Tag Archives: Nonviolence

August 2026 Supplement to Nonviolent News 341

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SUPPLEMENT to Number 341, Belfast, 1st August 2026

Please note this is a relatively short supplement with mainly time-limited or immediate information, not a full issue (the next one will appear at the start of September)

ICND: Annual commemoration of Hiroshima bombing, Dublin

This year will mark the 81st anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, which took place on 6th August 1945. Irish CND will be holding the customary annual commemoration in Merrion Square in Dublin. 

The ceremony will take place at the memorial cherry tree in Merrion Square Park, Dublin, at 1.10 pm o Thursday 6th August. There will be short speeches by Lord Mayor of Dublin Daryl Barron, Japanese Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission in Ireland, Mr Koji Hirohata, and Afri Board member, Dr Patrick Bresnihan (Maynooth University). There will also be contributions of music and poetry, and a wreath of flowers will be laid at the tree at the close of the commemoration. Both Irish CND and Afri are members of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), so it is fitting that both organisations are involved in the commemoration.  

An estimated 80,000 people were directly killed by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, with casualties reaching 140,000 within a year. Approximately 12,500 nuclear weapons remain in the world today, more than enough to destroy life on earth as we know it many times over.

ICND continues “Sadly, the dark shadow of the possibility of nuclear war looms more grimly than perhaps ever before. Spending on nuclear weapons reached more than $119 billion last year, a shocking new high, with more than half of this expenditure deriving from the United States. Nuclear weapons states are all engaged in modernising their arsenals and delivery systems. Five of the nine nuclear-armed states have engaged in international military attacks in the past year alone. It would only take a moment of madness to plunge the world into an irreversible nuclear war.

Yet there are positive signs of progress. More countries continue to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons each year. The Treaty has now been signed or ratified by 100 countries, more than half the recognised states in the world. The first Review Conference of the Treaty will take place later this year. 

We must meet darkness with the light of positive hope and determination. We look forward to welcoming as many of you as possible to our commemoration in Merrion Square, remembering eight decades of the legacy of nuclear destruction. Wherever you are, even if you are not in a position to join us in person this year, please do join us in spirit to stand in solidarity with the victims of these horrific weapons of mass destruction, and to affirm our determination to work for their elimination, the only way to ensure that the ghastly events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will not be repeated.”  http://irishcnd.blogspot.ie/ www.afri.ie

Hiroshima, Nagasaki lantern vigil, Belfast, 5th August evening

There will be a commemorative lantern vigil held at the Big Fish/Donegall Quay/Lagan Weir from 9.00pm – 11.30pm on Wednesday 5th August to mark the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and stand for nuclear disarmament today. As Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann is on in Belfast at this time with a main stage at the City Hall, the Big Fish was chosen as an alternative venue….but attendees can combine a visit to the Fleadh with the vigil (or vice versa!). Bring a lantern or failing that a candle in a jar. The event is organised by INNATE innate@ntlworld.com and see flyer at https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Hiroshima-Nagasaki-vigil-26.08.pdf Lantern vigils are being promoted by Pax Christi International https://paxchristi.net/lanterns-for-peace-from-hiroshima-to-the-world/ and this address includes instructions for making your own lantern……

Afri Doolough walk video, sponsored cycle in September

Afri’s Doolough ‘Famine’ Walk is always a powerful occasion and you can visit or revisit the June event of this year in a 14 minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayK0TILHiLk and there are photos at https://lightroom.adobe.com/shares/1e90b33ca4a643bfb8d64e8f7aa35e0f Donnah Vuma’s reflections at the walk are at https://www.rundale.org/2026/07/21/what-doolough-asks-of-us/ and Patrick Bresnihan’s at https://www.rundale.org/2026/07/21/republic-or-empire/ The 2027 ‘Famine’ Walk will be on 19th June next year.

Meanwhile on 12th September there is a sponsored ‘Famine’ Walk Solidarity Cycle on the same Louisburgh-Doolough-Louisburgh route (both ways) led by Joe Murray, former Afri coordinator, and Richard Moore, of Children in Crossfire. This will support Afri’s work for peace, justice, human rights and sustainability. The start will be in Louisburgh Town Hall at 12 noon. More info at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O3vp3_a8Cy5MEXA2KTn6pVfZNyt57rN9/view

Demilitarise for the Just Transition!

The third annual Week of Action for Peace & Climate Justice, backed by a wide variety of groups, is taking place from 21st – 27th September and will address the links between war, militarism/militarisation and social, economic and climate injustice; the title of the week is Divest from War – Invest in The Just Transition! It will promote grassroots action and policymaking to confront both genocide and ecocide – for peace and a just systemic transition. As the Week of Action website states “amid escalating climate change effects and their disastrous toll on social and economic well-being, governments across the globe are militarising at pace. Over the last two years, a majority of NATO and EU states have committed to historic increases in military spending while gutting public funds for real climate and biodiversity action, overseas aid, social welfare, migrant justice, civil society and peacebuilding. This trend is echoed globally and, indeed, has global consequences for people and planetary health.”   See https://climatemilitarism.org/weekofaction/ Source: War Resisters’ International www.wri-irg.org

Peace News rides again

British peace publication Peace News (founded 1936) restarts publication in September with a relaunch pilot issue after a couple of years hiatus. The new ‘PN’ will be quarterly in full colour magazine format. They state “PN will continue to be a space for news, reflection, analysis and promotion of pacifism, anti-militarism, and nonviolence, of campaigns and actions for social, economic and environmental justice. We aim to have a wide range of contributors and book reviewers, and encourage broad discussion through comment articles and a lively letters page.” A new editor has still to be appointed – the post will be advertised in the first issue – but an admin worker, Maryam Namazie, is in place. Subscription rates are still to be announced. editorial@peacenews.info

From Othering to Belonging

john a. powell is director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley   https://belonging.berkeley.edu/ and a highly regarded thinker in the US on racism, identity, democracy and belonging. He visited Ireland in early June as a guest of Social Change Initiative and the Community Foundation Ireland. His thinking provides a very useful counterpoint to concepts about scapegoating and division, as in Northern Ireland. See https://www.socialchangeinitiative.com/from-othering-to-belonging-creating-a-world-where-everyone-belongs

l Attitudes in the Republic of Ireland towards immigration, trans rights, class, wealth and public housing are more progressive and inclusive than the narrative of polarisation dominating national debate – according to Hope and Courage Collective‘s first Ireland in Focus report, which tracks key developments, trends and events from 2024 to 2025. https://tinyurl.com/36sa3n7x with full report at https://hopeandcourage.ie/ireland-in-focus-mind-the-gap/

On democracy

Deciding how decisions are made is often the most important decision that people make. There is a new short exposition of the de Borda Institute www.deborda.org approach; “Democracy is for everybody, not just a majority, and definitely not just the majority. True democracy leaves no community behind.” See https://www.tasc.ie/blog/2026/07/24/democracy-is-for-everybody-not-just-a-majority-and-definitely-not-just-the-majority/

Síolta Chroí courses

Síolta Chroí run regular courses and you can sign up to receive their news at https://sioltachroi.ie/ and click on ‘Get updates’. Their aim is to “teach people how to grow food in ways that heal the land, strengthen communities, and create a healthier future.” Upcoming courses include ones on food fermentation (15th August) with Laura and Ruairí of Bio Cultures and one on 3rd October on seeds and seed-saving with Conor O’Kane, to mention just a couple. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/sioltachroi Síolta Chroí, Aghacloghan, Carrickmacross, Monaghan A81C998.

