Military
Resistance
and
Arab
and
Muslim
Liberation
By
Caise
D.
Hassan
Some
sympathizers
of
Arab
and
Muslim
liberation
movements
have criticized
their
use
of
violence:
They
state
that
the
gun
is
not
the
proper or
most
effective
way
to
free
a
people.
Violence,
they
argue,
cannot
defeat the
might
of
states
like
Israel
and
the
United
States.
Practicing
such violence
incurs
the
wrath
of
the
occupier;
it
also
contradicts
the
victims¹
claims
that
their
struggle
is
for
political
and
human
rights,
alienating potential
Western
or
Israeli
sympathizers.
The
conclusion
of
this
argument is
that
the
achievement
of
independence
comes
through
negotiation
and non-violence,
not
military
action.
However,
the
distinction
of
successful
recent
Arab
and
Muslim liberation
movements
is
that
their
violence
was
a
major
factor
in
the Invaders’
decisions
to
leave.
Here,
I
will
identify
several
of
these successes
and
explain
why
military
action
worked.
Before
doing
so,
I
will address
the
thoughtful
objection
to
violence
mentioned
above:
Guerrilla warfare
brings
the
wrath
of
the
powerful
upon
innocent
Arabs
and
Muslims.
Certainly,
a
revolutionary
movement
should
not
invite
casualties
upon its
people.
Israel,
for
example,
willfully
can
bomb
Arab
neighborhoods
in
a manner
that
is
far
bloodier
than
a
Palestinian
attack
on
Israelis.
But
we
can
recognize
that
occupier
violence
is
independent
of
the
level of
violence
committed
by
the
colonized.
It
is
the
fact
that
the
colonized are
revolting
through
any
means--violent
or
non-violent--that
convinces
the occupier
to
“punish”
the
collective.
As
Arabs
and
Muslims
demand
the
end
of foreign
rule,
the
powerful
will
fight
back
to
inflict
humiliation
and
grief upon
those
who
revolt
and,
ultimately,
to
gain
the
subjects’
submission.
These
attacks
happen
both
before
and
after
violent
resistance
from
a
people;
they
are
not
necessarily
a
calculated
response
to
guerrilla
violence.
The
Palestinian
situation
in
the
late
1980s
and
1990s
and
the
Bosnian genocide
illustrate
that
Arabs
and
Muslims
may
experience
mass
murder
and expulsion
even
though
they
pursue
only
political
action
to
achieve
their independence.
From
the
start
of
the
first
Intifada,
Israeli
Defense
Minister Yitzhak
Rabin
asserted
that
Israeli
troops
will
“break
the
bones”
of
the children
demonstrating.
The
world¹s
fourth
largest
army
killed
over
400 Palestinians
and
wounded
20,000
the
first
year
of
the
Intifada.
Palestinian military
action
was
comparatively
minor.
During
the
entire
Intifada,
Palestinians
killed
100
Israelis,
mainly
soldiers
in
Gaza,
trespasses
that do
not
justify
Rabin¹s
measures.
Israeli
violence
continued
into
the
Oslo period,
even
though
the
P.L.O.
ended
its
armed
resistance.
The
Israeli
air force
kept
bombing
civilian
areas,
most
notable,
the
Q¹ana
refugee
camp
in Lebanon.
The
Bosnian
attempt
at
peaceful
succession
from
Yugoslavia
brought
even more
dire
consequences.
Serbian
leaders
threatened
the
Bosnian
Muslims
when they
affirmed
their
sovereignty.
Serb
Democratic
Party
head
Radovan
Karadzic told
the
Muslim
leaders
that,
by
declaring
independence,
they
are
leading The
“Muslim
nation”
into
oblivion
because
“they
have
no
means
of
defending themselves”
in
a
war.
Karadzic
and
the
other
Serbian
nationalists
delivered their
promise
when,
led
by
President
Slobodan
Milosevic,
they
“cleansed”
and expelled
tens
of
thousands
of
Muslims
from
Yugoslavia.
The
expulsions
abated when
the
Bosnians
began
to
defend
themselves
and
after
belated
Western military
intervention.
The
possible
casualties
Arabs
and
Muslims
will
incur due
to
their
military
action
is
hence
not
a
valid
reason
for
abstaining
from military
revolt;
occupiers
are
as
likely
to
kill
the
non-violent
as
they
are the
armed.
Occupation
ends
when
the
invaders
can
no
longer
bear
the
death
of soldiers
who
police
the
occupation.
The
resistance
to
Israel
and
the
United States
in
the
Arab
world
supports
this
thesis,
whether
that
of
Egypt
in 1973,
or
of
popular
insurgencies
in
Palestine,
Lebanon,
and
Iraq.
Mindful that
there
are
multiple
motivations
for
withdrawal,
I
will
discuss
how military
resistance
was
a
