Nonviolent Victory for Bil'in & Palestine

I took this picture in Bil'in, in one of the many demonstrations that I attended there in 2005-2006, part of a campaign of Palestinian-led non-violent protest and direct action that has lasted the last 3 years, and has finally shown some fruits of success, however imperfect.

Short and simple, the blood, sweat and tears of the Palestinians and their Israeli and international supporters has saved at least some land of Bil'in from outright theft and colonization by the Israeli Army;

Victory for Bil’in and the Non-Violent Struggle
4th September 2007:

Following popular non-violent resistance through joint struggle between Palestinian, Israeli and international activists, a court decision has been made in favor of the petition by Bilin village to change the current route of the Apartheid Wall.

The court decision dictates that the military are obliged to plan and implement a new route for the wall. It has been ordered that the new path will allow for all Palestinian agricultural land to be on the Palestinian side. Furthermore, the court has ordered that the state should not take into consideration the area earmarked for Stage B of the planned expansion of Matityahu East.

During the proceedings, it was of note that the court made a rarely heard reference to military considerations and security. The court stated that in respect of security considerations, the current route of the wall runs in a topographically inferior path thus indicating that the original route had been planned with the prime consideration being the planned expansion of the settlement rather than of security.

The Supreme Court decision comes after years of continued struggle and resistance to the illegal confiscation of village lands. It is seen as a victory for the path of non-violent resistance and joint initiative from both the Palestinian and Israeli participants.

Although today’s decision is seen a victory in the struggle against oppressive consequences of the Israeli Occupation and a victory for the villagers of Bilin, it is important to recognize that the route of the wall still deviates from internationally recognized armistice lines and is still in violation of international law, resolutions and advisories made within the International Court of Justice and within the UN Security Council.

For more information please go to the Israeli Supreme Court Website, www.court.gov.il
(unfortunately the decision is only in Hebrew)

Alternatively please contact:

Neta Golan: 059 8 184169
Attorney Michael Sfard: 0544 713930 alternatively 03 607 345
Mohammed Khatib : 0 594 135 3636
Jonathan Pollock: 054 632 7736

Andmore clarification of the rarity and imperfection of such a decision, as well as pictures of my dear friends in Bil'in, celebrating the victory they risked their lives for, day in and day out;

The Israeli Supreme Court recently decided the wall must be moved off the majority of village land in a reasonable amount of time, for now villagers are allowed access through a military-manned gate between the hours of 6am and 8pm.

The Israeli High Court decided on the same day that the Matityahu-East settlement, half built but recently squatted by settlers and illegal under the fourth Geneva Convention, should remain but that the state, the settlers, and the construction company must pay villager’s court costs.

Of the more than 120 cases brought to Israeli court about the Apartheid wall only four have been successful. Three of the four victorious cases (Budrus, Biddu, and Bil’in) have used joint non-violent struggle to help accomplish this.

The celebration on Friday will be held in full knowledge of the rarity of such a victory, and will keep in mind the villages who have had their cases rejected. The fact that the wall is still there, that it is still occupying Palestinian land, and that the illegal settlement will remain on Palestinian land also will not be forgotten. But this is still a victory for the village, and for the joint non-violent resistance to celebrate.

More to share about the Israelis in this story that really matter, the Anarchists against the Wall, who have been the backbone of the Israeli solidarity movement, joining Palestinians in protest from villages such as Jayyous, Mas'ha, Budrus, Buiddu, Bil'in, Beir Sira, and many more;

One must understand. Anyone who went to demonstrate in Bil'in knew that he stood more than a small chance of getting hurt somehow by "his" army: by clubs, tear gas, rubber bullets. Undoubtedly, there were a few who sought out this violence,but it also befell those who did not seek it out. It was part of the deal. The violence that the soldiers and Border Police officers employed against the Israeli demonstrators on an average Friday in Bil'in surpassed that used against the settlers during the entire evacuation of Gush Katif. Nevertheless, a few hundred Israelis made this trip every Friday, without fail, for the last two and a half years. Not all of them at once. Sometimes five, sometimes 50, sometimes 100. But they came.

Without question, it was a rather small group. Not everyone, even the most devout leftist and vigorous opponent of the occupation, is prepared to come and take a beating, to run up and down hills, to breathe tear gas, to be arrested. But it wasn't an insignificant number either, this group of people prepared to come to blows with the establishment. In Bil'in their goal was simple and tangible: to restore the lands to the Palestinians.

Route of the Apartheid Wall and settlement colonization in Bil'in and Saffa

Blue areas delineate existing illegal setter-colonies; yellow indicates the areas of desired expansion, conforming with the route of the Apartheid Wall... go figure!

