Talk:How might the world be different if the PLO had followed Gandhi?

Predators don't stop just because you refuse to fight back. I'm not terribly well versed in the history of India, so correct me if I'm wrong and excuse my ignorance, but I suspect that if maintaining direct control over India and the British Raj had really been a high-value objective, they'd have used force and Gandhi's philosophy would not have have factored largely in the outcome. Did anyone have much of an interest at all by the time of Gandhi? The East India Company was essentially defunct by that point. India is a large, not-particularly-wealthy nation and it would have taken a lot of resources to keep control of. Conversely, Palestine is a minuscule nation. It's in a strategic area. A lot of people with a lot of money and weapons would like to call it "Israel", and they're right next door. Whatever you think about figures like Castro or Washington, they got the job done and I can't help admire them. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 15:05, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

@AP295: Have you read more than the headline of this article?

Please excuse: I do not wish to be rude, but the second sentence in the Abstract says, "This analysis rests on a summary of research comparing the relative effectiveness of violence and nonviolence and the role of the media".

Even if your analysis of India is correct, I don't think it changes my conclusion at all, because it is only one of over a hundred major nonviolent governmental change efforts (and over 200 major violent campaigns) studied by Chenoweth et al. DavidMCEddy (discuss • contribs) 16:22, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Do you really think a nonviolent protest would work to stop an adversary that is determined, well-armed and well-funded?

You ask "Have you read more than the headline of this article? Please excuse: I do not wish to be rude, but the second sentence in the Abstract says, "This analysis rests on a summary of research comparing the relative effectiveness of violence and nonviolence and the role of the media"."

Then why not give it the title "The Relative Effectiveness of Violence and Nonviolence and the Role of the Media"?

The present title seems to imply it's the PLO or more generally Palestinians themselves who are responsible for their own immiseration, rather than Israel's occupation of Palestine (which is a violation of international law) and their sadistic treatment of its people (where they're also breaking various international laws and agreements, arguably including the Geneva convention, the genocide convention and probably other such niceties) Palestinians don't need a lesson on non-violence any more than Israel does. Palestine does not outspend entire sectors like oil/gas, pharmaceuticals, etc to influence US politics. They do not receive gratuitous aid. They do not lie to me on television. They do not enjoy the benefit of the doubt when it comes to abuses. UNRWA lost all humanitarian funding on Israel's word, while Israel not only enjoys our support, but even a special loophole (the ILVF) to get around the leahy laws, just for them, so they're never without an ample supply of weapons due to inconvenient laws like genocide convention.(This isn't even a legal loophole as far as I can tell, the state department seems to just be refusing to apply the law to Israel, on grounds that Israel should be taken at its word when the question of gross violations of human rights (GVHRs) arises. How convenient for them. )

"How might the world be different if the PLO had followed Gandhi?"

How might the world be different if Israel had to get along with its neighbors, instead of being grossly overfed with weapons, money, support e.g. UN vetos, and basically a free pass to abuse their neighbors with utter impunity? How might the world be different if they were held accountable to international law like everyone else? AP295 (discuss • contribs) 17:50, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

And after all this, I am expected to consider Hamas 'terrorists' and assume that Israel has moral authority? Not a chance. I have to agree with Owen Jones' here: "It's just insulting nonsense. The Israeli State lie and lie and lie and lie and lie and lie. They lie and they kill they kill they lie then they lie again and then they kill some more then they lie again and then they kill and then they lie again. That's what we've just been subjected to you see for the last six and a half months, lots of killing and lots of lies."[1]

When you say "equal protection of the laws", whose laws are we talking about? So much rhetoric in media and academia (in a broad sense, not just on this issue) is built upon the strange notion that "fairness" is achieved when some large state lords over everyone equally. I find this idea dubious in the sense that it does not admit the right to self-determination for each individual group, i.e. separate states. Apartheid, of course, is indefensible. It occurs when two groups live under the same government but are not treated equally. Israel wants to annex Gaza, and clearly a one-state solution would rob Palestinians of their sovereignty. I am actually not sure what this article is getting at. It's hard to follow and some of the material seems copied from your other articles, and some points seem to be contradictory. How would "demanding equal protection" help them? AP295 (discuss • contribs) 04:45, 21 May 2024 (UTC)