I don’t think it has anything to do with ethnicity. The Palestinian nation, regardless of its ethnic character, is not a large one. By contrast, there were a lot of Indians living under the British Raj. Gandhi forged a national identity of civil disobedience, incorporating western ideas via Thoreau with Indian spirituality and, quite literally, homespun underclothes. I maintain that a leader of this caliber needs to arise in Palestine to make this effective, a leader who can effectively redefine the culture of resistance.
There were plenty of acts of terrorism committed against the Raj. Gandhi was able to stop many of these both through his leadership, strength of personality, and the truly awesome effect he had on his own people. This is what empowered civil disobedience in India. I also believe the same could occur in Palestine. But there simply is a reason to believe that it is more likely to occur in a large nation given the improbability of the event in the first place. Not all trees bear such fruit in any given time, but I would expect that if you waited for a long enough time, you would observe the effect I am suggesting exists.
Ok. Partition the human race into ten units. Let’s make three of them arbitrarily large and seven of them arbitrarily small. One Civ 4 super leader or whatever arises. The likelihood that he arises in any one of the three large partitions is greater than him arising in any one of the seven small ones.
In his book Prisoners Jefrrey Goldberg asks a palestinian friend of his this question and the reply was that the palestinians are men. To be abused and not fight back would make them feel dishonored and emasculated.
Are the three large ones together greater than the seven small ones together? I think you’re taking the statistical analysis too far. You’re correct from a theoretical standpoint but it’s predictive capacity is null.
Not at all. I am agnostic on which of the larger partitions will pop up in, but I am pretty confident that you have more Great Leaders in the big ones. Not just successful politicians, but real consciousness-changing individuals. Gandhi. Mao. Stalin. MLK.
Hear about any great prophets popping up among, say, the Roma lately?
Some people have suggested that the palestinians would “civilly disobey” for the right to move about their own country or some nonsense.
That they already can do. They just can’t move around what is not their country. And given that a goodly number of them are hellbent on ruining what they have anyway, that seems unlikely to do anything of use.
No, it sounds like his point is that they were too macho. After all, MLK and Gandhi and Thoreau were also men, as were a good many of their followers.
ETA: Well, that may not have been HIS particular point. But it sounds like these particular Palestinians don’t understand the difference between being a man and being a chauvanist.
They can’t, though…that’s the thing. You know I’m pro-Israeli, and that I tend to take the Israeli side in these debates, but the Palestinians don’t have freedom of movement. Israeli checkpoints block their freedom of movement, as do the curfews.
Here’s a World Bank analysis of Palestinian restrictions and their effect on the Palestinian economy, from 2007 (in PDF):