Last week, after the show with Neta Golan and George Rishmawi, I got an email that made me realize a lot of folks have a concept that I call the Time Magazine version of non-violent action. According to this view, non- violence begins with a good slogan painted on a big sign. Then you pack up a picnic lunch, gather up the kids, and head for the designated location. Rest assured there will be lots of picturesque folks in colorful costumes, music, speeches--a nice outing for the family. This patronizing and superficial view is meant to convince us that nothing is ever really accomplished by non-violent action anyway. According to this view, Congress and the Supreme Court, and the Southern Sheriff's Association are going to give American blacks their rights anyway; the British were already planning to get out of India. King and Gandhi weren't really necessary. All you really have to do is write a letter to your elected representative, and he or -- no he will set things right. The further implication of this obvious lie is that if anything really is wrong, justice will require an army, some proper helicopter gunships, a batallion of tanks, and some fighter bombers. Listening to Neta and George makes it clear why the Time Magazine vision of non-violence is false. In the first place, Neta and George came to Canada straight from the Palestinian occupied territories. This is where the violent approach and the non-violent approach to the resolution of issues is being worked out today--in our times. It's not really a foreground issue at the moment in the United States although that could change soon. It's not an issue in Britain or anywhere else in Europe. It's certainly not an issue in Colombia or the Congo or Myanmar. But it is a major issue in Israel and the occupied territories. That, dear listener, is why we have spent 16 weeks exploring peace and peacemaking in the Middle East. Really, it's not a matter of picking on Israel. Israel and the territories. That's where it's happening. You know--we can work it out, but to kill or not to kill, that's the central issue of this part of the 21st Century. Listening to George and Neta you will come to realize that non- violence is not for sissies. Those who choose the path of non-violence can expect to be beaten, shot, arrested, imprisoned, and deported. Whether or not they may also be tortured, killed, or have their families subjected to the same atrocities depends, as we will hear, largely on their race and their religion. Race and religion aren't supposed to matter, of course. But don't take my word for it. See for yourself. It's not a simple matter. As I write this, across the green line in Israel itself, 509 veterans and officers in the Israeli army have refused to serve in what they call the War of the Settlements. More than a hundred of them have been to prison for their views-- some, half a dozen times. Now, more than 200 shministim, or high school seniors, have also refused. They are now beginning to go to prison too. No one has attacked their families or wrought havoc on their homes--not yet. But someone purporting to be a rabbi has proposed publically--and with impunity-- that they should be executed as traitors. Neta Golan had her arm broken in a demonstration last summer. Caoimhe Butterly, an ISM activist from Ireland, was shot in the leg a couple of weeks ago. This is not a game for children. It's not a game of slogans and pretty speeches. In fact, it's not a game at all. Non- violent action occurs, by definition, in the context of violence. Its presence allows us to measure the extent to which justice, compassion, and the civil society values of the combattants have been corrupted or possibly even lost. As outsiders, it matters to us, because as John Donne said, "No man is an island." Just as much to the point is the observation by Allen Ginsberg, "If you are not safe, I am not safe." We have to hope for the best for both people because the solutions that Israelis and Palestinians find for their conflict today will be the solutions that we carry forward tomorrow in our conflict with Iraq. We have to do better than F-16s and cluster bombs.