A brutal, cold-blooded quintuple homicide in the West Bank. Two parents and three young children have their throats slit in their sleep, including a baby girl, only a few months old. Palestinian President Abbas telephones Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to personally express his condolences and condemn the inhuman actions of the killers. A Palestinian militant group takes credit for the crime, claiming it was revenge for Israeli occupation and settlement building on Palestinian land. Horror and condemnation is forthcoming not only from Israelis and Palestinians, but from around the world. Israel is, as it should be, the most passionate and vocal about the murders.

These events that took place in Itamar, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, earlier this March. In response, the Israeli government called for international condemnation and joint Israeli-Palestinian investigation of the crime. But, in the same breath, the Israeli government announced the approval of construction of 300-500 new settlement housing units.

Prime Minister Netanyahu met with relatives of the murdered family a few days after the event and told them the Israel would respond to the attacks with new construction initiatives: “They murder and we build.” In choosing settlement construction as a direct response [to the murders in Itamar, the Israeli government is making settlements a tool of war and conflict, and a response to terrorism. The implication is that the Israeli government is prepared, and even eager, to respond to this criminal act of quintuple homicide with an illegal act of their its own: construction of settlements in the West Bank, which the UN still considers to be occupied territory. Interior Minister Eli Yishai urged construction of at least a thousand settlement homes for each murder victim, while Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger agreed that settlement construction should accelerate because doing so would be an appropriate response to the murders. This rhetoric in support of settlement building is shared by a significant number of Israelis, including the current right-wing government. While the urge to avenge the victims in Itamar is understandable, murder is a crime that should be prosecuted by a police investigation and judicial system, not a construction team.

The tragedy of the Itamar murders is now two-fold, both for the family and friends of the murdered settlers and for the state of Israel itself: in addition to the tragedy and loss of life, the approval of new settlement construction makes the renewal of peace negotiations less and less likely. Also unfortunate is the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had begun to take a stand against members of his own conservative Likud party, who were pressing him to undertake more settlement building in the past few months. His resistance had signaled a potential shift toward a more moderate policy, which included halting new settlement construction and the evacuation of settlements on land owned by Palestinians.

The existence and continued construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank areas seized by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War is a constant point of contention between the Israeli and Palestinian governments, and has often played a central role in peace talks. A more moderate settlement policy on the part of the Israeli government would have been crucial to facilitating cooperation between the Israelis and Palestinians and a move toward a two-state solution. The last round of peace talks hit a wall when the 10-month-long freeze of settlement construction in the West Bank expired and the Israeli government refused to extend it. Palestinian President Abbas has made another settlement freeze a condition for renewing peace talks, but so far the strong Israeli political support for settlements has prevented the cessation of construction. No other issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be addressed until this condition is met; only then can the negotiations continue. The murders in Itamar have terminated Netanyahu’s resistance to the pressures of his party, and with it the chance of continued peace negotiations in the near future. Just as, according to Chief Rabbi Metzger, the murders in Itamar have served to unite Israelis against Palestinians, so too will the approval of increased settlement construction inevitably unite Palestinians against Israelis. Furthermore, the Israeli government’s approval of the building of new settlements has signaled to militants and terrorists that they have the power to influence the decisions of the Israeli government. By approving the punitive measure of settlement building, the Israeli government has allowed a small militant group to speak for and represent the entire Palestinian population, undermining the legitimacy of President Abbas and his potential efficacy as a negotiator.

U.S. government officials must continue to pressure their Israeli counterparts to revoke the approval of settlement building and to reinstate the settlement freeze, which had allowed the commencement of peace negotiations last year. The U.S. government has expressed concern over continued Israeli construction of settlements in the West Bank, arguing that the settlements are not legitimate according to international law and will create a further obstacle to the hopes of coming to a two-state solution. The US government, as Israel’s closest ally, must make it clear that not only is settlement building an inappropriate response to the murders in Itamar, but also that Israel is actually doing itself a disservice by elevating the murders to the status of political activism. In February of this year, fourteen out of fifteen members of the UN Security Council voted to support a resolution condemning the construction of settlements and demanding all construction be halted. The US was the only member to refuse to support the resolution, citing a preference for allowing negotiations between Israel and Palestine to deal with such subjects. With the recent events in Itamar and the Israeli government’s response, however, it is unlikely that these negotiations will occur anytime soon.

