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the narrative according to which the Palestinians should blame Hamas for the current Israeli assault. It is only in the fourth paragraph that we get a more accurate framing of the conflict: Make no mistake: While we must stand against violence in all forms, this "war" is a one-sided conflict between a military which is one of the largest and best-equipped in the world, the Israeli Defense Forces, who enjoy widespread support from the U.S. military industrial complex, and a people whose lands have been steadily dwindling for decades. Yet, to the question of why are the Palestinian lands dwindling, we get no answer. To underscore the lack of clarity of this passage it is also worth noting that the word occupation is perhaps the most conspicuous omission of the entire communiqu. In fact, it is conveniently delegated to piece that follows OccupyWallStreet.org's statement, the Gazan Youths Manifesto for Change; sadly, one of the most nihilistic and disempowering statements or resistance Ive read in a while. But the icing on the cake (or should I say, political sausage?) can be found toward the end of the statement: The bombs over Gaza and Tel Aviv are merely the most dramatic example of a global system that seeks to rob us all of our right to live peacefully. For the sake of clarity, lets take Gaza out of the picture for a moment: the bombs over Tel Aviv are merely the most dramatic example of a global system that seeks to rob us all of our right to live peacefully. Really OWS? Can we really take away the right to self-defense of the Palestinian people by explaining their understandable response, even though vain and perhaps counterproductive, in terms of the global military-industrial complex? Would OWS draw the same moral equivalence had the American people being subjected to even a sliver of the humiliation endured by the Palestinians in the past five decades? Did OWS equate the resistance of the Egyptian people in Tahrir square which, I am afraid to say, involved acts of violence as self-defense to the acts of the Egyptian military? In order to strike a balance between Hamas and the IDF OccupyWallStreet.org is invoking a notion of pacifism which is quite callous and unrealistic to say the least. While Gandhi was a pacifist, he did not try to take away the right to self-defense of the Indian people. In fact, he clearly understood the difference between aggression and self-defense. Something that OWS seems unable to do, at least when it comes to the Palestinians. In What Gandhi Says, a book incidentally dedicated to Occupy, Norman Finkelstein writes: Gandhi has been reduced to a mantra equating his name with nonviolence. But his thought and practice are much more complex, and contradictory, than this formula suggests. The real Gandhi did loathe violence but he loathed cowardice more than violence. If his constituents could not find the inner wherewithal to resist nonviolently, then he exhorted them to find the courage to hit back those who assaulted or demeaned them. (11-12) Yet, OWS, a movement which claims to be inspired by Gandhian principles, doesnt seem to get what Gandhi says, at least when it comes to OccupyWallStreet.org, one of its most prominent virtual incarnations. In fact, nowhere in the entire statement do the words "condemn" and "Israel" appear in the same sentence. Apparently, the best they could do was to use the generic we condemn violence from all sides formula. This is quite unfortunate because in order to accommodate the extremely distorted political landscape in the United States vis a vis the Palestinian issue OWS risks to lose its credibility as a global champion of the 99%.