Nonviolence International

Activities

• Nonviolence International is a “decentralized network of resource centers that promote the use of nonviolent action.”
• Nonviolence International “fiscally sponsors a number of groups and efforts as projects of Nonviolence International.” These groups include Holy Land Trust, Freedom Flotilla Coalition, Just Peace Advocates, and the Center for Jewish Nonviolence.

Political Advocacy

• In February 2024, Nonviolence International published an article titled, “Apartheid in Palestine and Israel is intensifying. Nonviolent mobilization is needed now more than ever.”
• In April 2023, Nonviolence International was a co-sponsor for the annual “Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony” hosted by Parents Circle Families Forum and Combatants for Peace. The ceremony created a major controversy, with critics arguing that it promotes a Palestinian narrative that draws an immoral equivalence between terror victims and terrorists.
• In March 2023, Nonviolence International held a webinar titled “The Crisis of Apartheid: Report Back from Palestine,”  alleging that “Israeli apartheid is intensifying. While Palestinians remain steadfast on their land, the new far right government is outright encouraging settlers to violently attack Palestinians and giving the green light to Occupation forces to carry out explicit ethnic cleansing policies.”
• In January 2023, Nonviolence International published a press release claiming that “When Israel determined it wanted to be a Jewish state, and further that it wanted to keep all the land of historic Palestine, the results were inevitable. The only two options Israel allows for are ethnic cleansing or apartheid.”
• In August 2022, co-founder of Nonviolence International Jonathan Kuttab published a statement denying Israel’s right to self-defense. According to Kuttab, “In any military confrontation, the primitive rockets Palestinians use are no match for Israel’s massive firepower, but serve as a wonderful excuse for Israel to attack Gazans with massive bombardments from air, land, and sea.”
• In August 2022, Nonviolence International condemned the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations, including Al-Haq of which Nonviolence International co-founder Kuttab is also co-founder. According to Nonviolence International, “As advocates of nonviolence, we consider the search for truth to be essential to building a just and peaceful world. Those who made this designation know better. They have taken this action not to reflect reality, but to shape it….If the US wants to continue proclaiming itself a defender of human rights and the rule of law around the world, it must do so in all countries and in all cases, not just when it serves Israeli, or for that matter, US interests.”
• In March 2021, co-founder of Nonviolence International Jonathan Kuttab published a video on the “absurdity and hypocrisy of apartheid-Israel’s vaccine-apartheid” and claiming that it is “Israel’s responsibility to provide the COVID-19 vaccines to millions of Palestinians under its occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
  • Kuttab falsely characterized Israel’s legal obligations, while altogether ignoring that Israel has already provided vaccines to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza; Palestinians residing in Jerusalem are part of the Israeli health care system and have the same access to vaccines as all Israeli citizens; that under the Oslo Accords the PA is responsible for health care of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza; that the PA has adopted its own vaccine policy  for its population including participation in the WHO COVAX system; and has only asked for minimal help from Israel in providing and distributing vaccines.
• In September 2018, Executive Director Michael Beer wrote an article accusing Israel of “ensur[ing[ Jewish electoral domination particularly with a sustained ethnic cleansing program.”
• In May 2018, during the violence on the Gaza border, Kuttab accused Israel of putting “almost 2 million people live in a congested open-air prison.” Kuttab also justified terrorism and downplayed Hamas war crimes by writing that Hamas “occasionally dares to resist by shooting  largely ineffective rockets at Israel; it even dares to dig tunnels to break out of its suffocating isolation, while Israel routinely invades its territory and bombs Gazans, mostly civilians, at will.”
• On April 19, 2017, following the Secretary General’s decision to remove from UN websites the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA) report on the “Question of Apartheid” that accused Israel of being “guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid” for poor quality, Nonviolence International published the full report on its website stating that “we believe that difficult realities, such as the state of apartheid that Palestinians are perpetually living under, should be faced instead of being ignored for being politically inconvenient.”
• Nonviolence International was listed as the “fiscal sponsor” for the 2016 Women’s Boat to Gaza- US Campaign, and claims to have raised $30,000. The Women’s Boat to Gaza alleged that Israel has “launched countless attacks against the besieged population, turning their life into a nightmare.”
• Since 2015, Nonviolence International has sponsored the Nakba Museum Project, “which aims to finally tell the Palestinian refugee story, one that has been silenced or ignored for too long,” thereby presenting the founding of the state of Israel as a “Nakba,” or “catastrophe.”
• On August 28, 2014, members and staff of Nonviolence International took part in a “Gaza Rubble Bucket Challenge,” in front of the White House “to remind President Obama that Gazans are living in rubble caused by US bombs delivered by the Israelis” and “raise awareness of the appalling loss of life and property destruction under an Israeli siege.”
• Nonviolence international was the “US fiscal sponsor of Gaza Ark,” which is “part of the ongoing international Freedom Flotilla Coalition challenging the illegal and inhumane Israeli blockade of Gaza.” Numerous flotillas have been organized by pro-Palestinian activists attempting to breach the Israeli blockade, thus endangering Israeli national security, and often provoking violent confrontations with the Israeli military.

