If the authorities responded by putting people in jail, so much the better, he says. The military prisons, already crowded, would soon be filled to capacity and the judicial system would grind to a halt.
Shaken by a month of violent unrest in the occupied territories - unrest Awad has done very little to influence - Israeli authorities might be expected to view this kind of peaceful resistance with lenience, if not outright relief.
That has not been the case. Because Awad's ideas just might attract a wide following someday - and might prove every bit as disruptive as he envisions - the Israelis consider him a dangerous man and have ordered him out of the country.
The controversy over the U.S.-educated psychologist underscores the intractable nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a conflict in which each side denies the other's legitimacy and in which the Israelis have come to see any form of resistance, peaceful or not, as intolerable.
Awad is one of an emerging group of Palestinian intellectuals who are trying to formulate new strategies for ending the Israeli occupation.
Recognizing that there is no hope of defeating Israel by force and that Palestinian terrorism has alienated many potential supporters in the West, they are trying to engage the Israelis in the political arena, seeking not military victory but the sympathy of the international community.
The U.S. State Department has asked Israel not to expel Awad, a naturalized American citizen, on the ground that he represents a moderating influence in an explosive situation.
Israeli leftists have also rallied to his cause, asking why, if their country wants peace, it would exile one of the few Palestinians who represent an alternative to terrorism.
