"There Is Another Way"

In this episode of Nonviolence Radio, we talk with Sulaiman Khatib and Chen Alon from Combatants for Peace, along with filmmaker Stephen Apkon, director of There Is Another Way, a powerful new documentary about their movement currently touring the world to spark new conversations about a lasting peace in Israel-Palestine. Former fighters from opposite sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Sulaiman and Chen share their personal transformations and the deep commitment to nonviolence that drives their work. They discuss the challenges of breaking cycles of violence, the power of storytelling, and how nonviolence is not just a strategy but a daily choice. This conversation will leave you thinking about what it truly means to choose peace, even when it seems impossible.

"We don’t choose to be violent. We are taught to be violent, and the choice is ours to break that cycle." — Sulaiman Khatib

Transcript

Stephanie: Greetings, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Nonviolence Radio. I'm your host, Stephanie Van Hook, and I'm here with my co-host, Michael Nagler. And we're from the Metta Center for Nonviolence in Petaluma, California.

We have a very important conversation today between Sulaiman Khatib, Chen Alon from Combatants for Peace, and with them is filmmaker Stephen Abkon, the director of a new documentary about CFP called There Is Another Way. So, they're going to talk about what it means to move beyond taking sides in conflict and how to uphold our shared humanity through creative nonviolence.

And their work is really a challenge to rethink divisions and to recognize that peace and nonviolence are commitments and everyday practices that begin from within us and begin from a deep recognition of both our capacity for nonviolence and violence.

You'll also find out where to find the film and how to join the screening. So let's turn now to this very important conversation.

Michael and I just had the opportunity to screen “There is Another Way.” And so, we're really just fresh from seeing that film. So, thank you so much for joining us today on Nonviolence Radio.

You're here because nonviolence is such a deep principle for your work with Combatants for Peace, as well as using this film to help promote a narrative of nonviolence. So, I'd love to hear a little bit about your work in Combatants for Peace.

Sulaiman: Yeah. So, Combatants for Peace, actually next year will be the twentieth anniversary of Combatants for Peace. So, the founders of the organization, like Chen and like myself, people that were either in the Israeli army before, or Palestinian ex-combatants, prisoners that also went through transformation and change into nonviolence, basically.

For myself, I’d been in Israeli jail for ten years and a half from the age of 14, like my teenager time. And my change happened through a long journey in jail. Mainly through food hunger strikes that we used to do in jail, because there is no military solution. That's what we say.

And second, it's more morally, actually, that we want to support nonviolence approach. Not because of practical reasons. Also, like morally, obviously. And also, I believe that nonviolence allows partnership among Palestinians and Israelis.

That would lead us basically to work with – like, in the beginning, each side were working separately before Combatants for Peace because people know each other from this background.

And then at some point we, through our friend and comrade, we were suggested to meet in Bethlehem area. A couple of people, like people that founded the organization later on. And we had like almost a year of secret meetings to build the trust and so on.

And, of course, nonviolence was obviously the first value that we were speaking about, actually. And it's really important maybe to mention – like when we talk about nonviolence is not treating out of weaknesses. But actually, out of strength. And that's for me, like how I learned nonviolence physically, like in jail time, despite you know, the power dynamic and everything.

And I would say Combatants for Peace since then become like one of the main joint organizations bases that bring our people together. 

Michael: We have tremendous respect for Combatants for peace. And I would like to ask you a big question. And that is, is there a long-term strategic plan? I mean for a partly political, partly educational. There was a process during the Cold War called GRIT, which stands for Gradual Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension reduction. And it was very successful.

Chen: Our strategy is our vision. We are embodying the future. We are embodying the vision. We are modeling for Israelis and Palestinians the alternative, that there is another way. And we are – by our mere existence, we are offering them to join. That's the first step.

But we are offering some kind of an entrance to this field and to this community by acknowledging that the violence is the problem and not the solution. And then we are providing a whole scope of what is violence. For example, when we use theater, and we show a scene about, I don't know, images of throwing stones or someone who is beating, trying to struggle physically with the soldiers in the checkpoint. So, Israelis and Palestinians who would look at the stage at the same scene will describe different things. The Palestinians will say throwing stones is not violent. And Israelis would say, this is violence. We are watching the same reality, and we are not agreeing on the same facts.

And our strategy is to put yourself in the shoes of the other, to allow Israelis and Palestinians to experience their reality together, and to find some kind of a common ground of empathy and sympathy and acknowledgment. And not about political solutions and, you know, not to force them to agree to political solutions and stuff like that. But to the very simple experience of feeling with and for the other.