Editorials: Racism, Nonviolence

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Racing against racism

Northern Ireland seems to have moved from having sectarian disturbances in the summer to racist attacks and pogroms. These have now happened three years in a row. It is no accident given that sectarianism and racism are close relations and the North has traditions of violence; scapegoating and othering is a habit that dies hard, and one that is used by some people, particularly on the political right, to create unrest and try to create support for their vicious creeds. Sectarian attacks have decreased and racist attacks have escalated. Nor is the Republic immune from right wing racist thuggery, that is also clear from previous rioting, attacks, and the fear felt by people who are recognisably ‘other’ than the majority ‘white’ – pink – population.

It is clear from the most recent racist violence in the North that racists were and are primed ready to use any excuse deemed suitable to trigger violence and a pogrom against people from a minority ethnic background. Lists of addresses occupied by migrants had been already circulated over some months when the incident happened involving an attack by a Sudanese man, and we don’t know his motivation or situation regarding mental health. While the violence and rioting was not orchestrated by loyalist paramilitaries there were certainly loyalists involved, and the paramilitaries did nothing to stop it. However clearly many of those involved in the rioting and attacks on black and coloured people were very young and for some there was undoubtedly the thrill of engaging in arson and physical violence, so-called ‘recreational violence’.

One of the ironies involved, apart from in some cases people thrashing their own area (and a knock on effect on the North’s current reputation, such as it is), is that Northern Ireland has a much lower level of migrants living in the jurisdiction than either the Republic or Britain. Northern Ireland has a total of around 6% migrants, half of whom have ‘white’ skin, so there is only 3% black or coloured residents in the North. The Republic has 20% of its people born elsewhere. In the UK as a whole the proportion of migrants is around 17% though more than double that in London and ethnic minorities are much longer established in Britain than either part of Ireland with a much higher proportion of ethnic minority citizens born in the state. So Northern Ireland is the region of the UK with by far the lowest number of migrants but the highest level of pogrom-type violence, a factor emanating from its sectarian history.

Brendan McNally, the brother of murder victim Natalie McNally (killed along with her unborn baby in a deviously planned attack by her erstwhile partner, a white native of Northern Ireland) has made a pertinent point on social media: he slammed “patriots” following the racist attacks and questioned where they were when his sister was killed. He said “…the murder of women by a current or former partner is a grave and recurring phenomenon in our society…almost half of the murders in Northern Ireland in recent years have a domestic abuse motivation. I didn’t see much of the same angry outcry and mobilisation from so called ‘patriots’ then, using the toxic mudslide of distortion and misinformation of their social media platforms. I wonder what the difference is?”

It is no accident that racist rioting tends to happen in working class areas which in general receive a raw deal from the state. This is true North or South of the border. The lack of positive challenges and involvement through youth centres or detached youth work, the lack of decent job prospects, the poor level of education for many (and particularly so for working class Protestant males) in the North, are all factors in creating a culture of disenchantment which can be turned into violence. That is not an excuse for violence but it is certainly a contributory cause.

It is also noticeable that, while racism and racist attacks can be found anywhere on the island of Ireland, the racist violence and pogroms of the last few years in the North have substantially been in Protestant areas. There are partly ideological and historical reasons for this. Nationalism and republicanism are, in theory at least, inclusive even if that was not the case for violent republicanism in the Troubles; if you are here you are part, or potentially part, of the Irish nation. Some community groups of all varieties pride themselves on working hard to be welcoming and inclusive. However unionism and loyalism tend to more exclusive, if you are not with us you are against us, and that can spill over into racism. And, again, largely for historical reasons, PUL/Protestant Unionist Loyalist politics tends to be to the right of CNR/Catholic Nationalist Republican politics, and this is another contributory factor. But none of these factors have operated in racist violence in the Republic.

Migration is a natural phenomenon. Human migration has been happening since before the emergence of so-called homo sapiens. https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Migration_swallow.pdf Europe and the rich world needs migration because of its low birth rates. We are not disputing that some regulation is necessary but scapegoating and penalising asylum seekers leaving impossible situations and migrants trying to build better lives for themselves is a cruel aspect of modern life. And rich countries have only a small fraction of the asylum seekers of the world.

The race against racism is to establish the right of everyone here to be respected, to contribute to society, and be free of fear, and to do so before new patterns of racism become totally established (e.g. pogroms when a migrant is perceived to have done a violent act). Unfortunately with three successive years of racist violence taking place in the North, and the link with sectarianism, it is possible that the pattern is already established. This creates issues for anti-racist civil society but in the recent racist violence in the North many rose to the challenge; Kate Laverty’s beautiful piece on support for those threatened by racist violence appears in her column in this issue.

Nonviolence, 1, 2, 3

Nonviolence is a multifaceted concept and practice. Like any approach to life it has weaknesses as well as strengths but for both pragmatic and moral reasons it is necessary; the pragmatic reasons include ensuring the survival of humankind, and assisting successful and less painful outcomes to conflict. There certainly is power that grows out of the barrel of a gun (weapons of all kinds) but that can take us back to a situation far worse than the law of the jungle, and humanity has perpetrated atrocities that no animal in the jungle would engage in. We are in a situation where pressing a few buttons and inputting a few codes and life as we know it would disappear. As it is, life for all of us will be transformed by global heating and the dislocation and violence arising from that.

People sometimes have the notion that nonviolence only works in ‘liberal’ societies where such action is tolerated. This is certainly not so as Chenoweth and Stephan’s empirical research clearly shows. Depending on the situation, however, the time frame for nonviolence working may be different to violence, and there is nothing to guarantee success in life, but it is as good as it gets for results.

It may depend partly on our temperament, it may depend on our sense of justice, and it may depend on the circumstances we find ourselves; we can be involved in nonviolent action as first, second or third parties. We may work only in one of these categories, we may be involved in all three in relation to different issues, but there is a distinction and a tension between being involved in third party action on an issue and the other two.

First party action is where ‘I’ or ‘we’ (an individual, a family, a group, an organisation or a society or country) struggle for justice and equality. The civil rights movement in the USA or Northern Ireland in the 1960s would have been partly ‘first party’ action in that the people – black people and Catholics respectively – affected by injustice were struggling for their own liberation – assisted by others. These ‘others’ were committed to justice for all and involved in ‘second party’ solidarity. If we are directly affected by an issue or situation it is clearly in our interests to deal with it – but it may also be in the interests of the whole society, and inimical to anyone believing in justice. Many of those who campaign for just treatment for people with a particular debilitating life condition are likely to be the family and friends of those in that situation; they may straddle the line between first and second party activists.

We may be so done down by powerful injustice that we cannot stand up for ourselves. We may be bought off with bread and circuses, or by propaganda. But once we become conscientised on an issue we are likely going to stand up for ourselves. The level or oppression or apathy may determine what we can do for ourselves. But second party supporters may be of great assistance; this was the case with ending apartheid in South Africa when the issue became a global one with ramifications in South Africa itself which led to the possibility of change.

