I found this video on this blog, so check out the original post. Julia Bacha is a 30-year-old Brazilian-American filmmaker and director of Budrus, which chronicles the successful campaign of the residents of the tiny Palestinian village of Budrus (بدروس) to peacefully resist the Israeli army's attempts to build a "security barrier" through their town, next to their children's school, through their olive groves, and through their cemetery. The New York Times review describes the film as "Eyes on the Prize with olive trees." A pithy summation, to be sure, but a little too glib for the subject matter. The olive trees destroyed by the Israeli bulldozers are the bread and butter of the local economy, as well as their connection to their ancestors. (In the end, Israel pulled back and built the Wall along the pre-'67 borders to the west.)
In the above-embedded video, Bacha forcefully indicts the Western media for giving short shrift to the peaceful resistance displayed in the Budrus uprising, while sensationalizing those in the Palestinian community who instead engage in violence to get their point across. She invokes child psychology (I'm undecided about whether her analogy comes across as condescending) to explain how Western media are actually reinforcing the violent undercurrent in Palestinian society.
If you're interested in the tactics of peaceful resistance, an excellent (and brief) summary of the Gandhian concept of satyagraha can be found here. (The best in-depth study remains Gandhi's own Satyagraha in South Africa (1926). (You can find the full text here.) Satyagraha is a Hindi word which loosely translates as "truth-force" or "soul-force;" it calls for active resistance against injustice without the use of physical violence, for noncooperation without enmity. Courage in the face of overwhelming odds is its defining attribute.
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