Stephanie: Are CFP members, are they conscientious objectors, or do they serve in either military and then decide to leave and join it? What is that process from being a combatant to being a Combatant for Peace?

Chen: We started with, you know, ex-combatants, ex-fighters who literally were in the armed struggle or in the military. We widened the definition of violence and of combatants to a very wide, for me, a very wide definition of responsibility on violence. So, anyone who has experienced violence around him or her – by watching, by perpetuating, by committing violence. It's a very wide definition.

And refusing to violence it has various phenomena and various performances in the reality. You can do a lot of things in order to refuse violence. I mean, mothers who will refuse to send their children to throw stones or to join the Army. And people who will show in their social media only images of nonviolence and etc., etc.

So we are dealing with the responsibility on violence and not with only the specific or concrete committing of violence. We are very determined. And you can see in the film, I mean that Steve insisted on incorporating the fact of people who weren't able to steadfast with the decision, with the commitment to nonviolence. And joined – some by support, some by, you know, various methodologies, but supported or joined the violent circle, and they couldn't stay with us or remain part of the movement.

Steve, you want to add something about this? Because you were really – I think you deeply understood the dilemma, maybe from outside, but also from inside.

Stephen: I think what I saw was an understanding that it's not a goal, but it's a way of being and a commitment. And a commitment that's made every day, I think. There's so many powerful lines in the film, but when Avner at the end says, “You know, it's not about Israelis and Palestinians, it's a choice that we all have to make.”

And it's a perpetual choice. It's a choice that we have to make every day. And I think that that's something that I've learned from Sully and from Chen and from so many people at Combatants over the many years. Because I started working with them in making “Disturbing the Peace,” which was the precursor to “There Is Another Way,” back in 2013. So, it's been 12 years.

And what I learned is it's a commitment that they make to themselves and to each other every day. And as Chen said, it was important for us to show the violence. You know, it's a film that has no gratuitous violence and I think that's important to say. But we made very conscious, intentional decisions about showing the reality because it's very important. It's easy to talk. Sully says it, I think in the film, “You know, it's easy to say this when it's easy. The question is, where are you when it's hard?”

And we need to understand what the choice is and what the reality is on the other side, and understand the context in which they make the decisions that they make. Which, frankly, from somebody who has been a long-time observer and documenter of their work, I see it as nothing less than heroic.

Michael: Yeah. We completely agree. And I'd like to add that from our perspective at this institution here, the last 20–25 years have seen a tremendous growth in knowledge of nonviolence, especially the positive side of it, the constructive side, where you can go with it. And I know that Sami Awad at the Holy Land Trust was in touch with a lot of this information, but I'm wondering if you have access to some of these resources. I guess I'm talking specifically to Chen and Sully.

Sulaiman: Yeah, from like a historical context, I think the arguments about violence versus nonviolence is never ending until now. And it will continue, as you know, everywhere. And there are a lot of resources out there – like, books, movies, but also like in a human experiences and memories. In the local context, for example, we have something called sumud, like steadfastness. It's based on nonviolence, actually. Coming from the olive trees and so on. It's like hundreds of years of experience.

So, I think it's there. It's available for people. It’s definitely there. There is not an easy question. I don't have the answer, even. Like in a militarized situation, even also globally, people are attracted to militarization – especially young people that adrenaline, that bring this. Unfortunately, I'm seeing this.

I think in our case, actually, we work with youth, both Palestinians and Israelis in something called Freedom School, to basically pass the knowledge and the experience to the younger generation. And using the social media right now, make access to people for the information and for the knowledge. That there is, again, like the name of the movie, there is another way. And like Steve mentioned, if we choose the road, that's another question, not in our control. It's very important that people can see there are other options out there.

You mentioned Sami, you know, like his cousin Mubarak was expelled in 1987 because, you know, he was very active in nonviolence, like many other Palestinians. It seems to me like nonviolence is more dangerous to the system than violence. And that's the experience, actually.

I do want to say in the last year and a half, there is more like space in the media, maybe – in the mainstream media, to these kind of groups, to this kind of approach, actually, in compared to the past. I see this more and more accessible and public.

Chen: Just to add one quote to what Sully said, there's a beautiful quote by – I know it from Roberto [unintelligible] said, “People with guns are afraid from people with creativity.” I think it's valid. And I'm thinking about, you know, Basel and Yuval as well, you know, what the response of the Israeli authorities to their winning the Oscar was so ridiculous. Like hysteria in the Israeli government from this Oscar winning.

