Ben White is a freelance writer and journalist and author of "Justice is Mission" and "Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide" who now lives in the UK. White writes extensively about what he terms "Palestine/Israel" to the point of near obsession and was a regular contributor to 'Comment is Free' and the virulently anti-Israel 'Electronic Intifada'.
"In fact, the Palestinians have indeed long been practitioners of civil disobedience, from the Revolt in 1936, to the First Intifada in the late 1980s, and right up to the present day. Palestinians are, in fact, proud of their tradition of nonviolent resistance.
"The second, highly publicized, remarks came in mid-December, when Ahmadinejad was reported as denying the Holocaust. The President's remarks, as detailed on the official Iranian news agency website, did not actually denote a disbelief in the genocide perpetrated against the Jews during World War II.
"I was somewhat startled by this, since I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are. There are, in fact, a number of reasons. One is the state of Israel, its ideology of racial supremacy and its subsequent crimes committed against the Palestinians. It is because Zionists have always sought to equate their colonial project with Judaism that some misguidedly respond to what they see on their televisions with attacks on Jews or Jewish property.