There are a million and one possibilities in second party, solidarity, action. We may get involved in support because we identify with a particular issue or struggle. Many in Ireland have become involved in solidarity with Palestine because they see clear injustice in the denial of a state and economic, political and military oppression; awareness of the history of Ireland may cause clear identification with the Palestinian cause. Of course there are Palestinians in Ireland involved in action for justice for Palestine and for them it is ‘first party’ action.

We may also get involved in second party action because of our human commitment to justice, peace and/or global sustainability. This general commitment then takes us towards more specific solidarity work. However green activism can also straggle first and second party action since ecological issues affect us all. The world is living on borrowed time in so many ways, in relation to violence, to climate change, and to overuse of resources.

Third party intervention is somewhat different in that our commitment to justice and peace brings us to work to bring different parties together to resolve their differences or to prevent further injustice or violence. As a mediator or conciliator our attention may be to a specific issue or more generalised conflict, and, as with all such situations, the ‘presenting issue’ (what is initially raised) may not be the major underlying concern or only one of many. The involvement of a third party might just be for a limited period such as a mediation process that the parties agree to undertake. A conciliation process may also be for a limited time, assisting communication and understanding between parties in a crisis – or it may be for a much longer time period as with the work of Quaker House in Belfast over a couple of decades in trying to develop understanding and interaction between sides in the North and more widely those involved.

The problem for third party intervention, which can include monitoring of one form or another as well as mediation and conciliation, is how ‘neutral’ or ’impartial’ is it to be? If you became directly involved in solidarity with one party in a conflict you would certainly no longer be considered impartial and your services would almost automatically be rejected by the other party or parties. But while you may privately be totally sympathetic to one party in a conflict your public manner demands that your involvement does not treat the sides differently. This does not preclude a mediator working with one party to help prepare their involvement when they are too weak or unprepared to do so. The term ‘balanced partiality’ is perhaps applicable here, at least to some extent.

The third party mediator’s commitment to justice means that they will not tolerate a fundamentally unjust agreement between the parties. But the agreement is fundamentally for the parties themselves to make and it may be a good or a poor agreement – a mediator will have pushed to make it an agreement which not only covers the issue but is likely to hold and be implemented.

The third party role is more constrained than that of the first or second parties. It is not value-less, it is value-able. INNATE has been involved recently in training monitors for situations of racial tension in Northern Ireland (and for decades in promoting monitoring concerning situations of political tension). Those involved are certainly not engaging because they are neutral between racism and anti-racism, they are certainly anti-racist, but, if deployed, they would equally ‘call out’ inappropriate by action by police, anti-migrant protesters or anti-racist protesters.

First, second and third party activism can all be part of nonviolence. Where you involve yourself may depend on your temperament, your politics and worldview, and the circumstances you find yourself in. All are needed. There are however boundaries, particularly between third party intervention and the other two which we need to be aware of and, where possible, respect. Of course it is possible that someone involved in third party intervention feels the need to jump to involvement in direct support on an issue, second party intervention, but they are then likely to forfeit the right and the possibility of continuing as a third party actor in the situation. While majoring on second and first party action, INNATE is involved in promoting the possibilities of nonviolence through all three approaches which can at times be a difficult balancing act – but all are appropriate responses depending on the situation.

And the situations which we face in life range from the interpersonal, the local and community, the regional, national and international. We may not personally face the issue of mediating between Iran and the USA but we do face different levels of conflict in our life. And we might be primarily a mediator or conciliator with family and friends while being a first or second party activist at a national or international level. We can occupy different spaces. But we do well to remember that old adage “The personal is political’ in all that we do and are.

Nonviolence and 1, 2, 3 modes of intervention. You choose.

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty

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Nonviolent engagement

This weekend, nonviolence found me in a bookshop.

Usually, I encounter it in the natural world — in cliffs and rain, in wind through trees, in the stillness that reminds me I am part of something larger and slower than the urgency of modern life. Nature steadies me. It teaches restraint, interdependence, humility. It is where my spirit recalibrates.

But this weekend, in Edinburgh, it arrived differently.

Among dusty shelves and uneven floors in vintage bookshops, I found myself returning to older roots — history, memory, stories carried through paper. There is something quietly restorative about second-hand books; they hold traces of previous lives, previous hands, previous thoughts. They resist disposability. They ask us to slow down.

And sitting there, reading a history of Arsenal F.C. — because, as any youth worker knows, supporting a football team is essentially a professional requirement — I found myself reflecting on the club’s recent partnership with Deel. Deel is a global HR and payroll platform co-founded in 2019 by French-Israeli entrepreneur Alex Bouaziz who has spoken in support of IDF and the genocide in Palestine.

It would be easy not to think about it too deeply. Football is saturated with corporate sponsorship. We are conditioned to accept branding as background noise. But nonviolence, at least as I understand it, asks us to remain awake to systems — to notice what becomes normal, what becomes invisible, what values are quietly being reinforced.

So I sat with the discomfort.

What does it mean to love a club while remaining critical of the economic and corporate structures around it? What does ethical support look like in a world where identity and consumption are increasingly intertwined? Can you still belong while refusing unquestioning participation?

For me, the answer is yes. Nonviolence is not purity. It is practice. It is the ongoing discipline of refusing to surrender moral reflection simply because something is popular, profitable, or culturally embedded. It is recognising that we are always participating in systems, but still asking how we might do so more consciously, more ethically, more humanely.

So no, I won’t buy the new kit. Not because I reject the club, but because I care enough to remain attentive. To hold affection and critique together. To resist the idea that loyalty requires silence.

Youth work teaches this too. Young people do not need adults who perform certainty. They need adults willing to think critically, act ethically, and model that belonging does not require abandoning conscience. And perhaps that is part of what nonviolence really is, not withdrawal from the world,
but deeper engagement with it. A refusal to stop asking questions. A refusal to let comfort replace ethics. A commitment to living gently and truthfully within systems that often encourage neither.

This weekend, I found that reminder not on a mountainside, but between old books, in the quiet turning of pages, and in the strange grace of paying attention.

Community – the past is present

This week, I met a man who once imagined something into being. Not an idea in the abstract, but a place. A meeting point. A vision that would eventually become Forthspring — the community I now have the privilege of helping to lead. https://www.forthspring.org/

What struck me most was not nostalgia. It was continuity.

The Reverend Sam Birch is a prominent Methodist minister in Belfast known for his extensive peacebuilding work during and after the Troubles. During the height of the Troubles, Rev. Birch gained recognition for his quiet but vital cross-community work, which famously included partnering with Redemptorist priest Father Gerry Reynolds to reach out to grieving families across sectarian divides.

The vision Sam Birch had has not dimmed with time. It remains bright, rooted in people, sustained by relationship, animated by the belief that community matters deeply. As he spoke, he returned constantly to others — to connection, to encounter, to the importance of creating spaces where people can belong across difference.

And I realised how much of that vision still lives. Not only in the building itself, but in the daily practice of what happens there: tea shared across divides, young people finding safety, communities choosing relationship over retreat. Forthspring was never simply about services. It was — and is — about sustaining human connection in a world that increasingly fragments it.