Stephanie: In the film it’s pointed out that CFP had the only joint peace demonstration after October 7th between Israelis and Palestinians. Someone was arrested prior to the event from the Palestinian –

Stephen and Chen: Ahmed Al-Helou.

Stephanie: So, Ahmed was arrested prior to this joint peace rally. Which I think really reinforces that idea, that there's – let us fight each other, but coming together in peace is much more dangerous. How did that event go?

Stephen: I think that you can see in the film that it was an important event in galvanizing the community. Because it's like I said, nonviolence is not passivity. And so, the ability to turn their desire into action and actually stand together. You know, Chen said to me once when we were filming “Disturbing the Peace,” he said, “You know, every time,” I think it's in the film, actually, “every time we get together, it's nothing short of a miracle.”

And so, layer on that the situation within Israel after October 7th. Layer on that, the shifts in the government and the way that societies were in that moment. And the courage to stand together at the junction in Jericho and say, “This is not who we are,” was enormously important to – not just as a statement to the societies and to the government, or even a statement to humanity. It was a statement to themselves.

And it was turning something into action. Combatants uses a lot of creativity, and Chen’s background in theater is a very important part of it. And the work of Augusto Boal and Theater of the Oppressed, and the notion of turning people from spectators into ‘spect-actors’. All of that, to me, is at the core of nonviolence as well.

Even the notion of utilizing the military structure as a character in a play. It highlights a role that they're playing in a script. And it's something that I learned from these men and women a long time ago, when you think about the transformation from violence to nonviolence, is what I saw in all of their stories. Whether it was a small trauma or a big trauma, or something very – a small act of kindness, something that threw them far enough outside of their reality to realize they were playing a role in somebody else's story.

And as we say, you know, once you know, you cannot not know, there is no going back. And that was the moment, or the beginning of a transformation and a freedom, ultimately.

And so, the way that they even interact with the military, you see in the film, “There is Another Way,” the scene in Al-Auja during the water demonstration. They’re not treating the military like they're the adversary. They're treating them like somebody who hasn't yet woken up. And the call that you see from Iris who will be at the screenings in San Francisco and San Rafael, along with Mia Shahin, who were the leaders of that demonstration.

And you see the way that they handle it. Mia’s talking to the military when they try to shut it down. And Iris is talking to the soldiers the way she speaks to her high school students as a former high school principal, to try to get them to use their judgment, to try to get them to think more critically. All of that is part of the work of nonviolence.

Chen: And all of that is part of the strategy and the tactical tools that we are using. You know, that we have different approaches, and we are trying to be creative, not to be like one attitude or one approach that fits. That's the art of nonviolence, that it's always contextualized, you know, by whether it's police or army. We are Israelis or Palestinians. We are playing all our cards in this game with our nonviolent tools. It demands a lot of creativity.

So, the event that Steve was talking about and demonstrations, so Iris was using one tactic, Mia is using another. I'm using another. Jamel is using another. And Sully was with someone with a sign doing something else. So, it's kind of a creation.

Stephanie: And just as a spectator to this from the outside watching in through this film, it's infuriating, and it's heartbreaking to watch what's happening. And to experience that those feelings of anger and horror. And watching and then ask oneself, “What's my commitment here?” as I'm finding in my head. You know, who should I be angry at? What's the problem here?

Stephen: I'd like to say something, Stephanie, about what you just said, which I think is really important, which is the importance of acknowledging our anger and the impulse that we can have towards violence, even in practicing nonviolence. I think that's really important.

I think that when Chen and Sully and Ahmed and others, and Jamel were willing to share their initial impulse – the excitement of seeing somebody breaking out of Gaza, the excitement of seeing soldiers captured, the desire to get in a tank and respond through violence.

It's really important not to negate that or to dismiss it, to not cover it because it's not then recognizing our full humanity. And again, circles back to this notion that nonviolence is a choice and it's a perpetual choice. And one of the most important things that Combatants does and stands for that I see as a documentary filmmaker, is that they begin by sharing their personal stories of their involvement in violence.

And it is not from a place of seeking forgiveness. It is from a place of acknowledging what we're all capable of.

Chen: And taking responsibility in our story.

Stephen: Yeah. And Avner has said – it's not in the film, but when I was filming him, he said, “Look,” he said, “when we don't accept the capacity that all humans have for violence in whatever form,” right? It doesn't necessarily mean someone's going to pick up arms, but we all have the capacity. “If we don't accept it, we invariably project it on the other. And then we rationalize the use of violence to protect ourselves from what we've projected on somebody else.

