The historical record indicates that nonviolent campaigns have been more successful than armed campaigns in achieving ultimate goals in political struggles, even when used against similar opponents and in the face of repression. Nonviolent campaigns are more likely to win legitimacy, attract widespread domestic and international support, neutralize the opponent's security forces, and compel loyalty shifts among erstwhile opponent supporters than are armed campaigns, which enjoin the active support of a relatively small number of people, offer the opponent a justification for violent counterattacks, and are less likely to prompt loyalty shifts and defections. An original, aggregate data set of all known major nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 is used to test these claims. These dynamics are further explored in case studies of resistance campaigns in Southeast Asia that have featured periods of both violent and nonviolent resistance.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a human tragedy that has defied political settlement for more than 50 years. Official negotiations have neither ended Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories nor fostered the development of a viable Palestinian state, both prerequisites for a secure peace.

The failure of Israeli–Palestinian negotiations to achieve a viable political settlement can be explained, in large part, by the lack of oversight mechanisms to ensure compliance with past UN resolutions and peace plans. The 2003 ‘road map’ calling for a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict by 2005, like its predecessors, will be a rhetorical flourish unless it is accompanied by an institutionalized oversight mechanism. This article investigates the potential for deployment of an international peacekeeping mission to the Occupied Palestinian Territories that would consist of three parts: a basic security component led by NATO, a civilian peace building mission led by the UN, and a special monitoring presence around the holy sites in Jerusalem. This tri-partite peacekeeping mission might be deployed with the consent of the parties and given a Chapter VII mandate to be able to respond to special contingencies. The UN-authorized peacekeeping mission could be within the overall framework for ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and establishing an independent Palestinian state.