That feels profoundly linked to the principles of nonviolence. Not nonviolence as passivity, but as intentional, relational work. The understanding that peace is not merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice, dialogue, participation, and shared humanity.

Nonviolence begins in how we see one another. It is built through spaces where people are listened to, where dignity is practised, where fear does not get the final word. It asks us to resist the easy pull towards isolation, suspicion, and dehumanisation, and instead to remain committed to relationship — especially when it is difficult.

That is what I heard in his reflections this week. A belief that communities are not sustained through control or performance, but through care. Through ordinary acts of welcome. Through people willing to hold open spaces where others can gather, speak, disagree, heal, and imagine differently together.

In many ways, sustaining Forthspring now feels like inheriting not only a building, but a practice of nonviolence. A commitment to connection in a culture of division. A commitment to encounter in a time of withdrawal. A commitment to hope that is active, not naïve. And perhaps that is why his vision still feels so alive.

Because the need for places like Forthspring has not disappeared. If anything, it has become more urgent.

– – – – –

Editorials: Blockades and nonviolence, European security

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Blockades and nonviolence

The recent fuel price blockades by some farmers and hauliers in the Republic raise a significant number of questions about what constitutes peaceful and nonviolent action. There have been very variable, and mixed, reactions and emotions involved and these are understandable. The government chose to negotiate with official, existing bodies representing the sectors involved rather than the protesters themselves and there were concessions made. The protests were in that regard partly successful, even if the concessions were rather less than protesters wanted. There has been a contrast between the strength of the protests in the Republic, dealing with a local and sovereign government, and the lack of protests in the North where the chances of influencing the government in London, who decide on fuel duties, are very slim.

The first thing to say is that the blockades were peaceful but they were blockades. Some protesters refused to use the term ‘blockade’ but they clearly were that; preventing people going about their normal business and stopping traffic by placing vehicles in the way is clearly a blockade. But it is important also to distinguish between what is ‘peaceful’ and what is legal; something can be illegal but peaceful and indeed something can be legal but not peaceful or it may even be violent. What is legal is defined by the laws of the state. What is ‘positive’ socially and economically is another question.

The issues involved include matters to do with fossil fuels, the right and need to make a living, the right of people to go about their normal workday lives, and questions about what is democracy as well as the role of government. Ireland has not moved away from fossil fuels in the way it should have done and that is largely the fault of the government – and the people who elected them. If we were less dependent on fossil fuels then the issue of a considerable jump in fuel prices would not have been the issue it became. On the other hand, if people were unable to make a living because of the cost of fuel then something needed to be done – either government subsidies (by way of reduced fuel tax) or an increase in prices by those using the fuels, or both.

The main issue or problem was people being unable to get where they wanted or needed to be because of their form of transport being blockaded. This was obviously frustrating even if those stopped were supportive of the protesters – and infuriating if they were not, feeling they were being ‘held to ransom’. Did the protesters have the ‘right’ to do what they were doing? In nonviolent theory – except in cases of authoritarian regimes where protesters need to have their identity hidden – the general rule is that nonviolent protesters doing illegal acts ‘take the consequences’ and this is part of the protest, being willing to stand up and deal with what is thrown at them by the state while still challenging the state on it. After a partial victory in concessions being made by the state, and the army being called in to remove blockades, the protesters went home however the possible use of the army in such circumstances is a dangerous move regarding dealing with protests.

But were the protesters justified in causing severe inconvenience to other people​? This is a value judgement. ‘Nonviolent tactics’ can be used in negative ways – e.g. if racists organised a boycott of black and minority ethnic businesses that would be using a ‘nonviolent tactic’ for a negative and indeed violent cause. So it depends on whether you consider the protesters to be ‘right’ in their demand for government action on fuel prices. However in terms of positive nonviolent action by the protesters, other tactics could have been chosen which were more interactive with government and other citizens.

There is no category for the kind of blockade engaged in by the fuel protesters in Gene Sharp’s classic analysis of nonviolent tactics in his book “The Politics of Nonviolent Action” perhaps because such blockades were not much a feature of action when that book was written in 1973. Sharp’s category of ‘Nonviolent interjection’ (using human bodies) is rather different and involves people putting their bodies on the line – not their tractors and trucks.

However other analysis, e.g. https://www.nukeresister.org/2024/07/13/blockades-block-liberation-how-blockades-obstruct-nonviolence-and-democratic-revolutions/ condemns blockades as a nonviolent tactic – “Blockades replace the uncertainty of democracy and the vulnerability of nonviolence with military notions of politics: win and lose, strength and dominance, tactics and strategy.” “Blockades are reactive rather than proactive” and “The blockade becomes part of an order of power that strengthens the one who is already strong.”

A look at disruptive protest activities https://commonslibrary.org/disruptive-protest-tactics-helpful-or-harmful/ has a comparison table of costs and benefits. However its point of “Little evidence of impact on policy change” does not apply in the fuel protests as clearly the government did change its tune. The question is whether that was democracy in action, extortion and holding others over a barrel, or something in between. In 1974 in Northern Ireland the loyalist ‘strike’ or stoppage against the Sunningdale agreement power-sharing government succeeded in bringing down the new political arrangement; blockades were a prominent part of this but there was also a substantial threat of violence behind them.

And this brings us on to the question of what responsibility the government holds. Clearly action was needed of some kind. Should they have negotiated or changed policy faster? Should they have acted earlier to clear blockades? Would that have inflamed feelings? What about the possible or threatened use of the army in this situation? And what is the government’s responsibility in relation to an economic matter like this which is clearly beyond their control (the international market price for fossil fuels); is giving away money the answer? The extent to which the government could or should take action to subsidise fuel prices is a moot point, and using a comparison like still getting the same overall ‘take’, despite higher prices, is one possibility for arriving at a just solution or at least a measuring stick. A windfall tax on increased fossil fuel profits in this situation could also be a possibility which could be used to subsidise fuel prices, even if retrospectively.

Democracy is far more than the workings of a parliament or assembly and elections every number of years. The workings of civil society and NGOs is an important part of democracy and its health (just look at how Putin has hollowed out the civil society which had developed after the collapse of the Soviet Union). Citizenry are entitled to protest whether that be for progressive or reactionary causes and reasons; they have that legal and civic right. When there is a heartfelt issue where the government’s actions are not in accord with the views of a significant number of citizens then there is almost bound to be ongoing protest. The majority of citizens in the Republic are in favour of neutrality and opposed to US military use of Shannon but the craven politicians in the government have been too afraid of US economic power to take positive action – hence ongoing protest and actions at Shannon airport, some of which have been ‘illegal’ but they have also been morally just. This is part of democracy too and it can be argued that it is the government that has been acting undemocratically and in opposition to peace and neutrality.

How you judge the justice issue involved in the fuel blockades will determine how you see the rightness or the wrongness of the actions involved and the disruption to the rest of the population. The protesters were entitled to protest. The state was entitled to react. How civil society saw the issue was an important factor in the equations involved. Some commentators have pointed to the right wing sentiments of some of the protesters and this may be an issue but the overall question is one of justice and fairness to all, protesters and those affected by the protest. Nonviolent theory does of course include the need to disobey unjust laws – but, if need be, it also includes the possibility of disobedience of ‘neutral’ laws which are not immediately connected with the issue at hand.

