The recent visit of Mohandas K. Gandhi's grandson, Arun Gandhi, to Palestine has sparked new discussion about the role of nonviolence in the Palestinian struggle for freedom. In a speech before the Palestinian Legislative Council, Gandhi called upon 50,000 Palestinian refugees to march back home en masse from their exile in Jordan, forcing the Israelis to choose between relenting to a wave of people power, or gunning the marchers down in cold blood.
In an editorial, the English-language Jordan Times gently endorsed the idea, arguing: "Perhaps it's time for the world to accept that the refugees need to have a say in their own fate. Perhaps it's time for them to make their voices heard. Perhaps they should march." However, the newspaper also warned that such tactics could lead to "losses to the Kingdom," and recalled Israel's harsh military retaliation against Jordan and Lebanon when the Palestinian Liberation Organization used those countries as bases.
While one can admire Mohandas Gandhi's nonviolent principles, one can hardly point to the Indian experience as a demonstration of their usefulness in overthrowing a colonial regime. Indeed, Gandhi's concepts of satyagraha, or soul power, and ahimsa, or nonviolent struggle, played an important role during the Indian independence struggle, however the anti-colonial period in India was also marked by extreme violence, both between the British and Indians and between different Indian communal groups.
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