“If only the Palestinians had better leadership.” I often hear this point from well-intentioned, but in this case at least misguided, pro-Israeli friends and colleagues. They continue to bemoan, “If only they had a Ghandi or an MLK.”

And one can surely make a logical case about previous and current Palestinian (and other Arab) leadership missing the mark. But there are a few more interesting points here. First of all, a Ghandi or an MLK prototype a priori requires the background of either an oppressive colonizing regime or a brutally racist one. Either scenario is not quite ideal, and is fascinating to me that folks, in trying to highlight flawed Palestinian resistance, inadvertently draw this moral parallel to today’s Israel.

Yes — if only. But does this “if only” negate the facts of what has happened, of the conditions ordinary people find themselves in every day? As I wrote in the first of these “A Passover Message” series two years ago, “the idea of helping your neighbor is strongly built into the major monotheistic religions. Standing still as your neighbor is wiped out by a heavenly force, or even by his or her own actions, would never be condoned by Judaism or Islam if not for extenuating circumstances.”

I still hold these notions that certain people are not born better or worse than others, and that nobody is born with the intention of killing anyone else. A few months ago, fellow columnist Munier Salem ’10 challenged readers to respond to his column regarding the December war against Gaza by beginning a letter with the sentence: “I think 300-plus child deaths were warranted because ______.” Likewise, I too challenge anyone to respond to a different prompt: How would you, personally, react to living in situations similar to those in Gaza? You could start your letter with the statement, “If I were a Palestinian there right now, I would ______.”

But this is not a fair challenge — because most likely, reader, you are here in the USA, sitting in Libe Café or at a comparably comfortable locale, reading this and not living it. So I adapt the words of somebody who actually lived it — American non-violent resistor Rachel Corrie, who lived in Rafah in 2003. I use Corrie as an example, partially because her name as an American does not come with the automatic stigmatization and assumed bias of being Palestinian.

Corrie wrote an e-mail to her mother during this time, explaining, “I thought a lot about what you said on the phone, about Palestinian violence not helping anything.” And Corrie continues on with the conclusions she’s reached based solely on what she has seen:

“If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at any moment … do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments remained? ... I really think, in a similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could.”

A typical trajectory to me seems to be this one, that destruction and fear breed fanatic ideologies breed violence. This course is one that needs to be challenged, yes. But it takes an extraordinary person to individually overcome that trajectory, and an extraordinary leader to help others overcome it as well — the exception, not the rule.

But there have indeed been nonviolent protests and extraordinary people, and it is quite telling to examine Israel’s reaction to these. Rachel Corrie was one of them, and she died in March 2003. She was, at the time of her death, standing in front of her friend Sama Nasrallah’s home wearing a bright orange suit as per International Solidarity Movement guidelines. She was run over by an IDF bulldozer — though, many people will be tempted to point out if I don’t, it is debatable whether the driver saw her or not. You can gauge the testimonies and photos to come to a conclusion for yourself, because at this point it is word against word. But the IDF’s documented reaction itself says more than these fruitless arguments can prove. Israel’s official statement? “A group of protesters were acting very irresponsibly, putting everyone in danger — the Palestinians, themselves and our forces — by intentionally placing themselves in a combat zone.” Corrie has even been labeled a terrorist supporter by some for literally standing up for the same exact principles that the state of Israel was allegedly founded on — solidarity, safety and security for a kindred.

Lest we think this extraordinary diffusion of responsibility is an isolated incident, how about documentarian James Miller, who, while filming a documentary called Death in Gaza, was shot by the IDF? Israel’s response — “The Israeli military expresses sorrow at a civilian death, but it must be stressed that a cameraman who knowingly enters a combat zone, especially at night, endangers himself.”

In other words, the IDF can declare any neighborhood with real lives — children, adults, homes, gardens, not so different from mine and yours — a combat zone and if I step in there, it’s my fault if I’m killed. If nonviolent resistors can’t peacefully protest in any area that Israel, with its carte blanche (and fatal military might) declares a combat zone, then what can we do? What can we actually do, when civilians are blamed for protecting their houses from bulldozers? If only such a situation were once again able to yield a transcendent leader like Gandhi or MLK …

I was almost stumped about IDF-approved means of resistance, but I figured out something this Passover to which Israel can’t possibly object. I think I read it in a brochure somewhere, and it involves lots of seemingly-gruesome (but effective!) stuff like frogs and blood and vermin … ah, yes! The Ten Plagues! The Ten Plagues — all leading up to the slaying and drowning of a whole class of ancient Egyptians! Perhaps these are the only IDF-approved means of resistance, since they are taken from Jewish folklore.

The logistics of how to make hail fall on command and where to get all the wild beasts from … we can figure it out later. But surely nobody could object to strategies that the Hebrews themselves resorted to, in order to gain their own freedom? Right?