Now I know many will see this in the most self-serving way possible; you see, this is how Israel is so wonderful, it is a democracy that can correct itself, unlike all those awful Arab/Muslim states, etc etc... just running through such (il)logic is nauseating. The fact that the High Court of the state of Israel has, after years of struggle, both in the courts and on the ground where the poor villagers of Bil'in have put their bodies and lives on the line in the face of brutal violence and terror from the Israeli military, to fight what anyone not blind, deaf and dumb can easily see in the maps above (that they are stealing their land, a racist act of blatant colonization) is somewhat less than remarkable. It is even more amazing what the rationalization was for why they granted de facto legality to the already completed buildings; that how could the renters/occupants know that their homes are being built on stolen land? Well, umm how about look at a map and see that IT IS OVER THE GREEN LINE????!?!?!?!??! But seriously, as I pointed out in previous diaries, most many Israeli maps do not even point out what and where the Green line is, as one sees in the following images;

What the heck, if you can't get rid of them, just pretend they are not there.. and never look at maps like these;

Greater Jerusalem, divided in perputuity

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

No, in this moment we should respect and rejoice in the hard-won victory of the Palestinians and those that stood with them in their struggle, a struggle that has not come without suffering and blood, of all those involved. Palestinians there have been repeatedly arrested, beaten, tear gassed and shot at, as have the Israelis and Palestinians that have supported them. Here are a some more testaments to this struggle, the first being an amazing flim by Shai Pollack, called Bil'in Habibti, as well as some pictures of mine;

Matan Cohen, Israeli activist in Bil'in village, 2/3/06

Matan Cohen after being shot in the eye by Israeli Border Police in Beit Sira Village (close to Bil'in, also facing land theft by the Wall)

Mohammed, Haitham, Emad, Abdullah, and myself camping out at the Center for Joint Struggle on the land of Bil'in, December 2005

My last Bil'in Demo, March 2006

Bil'in, February 2006, rain or shine (that day, rain) and myself being escorted by the IOF (and, yes, I am wearing a Kuffiyeh, and proud of it)

And so, all I can add to this is that the struggle goes on. I have no doubt that the village of Bil'in will continue to struggle, in whatever avenue and way possible, non-withstanding the incredibly odd concept of Israeli 'justice.' There are also so many villages who are constricted and under assault by the occupation, such as Jayyous, Um Salumna, Nu'man, Qawawis, Tuwani, Mas'ha, the list goes on, villages where the courts have not given any relief or recognition whatsoever to the obvious suffering and theft that is taking place. And let's not forget the impending plan to plunge Gaza into darkness, an obvious war crime if there ever was one;

There is no room for debating legal nuances: Inflicting intentional harm against a civilian population constitutes a war crime. And 40 years of occupation in Gaza has not ended - it has only changed form. But Ramon's path is not only illegal and immoral, it is also ineffective. How long will we continue to believe that striking a population will make it more moderate? Are 40 years of bitter experience not enough to teach us that the opposite is true?

Another question: Is Gilad Shalit's fate more dear to us than the fate of the children of Sderot? Why is it permissible to negotiate with Hamas when it comes to Shalit, while the option of similar talks with the group on a cease-fire - the only way to ensure the safety of Sderot's children - is considered heresy? The parents in Sderot should have been the first to call upon the government to reach a cease-fire, instead of dispatching the IDF into Gaza and carrying out Ramon's zany proposals.

We should recall for a moment the last electric blackout we experienced. In June 2006, the Israel Electric Corporation implemented electric outages lasting several hours - just several hours. All hell was raised: Telephone exchanges collapsed as people stuck in elevators called for help; a resident of Ofakim who was attached to an oxygen machine was hospitalized in serious condition. Are Livni and Ramon prepared to realize the significance of cutting off "the infrastructural oxygen" for days and weeks? Are they ready to take responsibility for doing so after the world has had its say and perhaps even takes action? Several convicted statesmen are already sitting in the prisons in The Hague.

Palestinians will not remain silent, especially those of Bil'in, and it is incumbent on us, as Americans whose taxpayer money supports this injustice, as Jews in whose name this is done, and as human beings that should and must reach out to the other who is in need;

Our demonstrations aim to stop the bulldozers destroying our land, and to send a message about the wall’s impact. We’ve chained ourselves to olive trees that were being bulldozed for the wall to show that taking the life of our trees takes the life of our village. We’ve distributed letters asking the soldiers to think before they shoot at us, explaining that we are not against the Israeli people, we are against the building of the wall on our land. We refuse to be strangled by the wall in silence. In a famous Palestinian short story by Ghassan Kanafani, "Men in the Sun," Palestinian workers suffocate inside a tanker truck. Upon discovering them, the driver screams, "Why didn’t you bang on the sides of the tank?" In Bilin, we are banging, we are screaming.