The decision to use settlement building as a punitive measure is reckless and will inevitably lead to far more lives lost than the five in Itamar. In a time of such instability, anger, and uncertainty, the Israeli government should focus on stabilization rather than escalation – there have already been violent clashes between Israeli settlers and their Palestinian neighbors in the wake of the murders, which need to be immediately controlled and defused. Further, the Israeli government needs to move forward in its plans to remove Israeli settlements from private Palestinian land and halt further settlement construction if there are to be any peace negotiations in the near future.

Followers of international news can attest to the fact that media coverage of the West Bank tends to focus on conflict and violence. Sporadic acts of terrorism, suicide bombings, and rockets fired at civilians have created the perception in the international community that the Palestinians favor violence as a method of protest, and that the Israelis respond in kind. Because violence has been prevalent in the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, media attention on the armed resistance has remained largely unswerving.

Recently, a different kind of resistance movement, a nonviolent resistance movement, has come to the forefront of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian resistance movement has included nonviolence in the past, but only minimally so; peaceful resistance has never before played a significant part in the resistant movement. Yet given the failure to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank through diplomacy and armed struggle, the Palestinians need a new way forward. The coordination of the government, civilian population, and business community to create a popular, nonviolent resistance offers a chance to both reopen peace talks and build a more cohesive and unified Palestinian state.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research reported in March that the percentage Palestinians in the West Bank who support armed resistance as a viable method to end Israeli occupation has decreased to 47 percent. The Center believes that Palestinians in the West Bank find themselves caught between failed diplomacy and failed armed struggle, which may open the door to nonviolent resistance as the only viable form of protest left. Palestinian political analysts also claim that violent uprisings against Israeli occupation are much less likely now that Palestinians have established regularly functioning security forces and government ministries in the West Bank. Whether or not the Israelis and the international community can afford to believe this theory is still a question, but nonetheless it seems that if there were a time for nonviolent resistance to catch fire, that time would be now. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have come out strongly in support of peaceful, nonviolent resistance, and increasing economic progress in the West Bank gives the Palestinians significant bargaining chips.

Visits by Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson and Martin Luther King III, the son of the famous civil rights leader, to speak on the importance of nonviolent struggle are among the most visible manifestations of the nonviolent resistance movement. Other important signs of this movement include peaceful protests against Israeli policies, such as weekly demonstrations in the West Bank cities of Bil’in and Ni’lin. Prime Minister Fayyad has entered West Bank areas that are off limits to his authority in order to plant trees, symbolically declaring the land a part of the future Palestinian state.

Furthermore, The government has teamed up with business leaders to finance the Karama National Empowerment Fund, which pays for campaigns of billboards, ads, and public events to end the purchase of goods produced by Israeli settlers and to end settler industries’ employment of Palestinians. The Palestinian Economy Minister Hassan Abu-Libdeh has even announced that the purchase of settler goods will likely soon be banned by law, which would cost Israeli settlements $200 million per year and send a powerful non-token message of resistance.

The level of organization and coordination needed to form a cohesive nonviolent resistance movement is encouraging to proponents of peace who feel that Palestinians need to unify for peace, but the Israeli response so far has been less than promising. The Israeli military claims that the new nonviolent movement is actually violent, since it often involves throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, burning Israeli-produced goods, and attempting to destroy separation barriers. This perception leads Israeli forces to respond to nonviolent protesters the same way as they do violent protesters—with arrests, stun grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas. Human rights groups such as the International Solidarity Movement and Amnesty International allege that Israeli forces are responsible for detainments without trial, beatings, and even deaths of protestors, including both Palestinians and internationals.

If the Israeli military continues to respond in this way, it will perpetuate the widely held Palestinian belief that violence is the only available form of protest in this long-lasting conflict, undermining the nonviolent resistance movement. How can Israel expect Palestinians to stop armed resistance if Israel responds to nonviolent protests with violence? Israel needs to recognize that there is little chance it will be able to suppress opposition to occupation of the West Bank. The key is not for Israel to attempt to subdue all Palestinian opposition, but rather to promote the kind of opposition that can be dealt with peacefully and diplomatically. The nonviolent resistance movement fits this requirement, and Israel should treat this group accordingly.