The acceptance of it being an innate part of being human allows us, as Chen said, to take responsibility, to integrate it and to understand that also we have the capacity for peace, compassion, and love.

This is very important. This is not about Israel and Palestine. Because we here in America, those people listening to your radio show, we have to accept that we also have the capacity for violence and the willingness to kill people we don't know. Because for many years, not just over this last year, but for many years, there have been weapons distributed around the world and bombs dropped, that are made in the USA and part of the military-industrial complex here that's using our tax dollars to those of us who pay taxes, using our tax dollars to fund it. And we go on with our lives.

And so, recognizing that within ourselves is an important part of recognizing the fullness of our humanity as well as our capacity for compassion, for peace, and for love.

Michael: Beautiful Stephen. And it's reminding me, one other thing to be in mind about having anger and the capacity for anger. In the Montgomery bus boycott, Martin Luther King said, “We expressed anger under discipline for maximum effect.”

Stephen: Beautiful.

Michael: Anger actually becomes our tool, our motive energy for that conversion to what Chen has been calling creative capacities of nonviolence.

You know, I wanted to put out a suggestion. We’re complete outsiders here. We have no right to do this, but another tactic that's been used sometimes when conflicts are, you know, really bitter and very embroiled, is to go to a remote location. People have been going to a particular town in Thailand and solving problems there and then bringing them back to the homeland of the violence.

And I wonder if there's been any attempt to do that. I'm not suggesting that it would work very well in Geneva. I think Europe is too embroiled. But somewhere where Israelis and Palestinians could go off-site, discuss plans, lay out a strategy, and then come back. Has that been tried?

Chen: Yeah, we have done that many times. It worked along the years beautifully and differently. I have to say that, we've been to conflict zones around the world, to learn and to teach them. For example, we were a few times in North Ireland, in South Africa, in the Balkans, in ex-Yugoslavia, and so on.

And I have so many insights from these places. For example, the fact that they all – in all these places, they always said the same thing. That until the very last moment, people say, like we say here, Israelis in Palestine, “There is no way to solve it. They want all the homeland for themselves. They want to throw us to the sea. We have no partner,” and so on. They all said it. That it was this way of thinking, or this mode, was until the very last moments. Then something happens, then some kind of tectonic moves, and all of a sudden, it becomes doable.

And a lot of these conversations in these places were inspiring us. And, you know, there are so many examples that comes to my head when we talk. But not even solve the problem. Just to be out of this area allowed us, for example, to have a football match between Israelis and Palestinians in North Ireland.

And then we decided to mix the groups, you know, with Israelis and Palestinians not to play Israel against Palestine. And when we mixed the groups, and we played Israelis and Palestinians, and Israelis and Palestinians. But we said, “We will play mixed groups, but we will decide which one of the groups is Israel and which one is Palestine.” And then Israel won 6-0 to Palestine. But none of the Israeli’s scored goals in this group. Only the Palestinian scored goals for the Israel team. So, you know, this kind of – of trying to solve problems in different – far from the Middle East is always helpful for sometimes metaphorical solutions, and sometimes just to have fun together.

It's very knowledgeable to have fun together. But I know it's not that we have problems of that we here are speaking of. Sully might change that.

Sulaiman: And no, I believe activism has to be fun. And that's actually an important concept. The sustainability of peacemaker activists is important, actually. Because we are here for the long run, not for like a short time. So, I think it's important sometimes to know how we are using our energies. So, it can stay for a long time.

Stephanie: Hey, everybody. You're here at Nonviolence Radio, and we're speaking with Chen Alon, Sulaiman Khatib from Combatants for Peace, along with Stephen Abkon, director of the new documentary. There Is Another Way. Let's jump back in.

I want to ask a question for all three of you. What are some ways that people that are listening to this show who are going to come see the film, what can we do to support what you're doing? 

Sulaiman: Our work, and I believe the movie, and everything, is really about, like, in the end of the story, there are different strategies. But actually, we all have the same needs and the same feelings. But to go there, we have to fulfill it. There is different strategies.

The concept at the end of the day is really a collective liberation for all the people. Like Steve mentioned, it's not about Palestinians and Israelis just. Of course, there is a variety is like when we talk about the Palestinians and Israelis and Ukrainian, Russian now, for example, and some others. But I believe people are not free. And we can see that. 

