In Dharamshala, nonviolent Tibetan leaders grapple with Chinese occupation, Gaza war
As Israel and regional terror organizations battle it out, pacifist Buddhist scholars and activists see parallels – and crucial differences – between themselves and the Middle East
DHARAMSHALA, India — From the hills of Dharamshala, where exiled Tibetans have made their home for over six decades, the Israel-Hamas war has sparked profound reflection among Buddhist scholars and activists who see parallels — and crucial differences — with their own struggle against Chinese occupation.
“If you solve it through negotiation and dialogue, it is a permanent solution,” says Geshe Lhakdor, director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives and a former translator for the Dalai Lama. “If you solve it through military might — okay, today you are more powerful, you may win. The next day it is my turn. So there will never be a permanent settlement.”
The Sino-Tibet conflict has a complex history, and its roots run deep.
“Tibet is the oldest occupied territory… China is the new colonist. The Chinese were the victims of colonization, but one night they shifted positions and became the colonizer,” charged Tenzin Lekshay, spokesperson of the Central Tibetan Administration.
In this light, the Dalai Lama’s Buddhist position in favor of nonviolence or the “Middle Way” approach has guided the Tibetan movement for decades toward a sustainable peace even as other social movements have adopted violent tactics. Yet the challenges of maintaining this moral stance amid worsening Chinese repression in Tibet are evident in Dharamshala, home of the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration.
“I personally believe that violence can bring nonviolence,” said a leader of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) in India, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Nonviolence sometimes tempts or limits us to being neutral or passive. It is exhausting because it is like waiting for something big to happen… We use different tactics and approaches, but it still takes so much time,” he said.
Even so, the SFT leader believes violence is only justified in particular circumstances: “The violence should only come from me, not from the whole community. If killing one person could bring widespread peace, then I would do it — but only if it does not escalate to more violence, if it does not escalate to the killing of masses.”
This perspective reflects a growing tension within the younger generation of Tibetan activists grappling with decades of stalled progress and what activists see as the systematic erasure of Tibet’s identity through China’s policy of mass Han Chinese settlement in the region.
This generational shift became more apparent in December 2023, when SFT’s New York headquarters issued a statement strongly supporting Palestinians and drawing explicit parallels between Israeli and Chinese tactics of colonization. The statement condemned “Israel’s settler colonial violence” and highlighted similarities in how the two countries rename territories and prevent refugees from returning home. The position marked a departure from the more measured approach traditionally taken by Tibetan organizations in India.
In Israel, the ‘language of the gun’
The connection between Israelis and Tibetans runs deep, with Israeli travelers having frequented Dharamshala for decades. Lhakdor himself has visited Israel “seven or eight times” to transmit Buddhist teachings. “I remember I gave a public talk on nonviolence in Jerusalem… when I came out, a very tall Israeli gentleman with this white cap on his head… he said, ‘Your talk is very good, but here people only understand the language of [the gun].”
While the stark reality of the Middle East presents a challenging test case for Buddhist principles of nonviolence, Tibetan leaders maintain that military solutions only perpetuate cycles of conflict.
“Instead of killing other people, you kill your anger. Instead of occupying other lands and other wealth, you must conquer your own hatred and greed. The movement for freedom is inside… Because your enemy is not outside. The enemy is inside,” said Tenzin Tsundue, a prominent Tibetan poet and activist who has been jailed by China 16 times for his pro-Tibet activities.
For these Tibetan leaders, events in Gaza have reinforced both the difficulty and the necessity of their nonviolent approach.
Lhakdor points to the indiscriminate nature of modern warfare: “With these sophisticated machines, they say that they are not using it on children and women… but the machines, once you use this ballistic missile or atom bomb, they can’t discriminate. There will be collateral damage, which we are seeing everywhere.”
As opposed to the violent methods utilized by Palestinian so-called “freedom fighters” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Lhakdor notes with pride that “Tibetans never hijacked a Chinese airplane. Tibetans never threw bombs at Chinese embassies, which are everywhere in the world. Because of this total dedication to nonviolence, I can easily imagine it must have saved the lives of several thousands of people.”
Lhakdor believes the current devastation in Israel and Gaza could have been prevented with earlier intervention.
“People who are responsible, people who are supposed to be leaders, they don’t have the vision or the courage to deal with problems right in the beginning, when such problems are about to arise,” he said. “It’s really like dousing the spark right at the time, so that later on there is no forest fire. When you don’t extinguish that little spark, then later on when it becomes a conflagration of fire, it’s very difficult to deal with.
“Some of these leaders, they don’t care about other people. They let people go to war and die there, and just give orders and sit in a comfortable room.”
According to Lhakdor, leaders are needed who understand that “we are living on this one single Earth. We are not living on two different planets… We are breathing the same air from there. We are enjoying the same environment from there.”
Yet there’s also frustration that this peaceful approach has garnered less international attention than more violent struggles.
Tsundue observes that “there is so much support for violence” — both for the Palestinians or Israelis — while “the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans who have been fighting for freedom with nonviolence don’t receive the same kind of attention.”
While the Dalai Lama has not commented on the current conflict — his office citing the 89-year-old leader’s reduced public engagements in recent years — he answered a question in 2014 on that year’s Gaza war, known by Israel as Operation Protective Edge.
“All major religious traditions — Islam, Christianity, Hindu, of course, Jainism and Buddhism – all major religious traditions — teach us the practice of compassion, love, forgiveness, tolerance,” the Dalai Lama said at the time. “So then a person who believes in a certain faith, why do you involve in such violence? It is really very, very sad.”
Despite the heightened tensions and cycles of violence in Gaza and around the world, these Tibetan leaders maintain their conviction that lasting peace can only emerge through internal transformation, not external force.
“Freedom with ethics will give you freedom now and also in the future,” Tsundue said.
The Times of Israel Community.