The lesson in all this is, of course, to have urgent transition from fossil fuel use and prioritising local green energy supplies rather than being dependent on large corporations for either fossil fuels or the provision of clean energy. Decentralised systems are much more difficult to be abused by the powerful and more difficult to disrupt when things are falling apart.

Just like the mixed sentiments of many in the population regarding the fuel blockades, nonviolent theory does not provide an immediate and clear answer on the fuel protests however questions of justice and equity should be to the fore in any analysis. And imagination and positivity in protest is part of nonviolence.

European security

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said (e.g. in Berlin) that security will be one of the key issues of the Irish EU presidency, coming up shortly for the second half of the year. He has also previously said, last December, that there was too much “squeamish debate” about Ireland working with other countries’, including NATO, militaries. He is quite right about an emphasis on security but not in the way he thinks – which evidently only concerns military security against Russia including EU-NATO cooperation. Here are the security issues which need tackled on an Irish, European and world level:

Human security:

The idea that ‘security’ is about military security is dangerous and deluded. Covid 19 was the greatest threat to world wellbeing for a long time and it had nothing to do with military security. Global heating is the largest endemic, global threat. Human security includes the right to life and freedom from violence, adequate food and housing, and civil freedom. The following issues of security all contribute to ‘human security’.

Ecological security:

Global heating is already a monumental disaster and stabilising global temperatures is of paramount importance. For Ireland there is the danger, analysed in a couple of recent reports, that the chances of the Atlantic AMOC current (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation a k a Gulf Stream) shutting down are greater than previously thought, which would leave Ireland with similar weather to Newfoundland and heightened sea levels. But this would affect the rest of northern Europe too and disastrously change weather patterns on a wider scale with likely catastrophic consequences for food production and wellbeing.

Food security:

Ireland is a net exporter of food but it is only in a few fields like dairy and beef. Most other food is imported. The island nature of Ireland and being on the western extremity of Europe adds a complicating and dangerous factor to food importing in times of chaos. At the very least contingency plans need to be in place for emergency times; at the moment the ‘just in time’ nature of food importing leaves countries very vulnerable but an island like Ireland especially so.

Security against war:

The arms build up in Europe is unsustainable in different ways, both economic and in terms of risk. The war in Ukraine, partly caused by NATO expansionism, is brutal but a wider European war, including the possible use of nuclear weapons, would be suicidal. The way to get rid of enemies is to turn them into friends; this is obviously easier said than done but current policies keep upping the level of threat. Ireland in particular, with its positive history of neutrality, should be working flat out on conflict mitigation and transformation. Standing up against the warmaking of the USA should be imperative.

Economic security:

The world is using its resources at an unsustainable rate. Apart from any questions of national and global equity, financial and trade justice are needed to help stabilise migration and avoid the chaos of migration beyond what is bearable for both sending and host countries. Obviously this relates closely to ecological security but it is much more. And developments in AI threaten both the economic and social wellbeing of many workers and would be workers; new parameters and paradigms need to be set for people’s involvement in economic activity and wage-earning. And relative economic prosperity does not guarantee the right to housing, for example, as people in Ireland, especially Dublin, and other places have been finding out.

We all deserve to feel secure. Current economic, military and international relations policies are creating massive insecurity. Emphasis on military security rather than human security is is part of a downward spiral of negativity and violence.

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty: Just War, Just Peace?

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Reclaiming nonviolence in a time of political noise

Recent political commentary in the United States has brought the concept of “just war” back into public debate. Criticism directed at the Pope — alongside interventions from figures like Donald Trump and JD Vance — has framed Christian nonviolence as naïve, even irresponsible, in the face of global threat.

But this framing misunderstands both the history and the depth of the tradition it seeks to invoke.

The idea of “just war” did not emerge as a justification for violence, but as an attempt to restrain it. Rooted in the writings of Augustine of Hippo, it was a moral framework designed to limit when and how force could be used — insisting on necessity, proportionality, and last resort. It was, at its core, an ethic of hesitation.

Over time, however, what was intended as a brake has too often become a permission structure.

The Pope’s recent emphasis on nonviolence is not a rejection of moral responsibility — it is a return to a deeper question: what does it mean to follow a faith rooted in love, dignity, and the refusal to dehumanise?

And Christianity is not alone in grappling with this tension.

In Islam, principles of just conduct in war (jus in bello) emphasise protection of civilians, restraint, and accountability. In Judaism, the concept of milchemet mitzvah (obligatory war) is tightly bound by ethical conditions. In Buddhism, the commitment to non-harm (ahimsa) sits uneasily but persistently alongside historical realities of conflict. Across traditions, there is a shared discomfort — a recognition that violence, even when justified, leaves a moral wound.

So where does that leave us?

The question is not simply whether war can ever be “just,” but whether justice can ever truly be achieved through violence.

Nonviolence does not ignore harm. It confronts it differently. It asks what it would mean to build systems, relationships, and politics that prevent violence long before it becomes thinkable. It shifts the focus from reaction to prevention, from dominance to dignity.

To reconcile just war and nonviolence may not be about choosing one over the other, but about recognising their tension.

Just war says: if force must be used, it must be constrained.

Nonviolence says: we must build a world where it is no longer needed.

In a time when political rhetoric rewards certainty and strength, the harder path is moral complexity — holding the line that human dignity cannot be conditional, even in conflict.

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty: Universal Basic Income and nonviolent redistribution

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Nonviolence is often understood primarily as a refusal of physical force. Yet many of the most enduring forms of harm in contemporary societies are not enacted through overt violence, but through economic arrangements that quietly deprive people of security, dignity, and choice. From this perspective, poverty itself can be understood as a form of structural violence: a predictable outcome of systems that concentrate resources while leaving large sections of the population exposed to precarity. Universal Basic Income (UBI) enters this conversation not merely as an economic policy, but as a nonviolent intervention into the conditions that make violence—direct or indirect—more likely.

UBI proposes a simple principle: that every member of a society should receive a regular, unconditional income sufficient to meet basic needs. Unlike targeted welfare systems, it does not require proof of suffering, compliance with behavioural conditions, or participation in punitive assessment regimes. In nonviolent terms, this matters. Conditionality often functions as a form of coercion, forcing individuals to perform neediness or accept degrading scrutiny in exchange for survival. UBI removes this dynamic, replacing control with trust.

Nonviolent theory, from Gandhi to King to contemporary peace scholars, emphasises that peace is not sustained by restraint alone but by the presence of justice. Martin Luther King Jr. repeatedly argued that inequality corrodes social life, warning that “a society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him.” While UBI is universal rather than reparative, it reflects this insight: that redistribution is not charity, but a necessary correction to systemic imbalance. In this sense, UBI functions as nonviolent redistribution—addressing harm without creating enemies or relying on punitive mechanisms.

