Zachary Foster Profile picture
Oct 23, 2023 8 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Why don't Palestinians embrace non-violent resistence?

You've probably heard this question asked a lot over the past 2 weeks.

A short response. A🧵.
From late 1987-1988, Palestinians in Gaza rose up in a series of non-violent demonstrations, strikes, boycotts & protests. They killed 0 Israelis. They were unarmed.

In response, Israel killed 142 Palestinians in Gaza.

Source: Jean-Pierre Filiu, Gaza: A History (2014), 206. Image
In 2005, Palestinians organized a non-violent movement, Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS)

In response, Israel:
1. said the movement's true goal is to destroy Israel
2. called BDS supporters antisemitic
3. Punished its founder w/threat of displacement haaretz.com/israel-news/20…
Image
In 2008 & 2009, the residents of Ni'lin, in the West Bank, protested non-violently every week against the expansion of the separation barrier that was confiscating their land.

In response, Israel killed Ahmed Moussa on 29 July 2008; Israel killed Yousef Aqel Srour on 5 June 2009 Image
In 2003, unarmed Palestinians in Bil'in organized weekly protests against the separation barrier that was confiscating their land.

In 2009, Israel killed Bassem Abu Rahmah w/a shot in the chest; in 2010, it killed Jawaher Abu Rahmah, who died from tear gas inhalation. Image
Beginning in March 2018, tens of thousands of Gazans marched to the fence, unarmed, demanding the right of return. Israel killed 223 Palestinians & Israeli snipers left 6,106 Palestinians with life-changing wounds. Not a single Israeli experienced any major physical harm. Image
These incidents represent a tiny fraction of Palestinian non-violent resistance.

In the vast majority of cases of Palestinian non-violent resistance, Israel responds w/ lethal & disproportionate violence.

And you wonder why a tiny number of Palestinians have turned to violence?
More content like this in my newsletter:

PalestineNexus.com
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More from @_ZachFoster

Aug 11
Israel’s exploitation of Jews as demographic hostages, a brief history 🧵
Zionist & Israeli leaders have a long history of going against the interests of Jews themselves, of weaponizing Jews & exploiting their J-positive blood to engineer a Jewish demographic majority in Palestine.
This began after WWII when 35,000 Jews in Palestine applied for repatriation home, to Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany & Poland. Zionist leaders instigated foreign consular officials to block their exit visas. palestinenexus.com/articles/zioni…Image
Read 6 tweets
Aug 6
The last major case of intentional starvation in Palestine was during World War I. lessons from history. ⤵️
~11-16% of the population of what is today Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon died during the war, mostly from famine or famine related diseases. About 500,000 people.

During the war, the British, Russian & French navies blockaded the Eastern Mediterranean coast for a prolonged period of time, from December 1914 until 1918.

The blockade led to economic collapse in Palestine and elsewhere in the region. Tens of thousands of people lost their means of livelihood as a result.

The blockade led a shortage of critical goods, such as petroleum, essential to cook food and heat homes. In Palestine, the price of petroleum skyrocketed to five or six times its prewar price by April 1915, just six months into the war.
But Palestine is fertile and can produce its own food. Here, the problem was:

1) A massive locust attack in 1915 destroyed a lot of food.

2) the Ottoman government requisitioned the animals & took over the railways for military use.

Thus, it became prohibitively expensive to ship food via donkeys, camels or railways. The Ottoman State sabotaged the food delivery system.
Read 6 tweets
Jul 10
Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians was not a historical event or two or three that happened in 1948, 1967 or 2023. It's an ongoing process, a structure, that began in the late 19th century and has been ongoing to the present day. ⤵️
Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, Oct. 7, 2023 - the present: palestinenexus.com/articles/ethni…Image
Israel's Ethnic Cleansing of the Palestinians, 1968-1993: palestinenexus.com/articles/israe…Image
Read 6 tweets
Jun 26
Some of @PeterBeinart's best clips on the relationship between Zionism & the Jewish tradition. Trigger warning if you are a Zionist. A 🧵
How political Zionism is inherently oppressive:
How the institutional American Jewish life can no longer be considered Jewish:
Read 6 tweets
Jun 17
A brief history of Israeli leaders saying Iran = Nazis 🧵.
June 16, 2025: “We’ve targeted their top nuclear scientists ... it’s basically Hitler’s nuclear team.” -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internati…
June 12, 2025: “Eighty years ago, the Jewish people were the victims of a Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime...today, the Jewish state refuses to be a victim of a nuclear Holocaust perpetrated by the Iranian regime.” -Netanyahu msn.com/en-ca/news/wor…Image
Read 10 tweets
May 25
A brief history of Israeli Jewish support for mass murder in the Gaza Strip. A 🧵
In March 2025, a poll revealed Israeli Jewish society's support for genocide:

→ 82% support the forced expulsion of residents of Gaza
→ 47% believe the Israeli army should “act like the biblical Israelites under Joshua in Jericho—killing all inhabitants of a conquered city"
haaretz.co.il/magazine/2025-…
A Jan. 2024 poll found 95% of Jewish Israelis thought the Israeli military was using either the "appropriate" amount of force or "too little" force in Gaza at a time when Israel had already killed >25,700 Palestinians in Gaza. en-social-sciences.tau.ac.il/sites/socsci-e…Image
Read 8 tweets

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