I'm now in Berlin and I can tell you, like, people in Europe are scared. The stability that people felt. It's there. It's not real. It's losing it, actually. And it can change in a minute, as we can see.

So, I think the idea is really basically that our freedom is connected and to work for the liberation of all the people, from all sides. And then we want to speak, you know, sometimes maybe to trigger people, like to free the oppressed and the oppressor. Because we could be both. And I think it's a time to change our thinking and values and strategies, actually. Not to repeat like the same historical story that we knew it. Like we were there, right? Again and again. And that's actually the main thing.

And for me, I always ask people to ask themselves the intention behind anything we do. And that's actually very important. So, we are aware of the intention. Like why, why we're doing this. That's very general. And obviously, there are like certain specific steps if people want to support our cause. We have also an organization in the US called American Friends of Combatants for Peace. They could be in touch with us. We work together very closely for the same goal.

Chen: I want to add one more thing to this collective liberation. A term of Sully, which is, I think the application of it, of how you can join or help and so on, is to do something, to go through the process that we went through, is that to get rid of this zero-sum game psyche. And this thing of pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian thing. It's kind of even an automatic mode for people. You’re either/or.

The thing that I'm most proud of is that I am no longer a prisoner of this uni-national psyche. I'm not thinking and feeling only as an Israeli Jew, which is my identity. This is who I am. Everything that is happening here, I feel and think and dream of is with my binational heart and binational psyche. And I think it feels – I don't feel that I've lost my identity, but I widened it.

So, it's kind of an offer to the people who are listening to us. Get rid of this zero-sum game, either/or, and so on, and join this community, the inclusive community that is, as I said, modeling for and embodying the future and the vision.

Stephen: I would just add to what both Chen and Sully said that this is very much not just about Israel and Palestine. If we didn't understand that a few months ago, we do now. And nonviolent resistance is not just about resistance. It's not just about standing up against something. It's actually about standing for something. And one of the most important things, one of the most powerful things we can do, is to come together for what we stand for.

And so, the importance of this film is not against something. It's actually for something. It's for the understanding and the commitment, the knowing that there is another way. That there is a way that recognizes the humanity, the dignity, the equality of all people – the collective liberation of all people.

And one of the most powerful acts we can do is to come together and stand in that space of knowing that there is another way. And so, one of the things we're most excited about this film is the ability to gather people, to stand for something. To stand with a group of people like Combatants for Peace, these men and women who know that there's another way and who are embodying it every day in one of the most challenging of circumstances. So, we'll be at the San Rafael Theater on March 13th.

We'll be at the Roxy on March 14th, March 15th, March 16th. All of those tickets and details are available on our website. ThereIsAnotherWayFilm.com. I know the tickets are already going for all of those screenings. So, it's an enormous opportunity to come together to meet some of the members of Combatants for Peace. And as importantly, to see each other and to stand in a space of knowing and embodying the understanding that there is another way. All we have to do is choose it.

Stephanie: And now there's going to be screenings around the country as well. Is that correct?

Stephen: Yes. We will be opening on March 20th in Los Angeles, and it'll have a run from there. It's in Portland. It's in Washington, DC. It's in Philadelphia. It's in New York. It will ultimately be all over the country. I will be with Sully in Berlin in two days. So, it also is screening internationally in Berlin and Geneva and a variety of other places. We just got back from a screening in Belfast.

The best way to stay updated is to go to the website. Again it’s www.ThereIsAnotherWayFilm.com. And you can get all the details, and you can register to stay updated if you want to do that as well. And so, it's a good source of information.

Stephanie: As you know, there's been these incredible protests on college campuses, I think especially in the United States, that are really pitting people for one side or another side of the issue against each other. So, this film is also a way to build bridges on college campuses and have a different kind of discussion, especially for nonviolence. Do you see that potential for is as well?

Stephen: Not only the potential, but we see it in action already, Stephanie. We did a number of preview screenings at several universities around the country, including the University of Minnesota and Princeton, Columbia, Loyola. And we have more scheduled. And you're right, you know, our campuses have become very fractured. And this has been an issue that has been at the core of that division.

I think that what we need to understand is that turning anything into a binary decision is just playing into somebody else's desire for power and control. And that actually, when we create a space that embraces the fullness of all humanity, we recognize our own humanity. And those bridges are enormously important. And again, I would say about the screenings on campus where we are having – in every screening so far and in every screening possible, we will have members of Combatants for Peace there.

