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Nonviolence International Canada is governed by a council of voluntary trustees.
Mr. Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan is former representative of Nonviolence International in Southeast Asia. He currently works for the research arm of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. He holds an MA in Peace and Reconciliation, and is a PhD candidate (Peace & Nonviolence).
Founder of Nonviolence International
The founder of Nonviolence International is Mubarak Awad. Mubarak was born in Jerusalem. When Awad was five years old, his father was killed during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and he became a refugee in the Old City of Jerusalem. His mother was a pacifist and argued against revenge. He was given the right to Israeli citizenship in 1967 when East Jerusalem was annexed by Israel after the Six-Day War but refused and kept his Jordanian citizenship. He studied at a Mennonite university in the US and then returned to Jerusalem and established the Palestinian Centre for the Study of Nonviolence. Prior to the intifada, Awad published papers and lectured on nonviolence as a technique for resisting the Israeli occupation. He wrote that nonviolence could be used as a means of resistance. The Centre also sponsored a number of nonviolent actions during the early months on the first intifada. Among the tactics employed was the planting of olive trees on proposed Israeli settlements, asking people not to pay taxes and encouraging people to eat and drink Palestinian products. He believed these tactics could be used to resist the Israeli military occupation. Using this knowledge and his experience, Awad prepared his own “12-page blueprint for passive resistance in the territories,” eventually published in the Journal of Palestine Studies. In 1987, Awad attempted to renew the residency permit he had been issued in 1967. His application was declined and he was ordered to leave the country. Awad claimed that under international conventions Israel did not have the right to expel him from his place of birth and he refused to leave. The Israeli government stayed the deportation order mainly at the insistence of the U.S. In May 1988, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir ordered Awad arrested and expelled. Officials charged that Awad broke Israeli law by inciting “civil uprising” and helping to write leaflets that advocated civil disobedience that were distributed by the leadership of the First Intifada. Awad appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. The court ruled against him and he was deported in June 1988. He founded Nonviolence International in 1989 and lives and works in Washington DC.
August 2025 Interview with Mubarak Awad. Fear of Nonviolence: A Life of Resistance and The Deportation of Mubarak Awad
Read Peace Magazine interviews by Israeli peace activist Meir Amor with Palestinian Mubarak Awad regarding nonviolent action in the Intifada in Palestine (2000) and on the topic of nonviolence (2015).