I will end this diary with the recent Uri Avnery article from Gush Shalom on Bil'in, reproduced in full with permission of course. Many of the demos I attended there, I'd see the wiry white haired figure of the 80 plus year old Uri Avnery nearby, getting his share of tear gas and beatings. I may disagree with him sometimes on political matters, but he is a fellow brother in the struggle, along with Jonathan Pollack, Mohammed Khatib, Waji, and all of my beloved friends there. Strength and solidarity to you all,

jon

Jonathan Pollack and other Anarchists & Palestinians protest the Wall in Bil'in

Mohammed Khatib relaxes before yet another beating by the army with Israeli and International Jewish activists

BIL'IN! BIL'IN!

08/09/07

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WHEN MY friends fall prey to despair, I show them a piece of painted concrete, which I bought in Berlin.

It is one of the remnants of the Berlin wall, which are on sale in the city.

I tell them that I intend, when the time comes, to apply for a franchise to sell pieces of the Separation Wall.

Sometimes, when I give a lecture before a German audience, I ask: "How many of you believed, a week before the fall of the wall, that this would happen in their lifetime?" No one has ever raised their hand.

But the Berlin wall fell. This week it happened here, too - true, only in one place, to a small section of the fence, when the Supreme Court decided that the government must dismantle the obstacle (which at this place consists of a fence, with ditches, patrol roads and razor wire) and relocate it nearer to the Green Line.

THE BIBLE commands us: "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth" (Proberbs 24,17). It is a very hard commandment to obey.

The enemy, in this case, is the "Separation Obstacle". It is hard not to rejoice, even when it is a limited joy, a conditional joy, because we have won a battle, not the campaign.

First of all, a part of the land of Bil'in has been redeemed, but not all of it. The new fence will still be far from the Green Line. The length of the section to be dismantled is less than two kilometers.

Second, Bil'in is only one of many villages whose land has been stolen by means of the wall.

Third, the wall is only one of the means of occupation, and the occupation gets worse by the day.

Fourth, in many other places the Supreme Court has confirmed the path of the fence, even though it steals Palestinian land no less than at Bil'in.

Fifth, the Bil'in decision also has a negative side: it gives the court an alibi in the eyes of the world. It confers on the settlers an apparent legitimacy in many other places. It must not be forgotten for a moment that the Supreme Court is essentially an instrument of the occupation, even though it tries sometimes to mitigate it.

As if to underline this point, the court itself hastened this week to issue another ruling, giving retroactive authorization to another neighborhood that has also been built on Bil'in land.

Yet in spite of all this: in this desperate struggle, even a small victory is a big victory. Especially since it happened in Bil'in.

FOR BIL'IN is a symbol. In the past two and a half years, it has become a part of our life.

Here, every Friday, for 135 weeks without exception, a demonstration against the fence has taken place.

What is so special about Bil'in, a small and remote village, whose name was known before to just a few outsiders, if any?

The struggle there has become a symbol because of an unusual combinations of traits:

A- STEADFASTNESS. The courage of the Bil'iners. In other villages, too, the demonstrators have shown courage, but here the sheer dogged persistence arouses admiration. Week after week they came back. The activists were arrested again and again, wounded more than once. The entire village has suffered from the terrorism of the occupation authorities.

More than once I was stirred at the sight of this small village's resistance. I saw the armored jeeps storming in, sirens screeching hysterically, the heavily armed policemen jumping out and throwing gas and stun grenades in all directions, young boys stopping the jeeps with their bodies.

B- PARTNERSHIP. The three-cornered partnership between the people of the village, Israeli peace activists and representatives of international solidarity.

This is a kind of partnership that is not expressed in highfaluting speeches or sterile meetings in luxury hotels abroad. It was forged under clouds of choking tear gas, under the jets of water cannons, under fire from stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets, and in ambulances of the Red Crescent as well as army detention facilities. It has given birth to comradeship and mutual trust, just when these seemed to have been lost forever in our country.

Since the death of Yasser Arafat, cooperation between Palestinians and Israeli peace movements has declined in several spheres. Many Palestinians have despaired of the Israelis, who have not achieved the hoped-for change, and many Israeli peace activists have despaired in face of the Palestinian reality. But in Bil'in cooperation has flourished.

The Israeli activists, headed by the resolute young women and men of the "Anarchists Against the Fence", have proved to the Palestinians that they have an Israeli partner they can trust, and the people of Bil'in have proved to their Israeli friends that they are reliable and determined partners. I am proud of the part Gush Shalom has played in this struggle.

Now the court has proved that such demonstrations, which many considered hopeless, can indeed bear fruit.

C- NON-VIOLENCE. Always and everywhere. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King would have been proud of such disciples.

The non-violence was entirely on the side of the demonstrators. I can testify as an eye-witness: in all the demonstrations in which I took part, I saw not a single instance of a demonstrator raising a hand against a soldier or policeman. When in one of the protests stones were thrown from among the protesters, video films conclusively proved that they were thrown by undercover policemen.

