Violence and non-violence have both been employed in the Palestianian conflict throughout all of the phases of the Palestinian struggle for national formation.

WBEZ’s Worldview interviews Wendy Pearlman, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and author of Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Although Pearlman is a political scientist, she attempts to construct a historical analysis of violence in Palestine over the past century. Pearlman argues that Palestinians have historically utilized diverse political strategies that employ different mixtures of armed and unarmed resistance to Jewish nationalism and Israeli occupation.  Her study of non-violent resistance is relevant in analyzing the current wave of hunger strikes by Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.

Pearlman’s study also has broader implications for studying the history of violence beyond the Palestinian conflict.

Northern Illinois University students working on the history of violence, including those who have taken HIST 640 Religious Violence in Comparative Perspective will be interested in this interview and in Pearlman’s publications.

Update: NPR reports that non-violent protests such as hunger strikes are increasingly effective in the Palestinian conflict.