NYT and its take on Palestinian nonviolence

“These are not sit-ins with people singing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ ” said Maj. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli Army’s Central Command, which controls the West Bank. “These are violent, illegal, dangerous riots.” This was focus of a recent NYT article about the tougher stance Israel has been taking against protests in the West Bank against the apartheid wall.

Although one would think it is commendable that the NYT is finally covering the use of nonviolent actions among Palestinians in fighting the Israeli occupation, no media is definitely better than media biased against you. The reporter claims in the video portion of this story that the protests against the wall are nothing more than "a combination of desperate activism and staged theater."

So the reporter has decided that there is no actual nonviolent movement in Palestine and thus these protests are nothing more than a ploy to convince the world that the Palestinians are interested in peace. And to make sure that readers of the NYT don't fall into that ploy, the reporter makes sure Israeli officials are allowed to put their spin on these protests. They argue that since most of these protests end in violence, even if it is instigated by Israeli soldiers after they use rubber bullets and live ammunition to quell the protests, the protests are themselves an action of violence and not nonviolence.

So peaceful protests bring about violent Israeli reaction, which means the protests themselves are violent. Makes lots of sense, right?

It's interesting that Martin Luther King, Jr. address this issue in his letter from Birmingham Jail. He writes: "In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion?"