BDS Activities

• Endorses boycotts, stating: “most common form of nonviolent action – involves the deliberate withdrawal of cooperation with the person, activity, institution or regime with which the activists have become engaged in conflict. These methods include… strikes, boycotts and war tax resistance (economic) and boycotts of legislative bodies and elections (political). Political noncooperation also includes acts of civil disobedience – the ‘deliberate, open and peaceful violation of particular laws, decrees, regulations…’”
• In January 2024, Nonviolence International was a signatory on a letter to the US Secretary of State calling to “suspend all licenses and shipments of firearm exports to Israel until criteria are met that will prevent further war crimes and ensure end use monitoring of transferred munitions.”
• In January 2024, Nonviolence International was a signatory on a call to UN Member States to “Stop Arms Transfers to Israel, Palestinian Armed Groups.”
• In October 2020, Kuttab was a signatory on a letter to Congress calling for the U.S. to “stop funding Israel’s military, which regularly engages in violations of human rights and international law without accountability.”
• In November 2019, Nonviolence International signed a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau calling for the Canadian government to “implement an arms embargo, and press for a comprehensive arms embargo at the level of the UN Security Council” and “impose a ban on all goods originating from illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory entering Canada as well as a ban on Canadian companies operating in illegal settlements or trading in settlement goods.”
• In January 2019, Kuttab spoke at an event in Canada advocating for BDS campaigns, as the “solution must be economic, non-violent, and cultural, using diplomatic pressure, international law, and the global boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.”
• In November 2018, Nonviolence International was a signatory on a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Freeland calling to “implement an arms embargo, and press for a comprehensive arms embargo at the level of the UN Security Council…[and] impose a ban on  all goods originating from illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory entering Canada as well as a ban on Canadian companies operating in illegal settlements or trading in settlement goods.”
• In July 2017, Nonviolence International advocated for the Mennonite Church vote to “divest from companies that profit off the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories.” Jonathan Kuttab, co-founder of Nonviolence International, “served as a resource for the Mennonites by traveling around the country and talking to delegations about the situation in Palestine and Israel.”
  • According to Mubarak Awad, co-founder of Nonviolence International, “the Mennonite Church has taken a strong stand for human rights in Palestine.”

Staff

• Jonathan Kuttab is co-founder of Nonviolence International.
  • Co-founder of Al-Haq, serves on the board of Sabeel and Just Peace Advocates, and is chairman of the board of Holy Land Trust.
  • Kuttab has advocated for a “one-state solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which seeks to eliminate Jewish self-determination. According to Kuttab, “Zionism will ultimately need to redefine its goals and aspirations, this time without ignoring or seeking to dispossess the indigenous Palestinian population.”
  • On May 1, 2017, Kuttab accused Israel of “Imposing excessive punishment on the population, as well as collective retribution against the families and communities of the perpetrators have also failed to do anything other than increase the level of hatred and bitterness and determination to resist.”
  • In November 2016, Kuttab spoke in favor of Palestinian nationalism stating “Can I expand my Palestinian nationalism to include the dreams of Jewish Zionists, and can they expand their nationalism to include the needs of the people they have displaced?” He also supported the BDS movement stating “BDS is essentially an Anabaptist way of dealing with occupation…If you think settlements are illegal under international law, you should put an end to it. There must be a price to be paid.”
  • In September 2015, Kuttab participated in a conference titled “Waging Peace: Doing Justice Through BDS,” speaking about “Why should BDS be considered a strategy for doing justice in the Holy Land?” He will share BDS history, principles, variety, effectiveness, its use in the occupied territories, and as a strategy being used by churches, and peace/justice organizations.”
  • In December 2014, following the EU no longer considering Hamas a terrorist group, Kuttab tweeted that it was “Time for US to do same.” He then tweeted, “How can you even hope to bring about peace between #Israeland #Palestine if you criminalize contact with #Hamas?”
  • In April 2012, was a signatory on a statement to General Conference 2012 delegates for support on divesting from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola as they “help the Israeli military maintain a stifling system of checkpoints and separation walls aimed at expanding illegal Jewish-only settlements on land taken from Palestinians.  For Christians to profit from investing in companies that are causing direct harm to civilians—Christians and Muslims alike—is morally wrong.”
• Mubarak Awad is the co-founder of Nonviolence International.
  • Awad was deported in 1988 “after being jailed for organizing activities involving nonviolent civil disobedience.”
  • Awad is a member of the advisory board of Friends of Sabeel North America and a board member of the American Friends for Combatants for Peace.
  • In June 2015, Awad was meant to deliver a speech and lead a workshop at a conference titled “Seeking Peace in the Holy Land: A Community Conversation Involving Christians and Jews,” but according to The Columbus Dispatch, Awad was “asked to step down after a 2002 news report surfaced saying he was opposed to Israeli statehood.’”
  • In October 2012, Awad spoke at a conference titled “Rebuilding the Road to Peace in the Middle East,” stating that “There should be a divorce between Israel and Zionism… [Israel] cannot continue to be a Jewish state because there’s going to be a Muslim majority there.” He furthered that “There would be no peace in Palestine if the settlements continue. The settlers have to leave.”
  • In November 2012, Awad spoke at an “International Solidarity Reception” organized by the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Northeastern University in Boston.
  • In March 2012, Awad traveled to Bethlehem to participate in the “Christ at the Checkpoint” conference, which seeks to advance the Palestinian nationalist agenda within Evangelical Christian churches, while simultaneously reviving theological antisemitic themes such as replacement theology.