I understand your frustration, my friend. When we see the tremendous suffering in Gaza and the ongoing violence in that region, it's natural to feel that nonviolence has failed. But let me offer you a different way of looking at this.

First, we need to be careful about what we mean by "nonviolence isn't working." The First Intifada from 1987 to 1989 was a fairly widespread nonviolent resistance movement, and I believe it actually led to the Madrid Peace Accords. That's not nothing. The problem was that when the resisters felt they'd done their job, they went back to their daily struggles for survival—and who can blame them? When existence is hanging by a thread, when you barely have enough to eat, sustaining nonviolent action over the long term is extraordinarily difficult.

But here's the crucial point: violent resistance has gotten them nowhere either—in fact, it's made things catastrophically worse. Violence always makes things worse; nonviolence always makes things better, even when we can't see the results immediately. Sometimes those results take years, even decades, to appear.

The real challenge in Palestine-Israel isn't that nonviolence doesn't work—it's that it hasn't been sustained with enough support, enough training, enough constructive program alongside the resistance. As I discussed with colleagues when we were founding the Nonviolent Peaceforce, we knew back then that we needed to build up enough successes in other regions before we could effectively intervene in Palestine-Israel. We needed to show that civilian-based defense is powerful, universally teachable, and more effective than violent intervention.

Right now, there are possibilities being explored for Nonviolent Peaceforce to become involved in Gaza. The mere presence of trained third-party nonviolent actors can have what I call "an almost magical effect on conflict"—because conflict depends on that binary image of "me against you." When you break up that model of reality, when you introduce a third party committed to peace, you're already on the way to some kind of reconciliation.

Let me be clear: I'm not suggesting nonviolence is easy or quick. It requires uncommon strength, sustained commitment, and what Gandhi called "constructive program"—building the institutions and relationships you want to see. The reason nonviolence seems not to be working in Gaza is not because it's been tried and failed, but because it hasn't been tried consistently enough, with enough support from the international community, with enough training and resources.

Remember: the person is not the problem. It's not Israelis versus Palestinians—it's all of us against the systems of oppression, occupation, and violence that trap everyone in cycles of trauma and retaliation. When we can hold that truth, we open space for real transformation.

Be patient, my friend, but don't be passive. Support the nonviolent resisters who are already there. Demand that your government support nonviolent intervention rather than military aid. And remember that every act of nonviolence—no matter how small—does good to the social environment, even when we can't see it yet.