It is easy, however, to fall into the trap of concluding that Israel is the only obstacle to peaceful interaction between the two sides. Given the history of violence in this conflict, it is unreasonable to expect the Israeli military to give Palestinian protestors in the West Bank significant leeway, regardless of how nonviolent their demonstrations appear to be or are. Violence and distrust are too deeply ingrained in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship, and Israel has learned in the past that the even initially peaceful protests can quickly escalate to all-out warfare. The Israeli military fears that unless it keeps protests under control, the protests may escalate into a full-scale uprising. There is also the potential for armed resistance groups to take advantage of the gatherings and turn peaceful crowds into violent ones. The memories of Palestinian acts of terrorism and violence against Israelis are too vivid to ignore this possibility.

So we seem to be caught in situation in which nonviolent resistance is a catch-22: Palestinian resistance through diplomacy and armed struggle has proved ineffective, and nonviolent resistance is an increasingly popular alternative, but because of the historical distrust between Israelis and Palestinians, the Israeli military sees no option other than reacting to the nonviolent resistance the same way it has been reacting to violent resistance for years. But is this continuation of the present stalemate truly unavoidable?

No. The nonviolent resistance movement has the potential to change how the international community views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to improve the prospects for negotiations between the two sides. The key to creating an atmosphere that is conducive to the reopening of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is a mutual recognition of the possible gains from cooperation and peace. Israel needs security in the West Bank; nonviolent resistance could help Israel achieve it without the need for heavy-handed military measures. The West Bank needs economic development and political freedom; a unified nonviolence movement could mean fewer checkpoints and greater access to Israeli markets.

The movement toward peace talks must come from both sides, and the current state of mutual distrust dictates that such movement must be simultaneous. The challenge for Palestinians will be to resist the atmosphere of frustration and violence in order to maintain the nonviolent resistance movement for as long as it will take to see results. And Israel must find a way to protect its national security without itself sparking violence.

Burning cars, smashed windows, thrown rocks, and police dressed in riot gear were all features of the riots in Rosarno, Calabria, Italy this past January. The violence broke out after African immigrant workers took to the streets to protest the pellet-gun shooting of an African worker by Italian youths while the worker was laboring in a nearby orchard. It was one of the most extreme immigrant riots ever seen in Italy, and over 70 immigrants and policemen were reported injured in the two days of mayhem. The protests were an unfortunate manifestation of the racial tensions between immigrant workers and native Italians that have long been present all over Italy, but this time there was also evidence that the Calabrian crime families were involved. The recent immigrant riots in Rosarno are less an outgrowth of racism and tension between the immigrant and local populations than a result of the government’s failure to keep the power of organized crime in Southern Italy in check. Indeed, the Italian government has turned a blind eye to the operations of organized crime in the region, which seems contradictory given how interrelated the issues of immigration and organized crime are there. If Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is serious about cracking down on illegal immigration, it is not stronger immigration laws he needs to focus on, but rather a fight against the ‘Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, and the corruption that makes organized crime so difficult to stamp out.

The events in Rosarno were not the first time that organized crime has been tied to immigrant unrest in Italy. In September of 2008, the execution of six African immigrants by the Neapolitan mafia in Castel Volturno spurred such intense riots that the Italian government was forced to call in the Italian National Guard to restore order. In February 2009, immigrants awaiting deportation set fire to the detention center on the Island of Lampedusa on which they were being held. The immigrant unrest situation is not new, and the Italian government’s failure to address it constitutes gross negligence.

While immigrants perform vital roles for the Italian economy, they exist in an underclass entirely distinct from mainstream society. There are an estimated 4 million legal immigrants in Italy out of a total population of 60 million, along with an unknown number of illegal immigrants. Corruption or skewed data often obscure the status of these workers. The Italian government has only just started to seriously acknowledge the problems of ignoring such a large immigrant population. In addition, organized crime syndicates often shield illegal immigrants from Italian authorities, so their actual numbers and locations are not known. As many aspects of the Italian economy are based on the exploitation of low-cost immigrant labor, the wellbeing of the country depends on the availability of this labor. The International Organization for Immigration estimates that immigrant labor accounts for 9 percent of Italy’s GDP. Despite this, immigrants are not integrated into Italian society, live in squalid conditions in makeshift houses outside cities, and often lack basic rights such as access to amenities, health care, or job contracts.