Economic insecurity is closely correlated with social conflict. Communities experiencing high levels of poverty are more vulnerable to crime, exploitation, and coercive power structures, including organised crime and paramilitary influence. When people lack basic stability, they are more easily drawn into economies of violence, whether through necessity or manipulation. UBI interrupts this cycle by expanding the realm of choice. It does not eliminate inequality, but it reduces desperation—one of violence’s most reliable allies.

From a care ethics perspective, UBI affirms interdependence rather than competition. Feminist scholars such as Joan Tronto have argued that societies routinely devalue care work—much of it unpaid, gendered, and invisible—while rewarding extractive or speculative labour. UBI recognises care, community participation, and relational labour as socially valuable, even when they do not conform to market logic. This recognition aligns with nonviolent ethics, which resist hierarchies that privilege productivity over humanity.

Critics often argue that UBI is naïve or economically unrealistic. Yet pilot programmes across diverse contexts have consistently shown reductions in stress, improvements in mental health, and increased civic participation. Importantly, recipients do not withdraw from society; they engage more fully with it. This challenges the violent myth that people must be coerced into contribution. Nonviolence begins with a different assumption: that people, when secure, are more likely to act responsibly toward others.

UBI also reshapes the relationship between citizen and state. Rather than positioning the state as a disciplinarian or gatekeeper, it reframes it as a guarantor of minimum dignity. This shift is subtle but profound. It moves governance away from fear-based compliance toward mutual obligation—a core principle in nonviolent political thought. As Gene Sharp observed, power ultimately depends on consent. Economic systems that humiliate or exclude erode that consent and invite instability.

In deeply divided or post-conflict societies, the case for UBI is especially compelling. Where identity-based politics often determine access to resources, universal provision can weaken zero-sum thinking. By decoupling survival from identity, UBI reduces the symbolic and material stakes of division. It does not resolve political conflict, but it lowers the temperature at which it occurs.

Universal Basic Income is not a panacea. It must be accompanied by strong public services, progressive taxation, and democratic accountability. But as a nonviolent intervention, it offers something rare in contemporary policy: a way to redistribute power and security without punishment, shame, or force. In a world where inequality increasingly fuels resentment and unrest, UBI represents a quiet but radical proposition—that peace might begin not with control, but with trust.

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty: Reflections on M L King Day*

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The figure of Jesus in the New Testament is often domesticated by familiarity. Rendered gentle, apolitical, and spiritually remote, he is stripped of the radical edge that made his life — and death — so disruptive. Yet read attentively, the Gospels present Jesus as a deeply political figure: a priestly dissenter, a social agitator, and a practitioner of what we might now recognise as principled nonviolent resistance.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s articulation of nonviolence was not an innovation so much as a retrieval. King understood nonviolence as a way of life grounded in love (agape), truth, and the refusal to cooperate with injustice. In this sense, Jesus stands not merely as an inspiration for nonviolent action, but as its primary exemplar. His ministry consistently confronted systems of domination — religious, economic, and imperial — without resorting to violence, even when violence was both available and expected.

Jesus’ protest was not passive. He engaged in deliberate acts of disruption that exposed injustice while preserving the dignity of all involved. His overturning of the tables in the Temple was not an act of random rage, but a symbolic interruption of an exploitative religious economy that burdened the poor in the name of holiness. Importantly, it targeted structures, not people. Likewise, his refusal to observe Sabbath regulations when they harmed rather than healed was a form of civil disobedience grounded in moral clarity: “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

King insisted that nonviolence seeks not the defeat of the opponent, but the transformation of the conflict. This logic is visible throughout Jesus’ teaching. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls his followers to resist evil without mirroring it — to turn the other cheek, walk the second mile, love the enemy. These are not calls to submission, but to creative, disarming resistance. Scholars have long noted that such actions interrupt cycles of humiliation and retaliation, forcing oppressors to confront the humanity of those they seek to dominate.

Jesus’ priesthood, too, is radical. He operates outside authorised religious channels, extending forgiveness, healing, and inclusion without institutional permission. His solidarity with the marginalised — the poor, the sick, women, and social outcasts — constitutes a sustained critique of power. Like King, Jesus recognises that injustice deforms both the oppressed and the oppressor, and that liberation must therefore be mutual, even when asymmetrical.

Crucially, Jesus’ nonviolence is most visible at the point of greatest threat. In Gethsemane, he explicitly rejects armed resistance: “Put your sword back into its place” (Matthew 26:52). His refusal to meet violence with violence is not born of weakness, but of conviction. The cross becomes the ultimate nonviolent protest — a public exposure of imperial brutality and religious complicity, endured without surrendering to hatred. As King would later argue, redemptive suffering has the power to reveal truth that coercion cannot.

In dark times, the New Testament does indeed offer a model of nonviolent protest — one that is neither quietist nor naïve. It calls for courage without cruelty, resistance without dehumanisation, and truth spoken without the intoxication of force. Jesus’ life challenges contemporary Christians to ask not whether nonviolence is realistic, but whether violence has ever truly delivered the justice it promises.

King’s vision of the Beloved Community is inconceivable without this Gospel foundation. To follow Jesus, in this reading, is to become a disciplined practitioner of nonviolence — resisting injustice not by destroying enemies, but by refusing to become them. In a world tempted by despair and retaliation, the New Testament does not offer easy answers, but it does offer a demanding, hopeful path: one in which love becomes the most subversive force of all.

* M L King Day in the USA is observed on the third Monday in January; his actual birth date is 15th January.

l INNATE is happy to publish reflections and material in relation to nonviolence which come from any faith, humanist or secular background and material on the website includes items from Christian, Buddhist, Jain and Muslim perspectives, as well as secular and philosophical reflections.

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty: Nonviolence and Drug-Related Intimidation

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Towards healing, not fear:

A nonviolent response to

Drug-Related Intimidation (DRI)

The newly published Drug-Related Intimidation in Northern Ireland report https://www.endingtheharm.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Drug-related-Intimidation-Report-Tagged.pdf lays bare a wound at the heart of our communities. It describes “a deeply corrosive force… that undermines safety, exploits vulnerability, and perpetuates cycles of fear, addiction, and criminality.” Those words, from Justice Minister Naomi Long, set the tone for a sobering but necessary piece of work.

The report’s findings are stark: intimidation linked to drugs affects every layer of society — “young people, women, families, professionals, and entire communities” — and has become normalised in ways that silence victims and blur the lines between those who cause harm and those who endure it. It shows how fear isolates, how debt becomes coercion, and how shame and stigma push people further from help.

As a nonviolent organisation rooted in peacebuilding, Forthspring’s response begins with listening. Nonviolence, as we understand it, is not the absence of conflict but the presence of justice, dialogue, and relationship. The report itself points towards this, calling for “a collaborative approach… underpinned by partnership working and service coordination” (p. 67). It recognises that policing “may only be part of such an approach,” and that community-based mediation and restorative responses must also be explored.

This is precisely where Forthspring’s ethos and experience lie. Our peacebuilding and youth work emerge from a conviction that cycles of violence can be interrupted by connection — by rebuilding trust, offering safe spaces, and meeting fear with care rather than control. The report’s recommendation for “safe spaces where people can share their experiences without judgement” (p. 44) echoes our daily practice. We have long seen that people heal in community, not isolation.