Because it's very important to have, you know, the credibility that they have in each of their societies is by virtue of the fact of the price that they've paid, and their historical engagement, and their transformation, and their willingness to take responsibility and to make a different choice.

And so, it's hard for university students to not recognize that and actually have a fuller conversation when these men and women are willing to do it, these, you know, human beings are willing to do it.

Michael: I wanted to say a couple of things. One, that while it is true that the issue is much larger than Israel-Palestine, at the same time, you have a great opportunity there because of the attention on Israel-Palestine. And because of the tension, people will feel that if it can be solved there, it can be solved anywhere.

Stephen: Yes.

Michael: So, you really have a leverage point to influence the whole world.

Stephen: Michael, I agree completely. And I think it's why it's so important that when “Disturbing the Peace” came out, that Combatants for Peace was so recognized globally. And was nominated for two Nobel Peace Prizes because part of the work and the energy and the power that they hold is a representation of what's possible elsewhere.

At the Belfast screening, we had former enemy combatants from the north of Ireland, former loyalists, combatants, and IRA combatants, who were sworn enemies, who spent, you know, some decades in prison for acts of violence, and who went through their own transformation.

And, you know, it was fascinating going around Belfast because you could tell, still, whether you were in a Protestant or a Catholic neighborhood based on whether it was an Israeli flag at every corner or a Palestinian flag. Literally. And in many windows.

And so this is an issue that is maybe one of the most challenging, and some would say intractable, although I think we all believe that it's very solvable when there's the political will. And why this organization is less focused on what is the actual solution than they are on uniting people with that sense of political will and possibility.

Michael: And that's where I think, really, a long-range plan could be immensely helpful because it makes this vision seem realistic. We're going to take this step, and then that step, then that step.

Stephen: We did a screening at the UN and the International Peace Institute, which is run by Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, who is one of the elders, the group that Jimmy Carter and Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu put together years ago. It was really an extraordinary screening. But what came out of it is an understanding that we all have a responsibility for it, but also the possibility of what it represents.

Stephanie: We’re running just out of time, and I definitely want to give the last words to Combatants for Peace, Chen, and Sully. 

Sulaiman: Thank you for hosting us and inviting people to come meet with our team that will be with the movie in San Francisco. I, personally, am waiting for my visa, hopefully. Otherwise, I would be joining as well at some point. Yeah. This is really – there is a momentum I feel now for real change globally as we speak.

And as you guys spoke, I fully agree that the situation in Palestine-Israel is really a mirror for the world, actually, in a way. For good and bad, I have to say. And like we say always, like, let's keep one leg in reality and one leg in the vision and the dream. Thank you.

Chen: I want to add – a last word would be about hope, that I feel that this film – and I really call everyone to come and watch it. Because on one hand, it's a mirror of the reality. How with its devastation and violence and, you know, this endless violence and so on. But I think Combatants for Peace in the film and other movements that are Israelis and Palestinians who are not giving up on hope. We are not waiting for hope to come to us.

Hope is something that you are providing. Hope is in action. And, I think – I mean, I'm looking at the US right now, and it seems hopeless as well, with your president, and with the atmosphere of the political sphere and so on. And I think only passion and hope will allow – I feel that people are still shocked by what's going on in the US politics.

And I can feel, I can sense that people will get out of the shock. And it will happen only if people will reconnect themselves to passion and hope. And the connection between passion and hope is responsibility. And it will happen quite soon, I think. As it happened to us, although we are losing a lot, and we are having a lot of hopelessness around us, we are working daily on this action that provides the hope to ourselves and hopefully for our communities.

Stephanie: Thank you all so much for your work.

Stephen: Thank you.

Michael: Thank you from the bottom of our heart. This is really an inspiration.

Stephen: And thank you for all you do and also for all of your listeners, because it's a community and it takes a community to hold this. So, thank you.

Nonviolence Report

Michael: Greetings, everyone. I'm Michael Nagler, and I'm going to share with you today some nonviolence news.  And you know I sometimes like to start with a tribute to a nonviolent person, particularly one who has just left us, for the time being, if you are a Hindu. And this month I'm thinking about Randy Kehler, had a very active life. Randy was the person who converted Dan Ellsberg to nonviolence, which had a very important impact on the Vietnam War in particular. 

