There are nonmilitary alternatives to Israel’s war in Gaza

The assumption that war is the only way to create safety is wrong.
There’s a range of nonviolent techniques that can still be used right
now.

George Lakey November 7, 2023

Israel and its allies have made a knee-jerk assumption that war is the
only way to create safety and respond to the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas.
This assumption — which upholds violence as the only path forward — is
commonly accepted by extremists on both sides of the conflict, as well
as most leaders and institutions across the U.S. and Europe. What’s
more: It’s completely wrong. I should know; I’ve studied and taught
courses about nonviolent responses to terrorism for many years.

What I’ve learned is that it takes a failure of foresight to believe
that an unprecedented bombing and ground campaign in Gaza can create
safety — and a failure of imagination to believe it’s the only
possible method. Conversely, nonmilitary techniques have, in numerous
historical cases, reduced the threat of terror.

Drawing from these cases, I compiled a list of such techniques, which
I shared in a 2015 article for Waging Nonviolence titled “8 Ways to
Defend Against Terror Nonviolently.” That article — published on the
heels of a terrorist attack in France — is just as necessary today,
which is why I’m republishing an edited version of it here. We all
need to understand that there’s a wide range of options to generate
safety beyond taking up arms.

—

One of my most popular courses at Swarthmore College focused on the
challenge of how to defend against terrorism, nonviolently. Who knew
that non-military techniques have, in actual historical cases, reduced
the threat of terror?

I gathered for the students eight non-military techniques that have
worked for some country or other. The eight comprised the “toolbox”
that the students had to work with. We didn’t spend time criticizing
military counter-terrorism because we were more interested in
alternatives.

Each student chose a country somewhere in the world that is presently
threatened by terrorism and, taking the role of a consultant to that
country, devised from our nonviolent toolbox a strategy for defense.

Some students who assumed that military defense is crucial opened to a
bigger perspective. They realized that, given the success some
countries have had using just two or three of the tools, there is
significant untapped potential: What if countries used all of the
tools together, with the resulting synergies? For me the question
arose: Why couldn’t populations rely completely on the nonviolent
toolbox for their defense against terror?

Here are the eight techniques:

1. Ally-building and the infrastructure of economic development

Poverty and terrorism are indirectly linked. Economic development can
reduce recruits and gain allies, especially if development is done in
a democratic way. The terrorism by Northern Ireland’s Irish Republican
Army, for example, was strongly reduced by grassroots, job-creating,
economic development.

2. Reducing cultural marginalization

As France, Britain and other countries have learned, marginalizing a
group within your population is not safe or sensible; terrorists grow
under those conditions. This is also true on a global level. Much
marginalizing is unintentional, but it can be reduced. “Freedom of the
press,” for example, transforms into “provocation” when it further
marginalizes a population that is already one-down, as are Muslims in
France. When Anglophone Canada reduced its marginalization, it reduced
the threat of terrorism from Quebec.

3. Nonviolent protest/campaigns among the defenders, plus unarmed
civilian peacekeeping

Terrorism happens in a larger context and is therefore influenced by
that context. Some terror campaigns have lapsed because they lost
popular support. That’s because terror’s strategic use is often to
gain attention, provoke a violent response and win more support in the
broader population.

The rise and fall of support for terrorism is in turn influenced by
social movements using people power, or nonviolent struggle. The U.S.
civil rights movement brilliantly handled the Ku Klux Klan’s threat to
activists, most dangerous when there was no effective law enforcement
to help. The nonviolent tactics reduced the KKK’s appeal among white
segregationists. Since the 1980s, pacifists and others have
established an additional, promising tool: intentional and planned
unarmed civilian peacekeeping. (Check out Peace Brigades
International, for one example.)

4. Pro-conflict education and training

Ironically, terror often happens when a population tries to suppress
conflicts instead of supporting their expression. A technique for
reducing terror, therefore, is to spread a pro-conflict attitude and
the nonviolent skills that support people waging conflict to give full
voice to their grievances.

5. Post-terror recovery programs

Not all terror can be prevented, any more than all crime can be
prevented. Keep in mind that terrorists often have the goal of
increasing polarization. Recovery programs can help prevent that
polarization, the cycle of hawks on one side “arming” the hawks on the
other side.