In the tradition of Kingian Nonviolence, we hold that “nonviolence is not a method for cowards; it does resist.” (Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom). Resistance, in this context, means building systems that honour dignity over domination — transforming relationships rather than destroying them. Our work embodies what Dr. King called “the refusal to cooperate with evil combined with the willingness to suffer for good.”

The report’s proposed public health model for response — integrating justice, health, and community — aligns closely with our approach. It calls for “the improved and purposive coordination of existing community-based interventions” (p. 67) and a trauma-informed, person-centred model that recognises social determinants of harm. In essence, it reframes drug-related intimidation as a public health issue rather than simply a criminal one.

This is a crucial step. When addiction, poverty, and fear meet, coercion flourishes. But as the report wisely notes, “partnership working demands thorough engagement and clear roles and responsibilities” (p. 67). That is, we cannot outsource compassion to the justice system alone. Community organisations — especially those of us embedded in local relationships — must be resourced and trusted to build the kind of relational safety that punitive systems cannot.

But without sustained investment in community groups — particularly those empowering and working with young people — such transformation cannot take root. Nonviolence requires infrastructure: safe spaces, skilled facilitators, and trusted relationships built over years. When funding is fragile, so too is hope. If we want lasting change, we must match our moral commitment with material support, ensuring that local organisations have the stability to nurture resilience and renewal.

At Forthspring, we will respond by deepening our nonviolent practice:

  • continuing to create safe, nonjudgmental spaces for young people and families under pressure;

  • investing in restorative dialogue that addresses harm without replicating it;

  • and strengthening our gardening, arts, and wellbeing programmes that reconnect people with dignity, belonging, and hope.

These reflect what peace scholar John Paul Lederach describes as “the moral imagination” — the ability “to stay grounded in the real while believing in the possibility of the unexpected and the transformative.” For us, that means nurturing community gardens where neighbours once stood apart, offering young people creative alternatives to despair, and modelling the slow, patient work of reconciliation.

Our work teaches us daily that violence — including the silent violence of intimidation — thrives where people feel powerless. The antidote is empowerment: community confidence, meaningful work, and relationships that model compassion over coercion. As the report notes, “further options for supporting recovery, rehabilitation and desistance need to be explored… providing meaningful and purposeful activity” (p. 66).

There is a wider societal responsibility here, too. The report reveals that “many victims of DRI struggle with navigating the wider service landscape… fearful and isolated, trusting very few services” (p. 67). If we wish to end intimidation, we must make help visible, accessible, and trustworthy. That means challenging stigma, reforming systems that retraumatise, and recognising community work as vital peace infrastructure.

As civil rights veteran Bernard LaFayette reminds us, “Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.” It is not about avoidance, but engagement; not silence, but truth spoken with compassion. For a society still shaped by its own history of fear and control, this report is a mirror. It asks whether we can face intimidation not with vengeance, but with courage and care. It invites us to build what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the Beloved Community — where justice is restorative and peace is lived.

At Forthspring, we stand with all who are working towards that vision. Nonviolence begins here: in listening, in tending the soil of community, and in choosing every day to answer fear not with silence, but with hope.

–

Forthspring website is at https://www.forthspring.org/

Readings in Nonviolence: How nonviolent action might save Gaza

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Introduction

The onslaught on Gaza by the Israeli state and military has created a real hell on earth with starvation used as a weapon of war and destruction, death and displacement being the common experience, and no safe place to go to. In such a situation with ‘our’ states only slowly realising they should do ‘something’ – but continually dithering on what they might do – and the United States backing Israel and Israeli annihilation to the hilt of their terrible sword, we can feel powerless despite perpetual demonstrations and solidarity actions. In this article by Charles Webel there is consideration of what could be done nonviolently on an international basis. The article is taken from the 29th September 2025 edition of Transcend Media Service https://www.transcend.org/tms/2025/09/how-nonviolent-action-might-save-gaza/

How nonviolent action might save Gaza

By Charles Webel, Ph.D.

In Gaza we are witnessing an absolute hell’, UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared in August 2025. With over 60 000 people killed – the vast majority civilians, including thousands of children – Gaza has become the most severe test of international humanitarian law since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Yet, as diplomatic paralysis grips the Security Council, the world’s most important protection doctrine remains unused.

The UN’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P) could offer a pathway forward, but only if applied through comprehensive nonviolent action rather than failed military paradigms.

A nonviolent framework for protection

R2P emerged from the international community’s failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda and in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995. This doctrine rests on three pillars: states must protect their populations; the international community must assist them; and when states manifestly fail, collective action becomes necessary. Crucially, R2P doesn’t authorise military intervention at will — it demands proportionate, multilateral responses that prioritise prevention and respect international law.

Gaza presents a textbook R2P case. The International Court of Justice found a plausible case that Israel may be committing genocidal acts. Hamas’s October 7 attack in Israel clearly violated international humanitarian law. But with entire neighbourhoods in ruins, infrastructure decimated, and over a million people facing displacement and famine, Gazan civilians are systematically deprived of life’s necessities. When one party to a conflict possesses overwhelming military superiority and civilians suffer mass atrocities, R2P becomes urgent — regardless of nationality or political affiliation.

Traditional military interventions have failed repeatedly in this region. Libya’s 2011 experience showed how R2P’s military application can worsen conflicts rather than resolve them. Gaza thus demands a different approach: sustained nonviolent intervention that protects civilians immediately while addressing the root causes of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

The international community must treat humanitarian access as non-negotiable, employing coordinated diplomatic pressure to ensure that sufficient aid reaches civilians. This means establishing internationally-monitored humanitarian corridors to and within Gaza and demanding unrestricted medical supply access. The UN Security Council should authorise civilian protection missions composed of unarmed international observers whose presence may deter violence and who document abuses. While air drops of supplies serve as interim measures, ground access remains essential for sustained civilian protection.

Sustainable civilian protection comes from empowered communities, not external force.

Military intervention by outside powers in Gaza remains politically untenable and ethically fraught. However, deploying unarmed international observers – human rights monitors, legal experts and civilian protection teams – has proven effective from South Sudan to the West Bank. An International Civilian Protection Corps, trained in nonviolent intervention and conflict de-escalation, should be established immediately. Their presence along humanitarian corridors could reduce attacks on aid convoys while providing transparent documentation of human rights violations by all parties.

Moreover, mass atrocity crimes demand serious consequences. The International Criminal Court must investigate all violations of international humanitarian law, regardless of perpetrators. Targeted sanctions on leaders and entities responsible for war crimes should follow from the UN Security Council, General Assembly or individual states. However, punitive approaches must be complemented by truth and reconciliation processes that address collective trauma. Impunity breeds repetition: accountability deters, but reconciliation heals.

Countries with close ties to Israel bear special responsibility. The United States provides approximately $3.8 billion annually in military aid to Israel. Making this assistance conditional on humanitarian access and civilian protection compliance could put immediate pressure on Israel. Clear red lines – targeting civilians, denying humanitarian access, expanding illegal settlements – should trigger major diplomatic and economic consequences for Israel. States influencing Hamas or other militant groups in Gaza must face similar pressure to uphold international human rights norms.

