Aryan

Gandhi's 'march home' cry

Reuters in Ramallah
Monday August 30, 2004
The Guardian

The grandson of Mahatma Gandhi yesterday urged Palestinian refugees to march home from Jordan en masse, even if the Israelis "kill 200 people", to shock the world into taking notice.
Arun Gandhi proposed to the Palestinian parliament a peaceful march of 50,000 refugees across the Jordan river, and said lawmakers should lead the way.

"Maybe the Israeli army would shoot and kill several. They may kill 100. They may kill 200 men, women and children. And that would shock the world," he said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Mr Gandhi, on a trip to territory where Palestinians are seeking statehood, compared Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza to treatment of blacks under South Africa's former apartheid regime, saying what was happening to Palestinians was "10 times worse".

A Palestinian lawmaker, Azmi al-Shueibi, called Mr Gandhi's idea "important and interesting". But he said there were more pressing issues, such as stopping Israeli raids.

"I am willing to participate in such a march," he said. "Arab countries around Palestine do not help us in executing such ideas. But I think we should adopt this idea in the future."

visioninthedark

how would the israelis respond if this really happened?

besides this won't happen ...

arabs don't have that much guts to do this ... unlike the indians who followed the original Mahatma Ghandi ...

this requires superhuman courage .... non-violence ...

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otomik

a classic fallacy, listen to the way he's talking "even if", they're hoping the soldiers will shoot at them, it helps the cause, they get pissed off at the opposition and start throwing rocks and if one palestinian has a pistol and shoots a soldier the sound of gunfire will be automatically assumed to be coming from the soldiers. The odds of such a march going peacefully are nill. Besides what happens when their march is over, i doubt they'd go home defeated peacefully. No, I say the Israelis should have hundreds of soldiers in riot gear at the border and have a huge cloud of teargas waiting for them weather permitting.

They'd love for some Israeli soldiers to shoot their women and children, it would distract the world from the fact that they target israeli women and children intentionally.

If they wanted to cloud the issue and so some full blown election year-type ******** political theatre the Isrealis would have hundreds of women soldiers ready to beat their border jumping asses.
http://www.axelraben.com/sahihi/widf/

Jay

First off, I'm not sympathetic to any sides, I'm just commenting on your post.
Actually he proposed the march to highlight the plight of the Palestinians. The main idea is to make (Israelis) err. If they'r gonna be pissed off and throw rocks at them, then its not a peaceful march isnt it?? Why cannot this march be peaceful?? Indians did that some 50 years back, far great in numbers, South African blacks did that, Martin Luther King did that, why cant the Palestinians?? If they have the will defn there is a way.

Yeah, have 100 soldiers with riot control setup, drop teargas shells, but what are you gonna do to the people who just wont budge?? What are you gonna do to the people who are not gonna raise their arms?? Raze them ?? Kill them?? Beat them? Torture them?? Do ny of these things and they'll get all the publicity they need.

I for one think, this plan is great, instead of adoring bomb laden belts if 100-200 of them do something like this, that'll say a lot about their resolve.

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Asim Aquil

This is ****ing stupid. Israel can kill 500-1000 of them still this would just earn points in stupidity nothing else. This goes up there with that bomber of who blood painted the bradley or the RPG guy firing without cover.

This is one of the reasons I disliked Mahatma Gandhi, he had used this same tactic with the Brittish, they just kept beating the crap out of us. His constant calls for Indians to sit in while the Brittish Laathi Charged, was the reason why Jinnah split up from the congress.

This is the same reason I keep saying stop militancy in all these type of issues and use freakin brain. Even if you're right, dying won't help you win. Palestinians should know by now, no one cares about how many more of them die. I mean like what? Gandhi wants the Palestinians to win their cause with... "sympathy"? ****ing Pathetic.

Jay

First, Israel wouldnt kill 100-200 unarmed protestors under full media light. Not even USA can help them, if they do so. They'll end up losing definetly. Killing one person is different from killing hundreds of unarmed people, ask anyone, which will carry weight, 100-200 Palestinian jehadis or 100-200 peaceful protestrs.

Having said that, I'm not a fan of Gandhi's non-violence. We outnumbered British, athey wudve ran back to Britain if we had collectively pissed on them. See in those days freedom fight was considered freedom fight all over the world. But Palestinian freedom fight was long hijacked in to a religious war -terrorism, this is one of the simplest ways to bring legitmacy to their struggle.

Are you serious that Jinnah came out of Congress bcoz of this? I doubt it. There were others who didnt believe in Gandhi, like Satya moorthy, Bhagat Singh, Vaanjinathan and our very own Subash Chandra Bose, but none of them demanded another nation.

Asim Aquil

100-200 people can all be suicide bombers. No one knows, its a safe bet to start shooting. It's pretty much obvious that they are going there to get killed. They have a death wish.

Gandhi was non-violent, sure. But his non-violence often included similar tactics to these. Especially his frequented "Sit-ins". All the protestors were sent home by Laathi Charges by the Brittish. What did anyone achieve by getting beaten up? Jinnah believed in engaging the Brittish, in outsmarting the Brittish. Though Jinnah had a high respect for Gaandhi, it was this very thing that made him feel the congress's tactics were not right. Mind you breaking off from Congress has nothing to do with the creation of Pakistan, that was different.

Militancy cannot work in this day and age. Militants are always the smaller fish, the bigger fish will always kick the smaller fishes ass. I'd go as far to say, militancy is stupid. It won't achieve your goals. Palestinians are clearly out-powered. They need to smarten up.

otomik

I'd say the women suicide bombers idea is pretty smart, they know how to manipulate the media. I'd say that their consistent annoyance in the U.N. where the USA has had to use it's veto over and over on the same old issues constantly signals to the Arab world the US is the enemy, yeah i'd say they're playing the UN for all it's worth.

visioninthedark

well if thats what they are doing ... its plain stupid IMHO ...

otomik

They're stupidly fighting the wrong battle but they're doing it very smart.