Recovery programs build resilience, so people don’t go rigid with fear
and create self-fulfilling prophecies. The leap forward in trauma
counseling is relevant for this technique along with innovative
rituals such as those the Norwegians used after the 2011 terrorist
massacre there.

6. Police as peace officers: the infrastructure of norms and laws

Police work can become far more effective through the reduction of the
social distance between police and the neighborhoods they serve. In
some countries this requires re-conceptualization of the police from
defenders of the property of the dominant group to genuine peace
officers; witness the unarmed Icelandic police. Countries like the
United States need to join the growing global infrastructure of human
rights law reflected in the Land Mines Treaty and International
Criminal Court, and accept accountability for their own officials who
are probable war criminals.

7. Policy changes and the concept of reckless behavior

Governments sometimes make choices that invite — almost beg for — a
terrorist response. Political scientist and sometime U.S. Air Force
consultant Robert A. Pape showed in 2005 that the United States has
repeatedly done this, often by putting troops on someone else’s land.
In his recent book “Cutting the Fuse,” he and James K. Feldman give
concrete examples of governments reducing the terror threat by ending
such reckless behavior. To protect themselves from terror, citizens in
all countries need to gain control of their own governments and force
them to behave.

8. Negotiation

Governments often say “we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” but when
they say that they are often lying. Governments have often reduced or
eliminated terrorism through negotiation, and negotiation skills
continue to grow in sophistication.

Realistic application of non-military defense against terror

At the request of a group of U.S. experts on counter-terrorism, I
described our Swarthmore work and especially the eight techniques. The
experts recognized that each of these tools have indeed been used in
real-life situations in one place or another, with some degree of
success. They also saw no problem, in principle, in devising a
comprehensive strategy that would create synergies among the tools.

The problem they saw was persuading a government to take such a bold,
innovative leap.

As an American, I can see the direct contradiction between, on the one
hand, my government’s huge effort to convince taxpayers that we
desperately need our swollen military and, on the other, a new policy
that mobilizes a different kind of power for genuine, human security.
I understand that for my country and for some others as well, a living
revolution might need to come first.

What I like about having an alternative, non-military defense in our
back pocket, though, is that it speaks to the real need of my fellow
citizens for security in a dangerous world. Psychologist Abraham
Maslow long ago pointed out the fundamental human need for security.
Analyzing and criticizing militarism, however brilliantly, doesn’t
actually enhance anyone’s security. Imagining an alternative, as my
students did, may give people the psychological space they need to put
energy into something more life-giving.

Our role at the grassroots

The good news is that a number of these eight techniques can be
applied by civil society, without waiting for governmental leadership
that may never come. Two are no-brainers: Spread the skills and
strategy of nonviolent protest, and teach a pro-conflict attitude.

The Black Lives Matter movement found many white people joining in on
Black-initiated turf — that’s a concrete example of reducing
marginalization, a concept that generates dozens of creative moves by
whoever happens to be mainstream (Christian, middle class, etc.). We
can also initiate recovery programs after terror has erupted in our
midst, as it did during the Boston Marathon.

Activists are used to launching campaigns to force the government to
give up some of its reckless policies, but may forget to frame
activism that way. A scared public needs to know that activists hear
the fear, and are on the side of safety.

By my count, these five of the eight tools can be used by people
taking bottom-up initiatives to reduce the threat of terror. They
might be incorporated by those who want to bring a holistic and
positive approach to the fear that otherwise depresses and paralyzes.
As usual, what helps others lightens the load for each one of us who
takes that step.

George Lakey
George Lakey has been active in direct action campaigns for over six
decades. Recently retired from Swarthmore College, he was first
arrested in the civil rights movement and most recently in the climate
justice movement. He has facilitated 1,500 workshops on five
continents and led activist projects on local, national and
international levels. His 10 books and many articles reflect his
social research into change on community and societal levels. His
newest book is the memoir "Dancing with History: A Life for Peace and
Justice."

Source: https://t.co/RegeMFZYwx

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