In the Middle East it is never a mistake to be pessimistic. True, good things can happen. The peace process can resume, the Israeli right wing can be silenced. Hamas can be neutralized. Netanyahu can reconsider his rejection of the 1967 borders and capitalize on his spectacular success with Congress by looking forward instead of backward and staging a Nixon-in-China coup. He can offer his hand in friendship to the Palestinians and leaders on both sides can give assurances that, henceforth, they would attempt to downplay the religious aspects of the conflict and concentrate on secular, i.e., manageable issues.
But it would be wise to assume that none of these things will happen. On the contrary, the opposite should be expected. During the next three months, the Palestinians will have their eyes fixed on a unilateral proclamation of a Palestinian state at the U.N.’s General Assembly in September and on soliciting support for this defiant showdown.
It would also be wise to expect that this move on the diplomatic front will be accompanied by even more dramatic events on the ground. This is suggested by the rallies on Nakba Day, May 15, the anniversary of the 1948 founding of the Israeli state, when tens of thousands of Palestinians stormed the checkpoints on Israel’s borders and Israeli security forces shot down several of them. The Palestinian press saw these rallies as evidence of a spontaneous upsurge of national consciousness. And Egypt has just relaxed restrictions at its border with the Gaza Strip, allowing many Palestinians to cross freely for the first time in four years. With elections coming in Egypt, the change in policy is likely to be popular with a public sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
So what should Israel do to prepare for the double assault in September – at the U.N. in New York, and a repeat performance of the May 15 Nakba Day rallies – on a huge scale, to be covered by television networks all over the world? But this time these initiatives would not merely be rallies but actual civilian invasions by many thousands of men and women and children – why not? – universally publicized as non-violent and peaceful, and presented as part and parcel of the continuing, ever-growing Arab revolution. These mass visitations would be a novel exercise of soft power, an entirely new and highly effective form of 21st-century warfare.
During the next three months, Israel should mobilize all its considerable intellectual resources to devise non-violent means to deal with such a situation. The defence and security forces must be trained to resist their reflex to shoot. This will require enormous, almost inhuman restraint and discipline. They have been conditioned to use force and now they have to go against their training and against their instincts. If Israelis use force to restrain the peaceful invaders while the whole world is watching, they would put themselves in the same category as the despised, discredited dictators and lose whatever is left of the international goodwill they have enjoyed in the heroic years after 1948.
September 2011 may well pose as great a challenge as the one the grandparents of the present generation faced on Nakba Day.
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
