In the week that Israelis and Palestinians agreed to return to the negotiating table after a three-year hiatus, I met with representatives of the “Popular Committees” in the West Bank village of Bil’in. They are behind what they call the “popular Palestinian struggle against the separation fence and the Israeli occupation.” During our meeting they stressed repeatedly that they regard their popular struggle as nonviolent and run it accordingly.
One word constantly tossed about was the Arabic term silmi, which has no equivalent in either Hebrew or English. It means something like “amiable” and is the opposite of “belligerent." On the other hand, the demonstrations and protests against the separation fence that began in the village of Mas’ha in Samaria in 2003 and spread to the villages of Budrus, Bil’in and Ni’lin, and from there to all the towns and villages surrounded by the separation fence, were not always conducted “amiably.”