And now, here's something I want to quote from Randy Kehler. “Every time I see and hear people, especially younger people, express feelings of hopelessness and despair about the current state of the world, it strengthens my resolve to try in whatever way I can to introduce them to a fundamentally hopeful history and practice of active nonviolence. I wish to demonstrate that positive, nonviolent change in our lives and in the world is not only an urgent necessity, but humanly possible.” So, that could have been stated by us. That's exactly where the Metta Center for Nonviolence stands. 

Well, I have one negative item that I think I wanted to share and then move on to some better things. There was an opinion piece by Catherine Rampell in the Washington Post. And she said the following, which is an interesting kind of paradox I want to comment on. She said, “More than anything else, President Donald Trump loves winning, yet he has already positioned America to lose the 21st Century in three simple steps. One, alienate your friends.” This is a reference to Zelenskyy and the European Union. “Two, destroy your business environment,” that’s what the tariffs will do. And three, quoting directly from her, “Slaughter your golden goose.” She's referring to science and research. 

So, I have an explanation to offer. And that is that the president tends to – well, he's obsessed with power. He wants to have power, like most of us, actually. But he's obsessed with a negative view of power. You might remember his famous statement that, “I'm a powerful person. I could kill somebody on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.”

So, this brings us to the importance of a seminal work by Kenneth Boulding called The Three Faces of Power. Kenneth talked about threat power, exchange power, and integrative power. The last of which being basically nonviolence. And it's we desperately need that in large vision of what power is.

The formula that's often cited in progressive circles is “power with” not “power over.” But I think I'd like to say that even power with has to begin in a kind of power over, and that is power over our own negative impulses. And that's, I think, the missing element that is constant attention on what's our relation to others outside. But as with Metta’s Roadmap, we need to start with how are we situated within ourselves? 

All right. Well, the number of new organizations continues to flood in. One can hardly keep track of them. And the one I want to mention today is something called Peace Catalyst International. And I do that because they are an answer, a response, an antidote if you will, to Christian nationalism.

Their mission statement is, “Equipping and mobilizing Christians for collaborative peacebuilding along lines of difference.” In their recent statements, they had a beautiful paragraph from Father Elias Chacour, who is a Palestinian. He’s Arab Israeli politically, and was formerly the Archbishop of Galilee. And I've known of his work for quite some time because Chacour is very dedicated to nonviolence.

And this is a beautiful statement, I think, that we can all take under advisement for today. Quote, “If you are pro-Israel, on behalf of the Palestinian children I call unto you; give further friendship to Israel. They need your friendship. But stop interpreting that friendship as an automatic antipathy against me, the Palestinian who is paying the bill for what others have done against my beloved Jewish brothers and sisters in the Holocaust, and Auschwitz and elsewhere.

“And if you have been enlightened enough to take the side of the Palestinians, oh, bless your hearts, take our side, because for once you will be on the right side, right? But if taking our side would mean to become one-sided against my Jewish brothers and sisters, back up. We do not need such a friendship. We need one more common friend. We do not need one more enemy, for God's sake.”

And if you allow me to share one more quote from somebody in Palestine. This time it's not a Palestinian, but a fellow from Minnesota, Mel Duncan, who is in Palestine today as part of a delegation of Nonviolent Peaceforce. And I'm really only going to quote when one sentence of a rather long report that he just sent to us.

And here's the sentence, “Amid the violence.” Well, I'm sorry, it's two sentences, “Amid the violence, I am content being here. I feel like my whole life has prepared me to do what I am doing now.” And that remark of Mel’s struck me, not only because of my deep friendship with him, but because of the way that it echoes someone in the same field of work many years ago.

This is a local friend down here in Marin County, name was Sue Severin, and she was in Nicaragua when the “low-intensity conflict,” quote unquote, was wrecking peace and security in that country. And I'm quoting now from memory, I don't have her quote in front of me. She was asked “Wasn't she frightened?” And she said, “You know, not really. I felt like I was where I was supposed to be.” And she emphasized, “Not that I wouldn't be killed.” That wasn't the point. It wasn't about her personal safety, but that she was where she needed to be. 

And it's that feeling of finding the work that we’re cut out to perform. The work that’s called svadharma in the Indian tradition, our particular dharma. Finding it and carrying it out, being aware that we're doing that, gives a tremendous kind of security and power to us. So, those are two friends of mine who illustrated that beautifully.

Looking at Campaign Nonviolence of the late, it's fun to note that Pace e Bene has launched something called Rise and Shine. And they say, “This is nurturing this groundswell of resistance by spreading powerful examples, tactics, training options, and nonviolent approaches that can help all of us.” And this is a wonderful thing, you know, it's because, the quote unquote, “the revolution will not be televised.”