True, there was violence at the demonstrations. A lot of violence. But it came from the soldiers and the border-policemen who could not bear, I presume, the sight of Palestinians and Israelis acting together.

Generally, it happened like this: The demonstrators marched together from the center of the village towards the fence. In front there marched young men and women wearing or carrying symbols of non-violence. On one occasion, they were handcuffed to each other, another time they were holding high portraits of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, another time they were carried in cages - imagination and creativity were given free rein. Sometimes well-known personalities marched in front, arms locked.

Near the fence, a large contingent of soldiers and border-policemen were waiting for them, wearing helmets and bullet-proof vests and armed with rifles and grenade launchers, with handcuffs and sticks dangling from their belts. The protesters did not stop but advanced towards the gate, banging on it, shaking it, waving flags and shouting slogans. The soldiers opened fire with gas and stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets. Some protesters sat down on the ground, others retreated and then came back again and again. Some were dragged away with their bare backs scraping along the road and the rocks, choking on the gas. Arrests were made. Wounds were treated.

When the demonstration came to a close and the participants headed back towards the village, the local boys would start to sling stones at the soldiers, who responded with rubber bullets. Chases took place between the olive trees, with the light footed boys generally having the advantage.

Sometimes, the stone-slinging started even earlier, when the boys saw from afar the concentration of forces lurking in the village groves and the demonstrators being dragged brutally towards the army vehicles. But, in accordance with the standing agreement among themselves, the protesters never joined in the violence, not even when they were dragged on the rock-strewn ground or were kicked and beaten while lying there.

This combination of steadfastness, partnership and non-violence is what turned Bil'in into a beacon of the struggle against the occupation.

THE BIL'IN affair has another face, which was revealed in all its ugliness over the last few weeks.

The Supreme Court has decided that the path of the fence in this sector was not based on security considerations, but was designed to enlarge the settlement. For us, of course, that was not a startling revelation. Everyone who has been there, including foreign diplomats, has seen it with their own eyes: the path was fixed in such a way that the Bil'in land was annexed de facto to Israel, to serve for a huge new housing project called "Matityahu East", in addition to the settlement called Matityahu (and also Modi'in Illit and Kiryat Sefer) that is already standing.

In a second decision this week, the Supreme Court, for the sake of a spurious "balance", decided that the housing project that is already standing in Matityahu, also on Bil'in land, can remain there and may now be populated, in spite of the fact that the same court has in the past forbidden this.

And who built Matityahu?

Some weeks ago, a huge scandal was exposed. The culprit is a building company called Heftsiba. It collapsed, taking with it the apartments that its clients had already paid for. Many of them have lost their entire savings.

The owner of the company fled and was tracked down in Italy. The company's debts come close to a billion dollars. The police suspects that the fugitive has stolen immense sums.

And lo and behold: this is the same company that built the original Matityahu neighborhood, and that intended to build the new Matityahu project on land stolen by means of the "Security Fence". It also built the monstrous Har Homa housing project and other neighborhoods in the occupied territories.

Who can now deny what we have been saying for years, that the settlements are a huge business of billions upon billions of dollars, which is entirely based on stolen property?

Everybody knows the hard core of settlers, nationalist-messianic fanatics, who are ready to drive out, kill and rob, because their God told them so. But around this core has gathered a large group of gangsters, real estate operators, who conduct their dirty and hugely profitable business behind the screen of patriotism. In this case, patriotism is indeed the refuge of scoundrels.

Talia Sasson, a lawyer appointed at the time by the government to investigate the setting up of "illegal" settlement outposts, has concluded that most of the ministries and army commands have violated the law and secretly cooperated with the settlers. It may appear that they acted out of patriotic sentiments. I have my doubts. I dare to guess that there must be hundreds of politicians, officials and officers who have received large bribes from businessmen who made billions from these "patriotic" transactions.

P.S.:

The man who invented the wall was Haim Ramon, then a leader of the Labor Party. Ramon started out as one of the "doves' of the party (when that was popular). Later he jumped ship to the Kadima Party (when that was profitable).

This week Ramon proposed cutting off the electricity that Israel supplies to the Gaza Strip, as punishment for the Qassam rockets fired at Sderot. It must be remembered that from the beginning of the occupation, Israeli governments have prevented the setting up of independent water and electricity works there, so as to make sure that the Strip would be completely dependent on Israel in matters of life and death.

Now Ramon proposes cutting off this lifeline, to plunge Gaza into darkness, to stop electricity for hospitals and refrigerators, as a collective punishment - which constitutes a war crime. His government has accepted the proposal in principle.

If Bil'in represents the struggle of the Sons of Light, Ramon surely represents - quite literally - the Sons of Darkness.

   *

(Report on and photos of the victory demonstration that took place in Bil'in this Friday can be viewed on Gush Shalom's website).