Lastly, civilian protection also requires addressing root causes. Gaza’s economic strangulation fuels desperation and conflict. Targeted development aid, support for Palestinian economic and political sovereignty and pressure to lift Israeli restrictions on aid that serves no legitimate security purpose are essential. Simultaneously, Palestinian and Israeli civil society organisations working for peace need adequate funding, international accompaniment and amplified voices. Sustainable civilian protection comes from empowered communities, not external force.

The uniting for peace alternative

When the UN Security Council remains deadlocked by veto-wielding powers prioritising strategic interests over humanitarian principles, the General Assembly can act. UN Resolution 377 (V) ‘Uniting for Peace’, adopted in 1950, allows the Assembly to consider matters immediately when the Security Council fails due to permanent members’ vetoes. The resolution enables recommendations for collective measures, including armed force, when necessary, to maintain international peace and security.

Historical applications reveal both potential and limitations. The Suez Crisis in 1956 marked the mechanism’s greatest success — Britain and France complied with General Assembly withdrawal demands following international isolation, leading to the first UN peacekeeping force. Conversely, the Soviet Union completely ignored Assembly calls for Afghanistan withdrawal in 1980, demonstrating this Resolution’s potential impotence against determined major powers.

Most relevant to Gaza is the ongoing Tenth Emergency Special Session on Palestine, convened in 1997 and now the longest-running emergency session in UN history. Despite numerous UN resolutions condemning Israeli settlement activities by overwhelming margins (131-3-14 in 1997), Israel has refused compliance and expressed contempt for Assembly decisions. While achieving symbolic victories like Palestine’s upgraded UN observer status in 2024, fundamental objectives remain unfulfilled after nearly three decades.

Yet, even ‘failed’ applications of Assembly resolutions create legal foundations for future accountability measures and diplomatic isolation. The overwhelming support for Ukraine UN Assembly resolutions (141 countries) demonstrates the potential for broad international consensus when states and NGOs are properly mobilised.

Overcoming Israeli opposition

Israel’s strategic relationship with major powers creates for many of its actions significant protective barriers against meaningful international pressure. However, systematic nonviolent strategies might help overcome this resistance.

Economic leverage provides immediate tools. Beyond conditional or suspended US military aid to Israel, targeted sanctions on Israeli officials blocking humanitarian aid or targeting civilians, modelled on Magnitsky-style legislation, could create personal consequences for perpetrators of human rights violations.

Corporate accountability through divestment campaigns and supply chain disruptions might initiate transparency requirements that pressure companies profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Gaza’s people deserve more than temporary ceasefires between devastating violence and famine.

As recently announced by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the EU has suspended bilateral support to Israel and proposed sanctions on ‘extremist ministers’ and violent settlers, thereby demonstrating how multinational entities can apply coordinated economic pressure even when individual member states remain divided. As Israel’s primary trading partner, representing 32 per cent of its overall trade, EU actions carry significant economic weight.

Legal strategies multiply these pressure points. The General Assembly can request International Court of Justice advisory opinions on the legal consequences of Israeli policies. Universal jurisdiction prosecutions in domestic courts for war crimes could create global accountability risks for perpetrators of war crimes and other violations of human rights. Enhanced International Criminal Court cooperation with major powers could facilitate the investigation of all such violations.

Multilateral diplomatic isolation by regional bodies – the African Union, the Arab League and others – of suspected Israeli human rights violators may put pressure on Israeli decision makers to change course. Israel could also be suspended from specific UN bodies or international organisations until its compliance with UN resolutions and international law, as was done with apartheid South Africa. Third-party mediation through neutral countries like Norway or Ireland offers alternatives to failed US-dominated initiatives.

The time for action is now

Gaza’s people deserve more than temporary ceasefires between devastating violence and famine. They deserve an international community committed to their protection through patient, principled nonviolent action.

The tools exist. The legal framework is clear. R2P provides normative authority, Uniting for Peace offers procedural pathways, and successful nonviolent campaigns – from the Palestinian First Intifada in 1987 to anti-apartheid movements – demonstrate the potential efficacy of multilateral action. What’s missing is the political will by global superpowers to move beyond failed military paradigms toward sustained nonviolent initiatives.

Success demands unprecedented coordination among international organisations, civil society and individual activists — moving beyond state-centric protection toward comprehensive strategies addressing Palestinians’ immediate humanitarian needs while building lasting mechanisms for resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Gaza can become either another failure of international protection or a testimony to nonviolent intervention’s transformative power.

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty: Atonement in Practice

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I listened to a mother tell her child he was being punished for failing to attend to her ‘because that’s what happens…’. It made me think of the retributive logic in society: punishment as justice, revenge as moral balance. And I wondered where it had come from. Why can’t we simply forgive? This was how I found myself studying atonement theology.

At the heart of nonviolent atonement theology lies a simple but revolutionary claim: God is not the author of violence, but its victim and healer. The cross is about exposing human violence, forgiving it, and transforming it through love. This view invites us into the presence of a God who refuses to return harm for harm.

As J. Denny Weaver puts it: “The narrative of Jesus does not depict God as a God of violence, but rather as a God who overcomes violence through suffering love.” The cross, then, is not the site of divine punishment, but divine solidarity—Jesus identifying fully with those crushed by injustice and inviting us to do the same. In this light, Jesus’ death is not payment demanded by God, but the consequence of human fear. What is revealed on the cross is not divine anger, but the depth of human violence—and the unshakable mercy of a God who forgives even while dying at our hands.

This understanding resonates deeply with the founding vision of Forthspring, born in west Belfast out of a longing for healing between communities scarred by sectarian violence. Forthspring’s mission—to bring Catholics and Protestants, families and youth, together across lines of suspicion—mirrors the essence of nonviolent atonement: not the erasure of difference, but the refusal to let difference justify violence.

These theological insights do not stand alone within Christianity. They resonate deeply with the wisdom of Islam, which frames God primarily as Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim—The Most Merciful, The Most Compassionate. “My mercy encompasses all things,” says God in the Qur’an (7:156). It is a view that calls both Muslims and Christians to reflect God’s mercy in the world—to build societies where justice heals rather than punishes.

While Buddhism has no doctrine of atonement, the Dhammapada teaches: “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal law” (verse 5). This is similar to Jesus’ prayer on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Both voices—Jesus and the Buddha—refuse the logic of vengeance and instead offer a way to break the cycle of suffering.

Forthspring, working in a context of interreligious and intercommunity tension, offers space for these shared values to take root. Our work is not about denying religious difference, but harnessing the spiritual common ground that refuses violence in the name of God.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned a world healed by love, not domination. His concept of the Beloved Community is where nonviolent atonement comes to life: a world where justice and mercy meet, where former enemies share tables, and where systems of harm are transformed into spaces of healing.

As King wrote, “At the centre of nonviolence stands the principle of love.” That love is not sentimental—it is courageous, rooted in the conviction that every person has inherent dignity, even the wrongdoer.

For those of us working in community, especially with youth affected by violence, the implications are urgent. At Forthspring, children are not taught to carry the burdens of the past, but to question them, transform them, and lay them down; adults model restorative justice rather than retribution; diverse faiths sit together in the shared conviction that peace is sacred, and violence is not inevitable.