In the past, efforts of this kind have arisen spontaneously. They've died spontaneously and not been recorded. And I'm going to get back to that in a second. But in the recent Nonviolence News that was put out by Rivera Sun, she says, “Did you know,” and I actually didn't know the significance of this. “Did you know that the largest act of civil disobedience in US history just occurred? Few people have put it together yet,” I certainly didn't, “but here's what happened: over a million federal workers refused to comply with Elon Musk's order that they submit reports on, quote, ‘5 Things You Did This Week’” to the new department on government efficiency. 

“Numerous agency heads, some of them appointed by the president, instructed their staff not to reply. Unions echoed the call for widespread resistance. More than 50% of the 2.4 million nonmilitary federal employees flat out refused to obey the order, even when threatened with losing their jobs. This makes it the largest act of civil disobedience to an unjust order in US history, by far.” 

So, I think that's a wonderful thing to be aware of. And we're very thankful to Rivera for flagging it and understanding its significance. 

And in her recent Nonviolence News, she has a lot of other fully documented events. For example, in Los Angeles, there's a team that's using a radio scanner, a megaphone, and a car to alert various neighborhoods about the presence of ICE agents. So that refugees, or immigrants rather, from mostly Mexico and further south, who are quite numerous in that city and a vital, vibrant part of the life of Los Angeles, they can be protected from raids of the ICE agency.

And meanwhile, in Houston, Texas, demonstrators filled three bridges over a freeway in a display of solidarity. And in North Carolina, community resistance groups are sharing how they have spread solidarity, not panic, in thwarting ICE raids. I started to feel that immigration is becoming the lightning rod issue. And I understand why the amount of human suffering that it'll cause.

And to people who are right here in our midst is, the pain of it is so great, and the injustice of it is so flagrant that I think this is one issue where the pushback is going to succeed and change the momentum – hopefully, hopefully. 

Going further afield in South Sudan, churches are circulating a booklet about nonviolent resistance, and they're mobilizing congregations to stop violence and the Civil War. Even with all this happening, the resistance seems like it's just getting started in South Sudan.

And Choose Democracy has launched something called Boycott Central to help people with their economic resistance here at home. You can find out about upcoming boycotts and so forth on that site. 

One final item, and I'm coming back to Sonoma County for it. Something that began as one person's, one activist’s idea to ante up pressure against local congressmen who supported Israel's assault on Gaza has turned into a plan to air the issue in the international arena. We can be very proud about that. 

It started with a retired high school history teacher, Seth Donnelly, here in Boyes Springs, and he was fed up with Mike Thompson and Jared Huffman. He invited Thompson to speak to Rancho Cotate High School. And when the students asked him if he would agree to vote against more military aid to Israel, he said he would not. He refused. So, at that point, Donnelly initiated a class action lawsuit against Thompson and Jared Huffman.

I want to mention just one other resource, and that is a woman named Jessica Craven, whom you may have heard of. She's an activist and organizer, a climate hawk, as they say. She's the author of a Substack and I think a book, there’s at least a PDF called Chop Wood Carry Water Daily Actions.

And she has noted one thing in passing that I want to share with you. And that is on President's Day recently, peaceful protests happened across the country. Okay. Which in itself, it's not so unusual. But what is unusual is that the press covered them. And that could just constitute a rare breakthrough.

So, thank you for listening to the Nonviolence Report once again, everyone. And until our next report, be hopeful and watch for nonviolence happening in your own life and neighborhood. Thank you very much.

Stephanie: This has been another episode of Nonviolence Radio. We want to thank our guests today, Sulaiman Khatib and Chen Alon from Combatants for Peace, as well as Stephen Abkon, director of “There is Another Way.” You can find the film and screenings near you, or invite them to come and speak at ThereIsAnotherWayFilm.com and CFPeace.org. 

And as usual, we want to thank our mother stations KWMR and KPCA, as well as Matt and Robin Watrous who work on post-production, transcript editing, and all of the work that goes into making this show possible. Thank you so much, Annie Hewitt, Sophia Pechaty, to Bryan and friends over at Waging Nonviolence who helped syndicate the show, to the Pacifica Network, who syndicates this show, and all of our listeners on radio as well as podcasts, it's great to have you here. 

If you want to learn more about this show visit NonviolenceRadio.org and you want to learn more about nonviolence, visit us at Metta Center.org. And as we say at the end of every show, until the next time, please take care of one another. We'll be back again in two weeks.