? "I think about the dogs unleashed on Martin Luther King in Birmingham," Quran says. "I think about the beatings. That's what it took for Americans to see the justice of his cause. We will be risking our lives, but that is what it takes. I only hope that we're not too well educated to be courageous."
There is nothing new about non violent resistance in Palestine. It has been going on for years.
Non violent protesters are beaten, gassed, arrested, shot at, and sometimes killed by Israeli goons.
There is nothing new about non violent resistance in Palestine. It has been going on for years.
Non violent protesters are beaten, gassed, arrested, shot at, and sometimes killed by Israeli goons.
So were Civil rights activists right here in the US back in the 60s and 70s, I still respect these non violent Palestinians more than the Hamas guys who practice terror and kill innocents.
There is nothing new about non violent resistance in Palestine. It has been going on for years.
Non violent protesters are beaten, gassed, arrested, shot at, and sometimes killed by Israeli goons.
So were Civil rights activists right here in the US back in the 60s and 70s, I still respect these non violent Palestinians more than the Hamas guys who practice terror and kill innocents.
There is nothing new about non violent resistance in Palestine. It has been going on for years.
Non violent protesters are beaten, gassed, arrested, shot at, and sometimes killed by Israeli goons.
So were Civil rights activists right here in the US back in the 60s and 70s, I still respect these non violent Palestinians more than the Hamas guys who practice terror and kill innocents.
And they are the future. P F demanding the end of Israel is the past. I am the past. The young on both sides are the future.
The young ones are going to have to fight the P F Variety. Let's see what they can do.
The young ones are going to have to fight the P F Variety. Let's see what they can do.
Its just refreshing to see something different than the usual store brand "DEATH TO ISRAEL/DEATH TO USA" dirka dirka jihab stuff, that type of attitude has hurt the Palestinians more than anything in my opinion.
The young ones are going to have to fight the P F Variety. Let's see what they can do.
Its just refreshing to see something different than the usual store brand "DEATH TO ISRAEL/DEATH TO USA" dirka dirka jihab stuff, that type of attitude has hurt the Palestinians more than anything in my opinion.
The one thing they are proposing which is probably a no-go from the start is the one state solution. I do not see the israelis turning themselves into a minority member of any government.
Its just refreshing to see something different than the usual store brand "DEATH TO ISRAEL/DEATH TO USA" dirka dirka jihab stuff, that type of attitude has hurt the Palestinians more than anything in my opinion.
The one thing they are proposing which is probably a no-go from the start is the one state solution. I do not see the israelis turning themselves into a minority member of any government.
True, but it is their approach I like the best, coming across as a human being trying to work on their differences with the Israelis, instead of just yelling ALLAHU AKBAR and flinging missiles at them.
They will not find that solution. That's P F's solution HG. Keep in mind that a snake dressed as a kitty is still a snake.
One state solution? Look at all the Muslim countries in the world. Look at their populations. See who they get along with in their countries.
And now they will love the Jews?
The one thing they are proposing which is probably a no-go from the start is the one state solution. I do not see the israelis turning themselves into a minority member of any government.
True, but it is their approach I like the best, coming across as a human being trying to work on their differences with the Israelis, instead of just yelling ALLAHU AKBAR and flinging missiles at them.
What if they are saying it in their minds? After the creation of a one state? This is just idiotic. A young group of Arabs who want a one state solution and because they are not blowing up everything around them, we see them as what?
Peaceful? Intent HG. Intent...
They will not find that solution. That's P F's solution HG. Keep in mind that a snake dressed as a kitty is still a snake.
One state solution? Look at all the Muslim countries in the world. Look at their populations. See who they get along with in their countries.
And now they will love the Jews?
True, but it is their approach I like the best, coming across as a human being trying to work on their differences with the Israelis, instead of just yelling ALLAHU AKBAR and flinging missiles at them.
What if they are saying it in their minds? After the creation of a one state? This is just idiotic. A young group of Arabs who want a one state solution and because they are not blowing up everything around them, we see them as what?
Peaceful? Intent HG. Intent...
I don't think a one state solution is realistic, and you are right I don't know what they are thinking in their heads but as of now I perfer these Palestinians to the Hamas dirka dirka jihad guys.
They will not find that solution. That's P F's solution HG. Keep in mind that a snake dressed as a kitty is still a snake.
One state solution? Look at all the Muslim countries in the world. Look at their populations. See who they get along with in their countries.
And now they will love the Jews?
What if they are saying it in their minds? After the creation of a one state? This is just idiotic. A young group of Arabs who want a one state solution and because they are not blowing up everything around them, we see them as what?
Peaceful? Intent HG. Intent...
I don't think a one state solution is realistic, and you are right I don't know what they are thinking in their heads but as of now I perfer these Palestinians to the Hamas dirka dirka jihad guys.
If they are the same except one does not use violence because they see that this is not working, so they put the violence away for other more workable methods.
But the intent HG. Holistic thinking is necessary. If one looks at one facet like you are doing, you lose track of the complexities of what is being attempted.
I will be far more careful, but I am an Canadian/Israeli Jew.
Dozens of Hamas police and security forces on Wednesday entered Gaza City's Al Azhar university and began beating up students heading out for a protest, witnesses told AFP. Cool.There is nothing new about non violent resistance in Palestine. It has been going on for years. Non violent protesters are beaten, gassed, arrested, shot at, and sometimes killed by Israeli goons.
The young ones are going to have to fight the P F Variety. Let's see what they can do.
Dozens of Hamas police and security forces on Wednesday entered Gaza City's Al Azhar university and began beating up students heading out for a protest, witnesses told AFP. Cool.There is nothing new about non violent resistance in Palestine. It has been going on for years. Non violent protesters are beaten, gassed, arrested, shot at, and sometimes killed by Israeli goons.
Dozens of Hamas police and security forces on Wednesday entered Gaza City's Al Azhar university and began beating up students heading out for a protest, witnesses told AFP. Cool.There is nothing new about non violent resistance in Palestine. It has been going on for years. Non violent protesters are beaten, gassed, arrested, shot at, and sometimes killed by Israeli goons.