In Rosarno, for example, official statistics state that there are about 1,600 agricultural workers, among whom only 36 are non-Italian. This is nowhere near the truth; in fact, about 1,200 African immigrants perform the majority of the agricultural work in the area. The immigrants have no job contracts, so they must endure anything from beatings, to crime bosses’ demands for kickbacks, to downright refusal to pay wages. Going to the police is not an option, especially for those who are in Italy illegally.

The underlying discontent that caused the immigrant population to react so strongly to an attack on one of their own is likely a result of the strong control the ‘Ndrangheta has over their jobs and their lives. Mass riots are the only way for the African immigrants to express their discontent because if an individual stands up to the ‘Ndrangheta alone, he is immediately killed (such as in Castel Volturno two years earlier). Because they have no legal status or job contracts, illegal immigrants also cannot petition the police about their ill treatment and exploitation. The Italian government needs to acknowledge the discontent and the desperation of the immigrant population, and move to stop their exploitation rather than leaving them to fend for themselves against groups such as the ‘Ndrangheta.

Italian organized crime networks maintain a strong presence in Southern Italy, which includes Calabria, to this day. Unlike the most common mafia structure, the ‘Ndrangheta derives its strength from a horizontal network of blood ties, making it very difficult for the Italian authorities to infiltrate the organization. The head of Italy’s National Anti-Mafia Commission has stated that the ‘Ndrangheta maintains “extraordinary control” over Calabria. The ‘Ndrangheta controls the agriculture market in Calabria, and much of the rest of the economy as well. Often an African immigrant’s ticket to Italy and the potential for a new and better life is a deal with the ‘Ndrangheta, a ticket to Calabria, permission to live on abandoned land outside town, and work as a day laborer—paid in cash—all with no welfare benefits, or the protection of safety and labor laws. African immigrants in Calabria come to depend on the ‘Ndrangheta for their livelihood, and are ultimately at their mercy. Facilitated by organized crime from one end to the other, this system completely bypasses the immigration and labor laws of Italy. Therefore, any attempt by the Italian authorities to strengthen immigrant regulations will most likely be useless without also targeting the fundamental problem. Italian policy should focus on identifying and dismantling the organized crime system.

This pattern of interaction between the ‘Ndrangheta and African immigrants has led to a large, underpaid, heavily segregated African immigrant population in Rosarno. The impoverishment of Calabria exacerbates the tensions. Whereas in other regions of Italy local Italians scorn the low-paying jobs claimed by immigrants, in Calabria the $30/day that African immigrants make in the orchards is not much different than the income of many locals. The recent economic downturn has been painful for Italy as a whole, but for Calabria and the other relatively poor southern regions of Italy the effect is magnified and devastating. It creates competition between the locals and the immigrants for income, a further potential source of discord between the two groups. Since the ‘Ndrangheta continues to bring in more and more immigrant labor, it is in fact creating competition with the local laborers and indirectly contributing to increased tension.

How, then, did the situation reach this intractable point? Blame rests with the government’s policies on immigration and organized crime, both of which are ineffective and prone to high levels of corruption. Although Berlusconi announced a new 10-point plan to fight organized crime following the Rosarno riots, his words have come to naught. Furthermore, government officials have misrepresented the problem with organized crime in Calabria, and in Southern Italy more broadly, as a problem with illegal immigrant populations. Berlusconi has been known to make strongly anti-immigrant statements, and recently praised Italy’s crackdown on illegal immigration, reasoning that fewer foreigners in Italy means fewer people to fill the ranks of organized crime syndicates. Such a view is a fundamental misconception of the immigrant-organized crime relationship; since the ‘Ndrangheta has a strong family structure, immigrants are not filling the ranks, but are instead a source of cheap labor to be exploited. They are victims, not accomplices. Harsh immigration policies will only drive immigrants into further reliance on the organized crime networks such as the system in Rosarno.

Until the Italian government recognizes the need for serious legislation to provide immigrants with other options than turning to organized crime syndicates for their livelihood, further mistreatment and violence are inevitable. Strong anti-immigration laws will not solve organized crime problems. A strong government push against the power of organized crime will cut off both the illegal activities of mafia families and the avenue for illegal immigration at the same time: Prendere due piccioni con una fava. That is, kill two birds with one stone.