Global Intifada 2010: Popular Struggle. Steadfastness. Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.
Popular resistance to Israel’s apartheid is growing globally! In Palestine, non-violent resistance to land confiscation and settlement expansion is gathering momentum.
Weekly non-violent demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza have tripled since January, and continue to increase in size and number. The tents are standing strong in Jerusalem’s threatened communities of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, and resistance to settler attacks and land grabs in the Jordan Valley is also building.
The International Solidarity Movement is committed to supporting these communities in their struggle for justice and freedom. We stand alongside Palestinians in demonstrations, stay in the tents and homes of threatened areas, and walk with farmers to their land. By documenting and helping to resist the evils of apartheid, ISM projects the Palestinian struggle to a global audience, and shows Israel that the world is against its actions.
Come and join the Global Intifada in Palestine! Committed volunteers are needed in the West Bank. This new wave of unarmed resistance is exciting and powerful, and it needs your support. Whether for 2 weeks or for 3 months, your contribution is needed. See www.palsolidarity.org for more information, or email us at palreports@gmail.com.
From abroad: Under the banner of “Global Intifada”, solidarity actions are needed worldwide. Please consider organizing an action in your hometown.
The growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is crucial, and is a great way for you to get involved in your own country. Similar tactics were used in ending South African apartheid. For more information, go to bdsmovement.net
Please join the Global Intifada. We look forward to seeing you here.
ISM is hard at work in the West Bank and Gaza, and needs your help!
The ISM media office was raided two times in the span of four nights in February, when Bridget Chappell and Ariadna Jove Marti were arrested. In the raids, the Israeli military stole all of our computers (three laptops, one desktop) as well as several video cameras. Just a few weeks ago, the Hebron office was broken into while activists were away. We believe the military is also to blame because neighbors reported soldiers coming to look through the windows multiple times when the apartment was empty, and in the raid two laptops, multiple cameras, photo memory cards and USB memory devices were stolen, while other valuables were left in plain sight.
ISM needs to replace this equipment in order to continue the important work we’re doing. Documenting ongoing settler violence and harassment in Tel Rumeida (Hebron) and Sheikh Jarrah (East Jerusalem) are two of our most important activities. The residents of these communities demonstrate remarkable resilience by refusing to be deterred by settler violence. In order for the communities to have a chance of telling their story to the global community (one of ISM’s primary roles), and to prove the innocence of our Palestinian friends when they are falsely accused (a frequent occurrence), we need to capture high-quality footage.
We need: at least two small hand-held video cameras (roughly $150-200 each).
ISM Gaza activists risk extreme danger to document some of the worst human rights violations in the world. One primary activity is documenting use of live fire in the “buffer zone” towards farmers and non-violent demonstrators. Israel’s use of live fire has killed 14 and injured over 50 thus far in 2010. Bianca Zammit, a Maltese activist, was shot in the leg April 23 while filming a demonstration, proving that such documentation is viewed as a threat by the Israeli military.
We need: a Mac laptop computer for video editing ($1000)
A camera with good ‘optical’ zoom, such as a Canon Powershot S51S ($150-300)
The strategic theft of our media equipment, combined with Bianca’s shooting, serve as a reminder that we pose a real threat in our ability to reach global audiences with information about Israel’s actions. As non-violent activists, cameras are our weapons in exposing the Apartheid. Please, help us to continue this important work by donating here: palsolidarity.org/donate, or by sending equipment to Palestine with an activist.
Souad has lost access to the land that provides her livelihoodSouad lives in the beautiful village of Safa, south west of Bethlehem, close by the path of the apartheid wall. From her house in the village it is only a short walk to her land – an entire, rolling hillside, the summit of which has been stolen by the Israeli colony/settlement of Bat Eyn. No fence separates her fields and terraces from the settlement: Bat Ayn is one of only two colonies without such a fence in the entire West Bank, designed to make it easier, without a defining border, to make future land grabs.
The title deeds to Souad’s hillside have been in her family for over 100 years. Not that it does her any good – she cannot even graze her sheep without risking being fired upon by the settlers. She can only watch from a nearby hill while her peaches and grapes, soon ready for harvest, wither and rot on the vines and trees, or are stolen by settlers. She needs to work the land, to ensure the proof of continuing ownership and to keep the soil in good condition, but fears for her life if she was to venture there. She has watched helplessly as hundreds of fruit trees, replanted with help from international donors after the original trees were torched by settlers, were dug up and taken back to the settlement to be planted there.
Our presence on this nearby hill was soon noticed by Israeli soldiers patrolling nearby roads and we decided to move back to the village, lest the soldiers enter and fire tear-gas into the village as punishment for the presence of international observers. As we left Souad ruefully remarked, “My hill is gone. Where we are standing may be next.”
It is difficult to see how villagers such as Souad can carry on. She may say, “With God’s help we will survive”, but, dependent wholly for her livelihood on what her land produces, her future is precarious in the extreme. From these hillsides it is possible, on a clear day, to see well beyond the Green Line and, they say, to Tel Aviv. Such a beautiful land. The Stolen Land. And the disappearing land.
UPDATE: All eight of the activists arrested yesterday during the demonstration in Beit Jala were released last night at 11:30 p.m. Each arrestee was individually interrogated, and required to give the police his or her phone number as contact information “in case further investigation is needed”. No other conditions were stipulated.
Demonstrators obstructed construction of the illegal apartheid wall in Beit JalaThe Christian village of Beit Jala, in the Bethlehem governorate, lies next to the path of the apartheid wall at a point where it cuts deep into Palestinian territory. The objections of the villagers have been ignored and, for the past two months, a regular Sunday protest demonstration has been called at the instigation of the Beit Jala National Committee. This Sunday, May 16th, demonstrators gathered at the site where a bulldozer was clearing agricultural land for the walls’ construction a mere 30 metres from the nearest houses. The protesters’ numbers were constrained as Palestine Authority police prevented local Palestinians from joining the protest.
A core group of international and Israeli activist supporters succeeded in clambering aboard the bulldozer, forcing the clearing work to stop. When Israeli soldiers and border police arrived in numbers half an hour later the activists then sat on the ground in front of the bulldozer, linking arms with the intention of resisting their removal.
Military and border police violently removed the peaceful demonstratorsAfter an order to leave the site had been issued and ignored the soldiers and border police then proceeded to drag the protesters forcibly over the rocky terrain towards a waiting personnel carrier. Those who chose to walk fared better than those who continued to resist – despite the threat of the use of pepper spray from close quarters. Eight young resisters, five females and three males, including two from the International Solidarity Movement and two from the Palestine Solidarity Project, were taken into police detention at the Gilo settlement.
Israel’s treatment of international activists, aid workers and human rights workers has become increasingly draconian as it attempts to stem the flow of uncensored and first-hand information which flows to the West. Quite simply, “the only democracy in the Middle East” cannot afford the truth to be told and will brook no opposition to its inhuman and illegal policies and practices.
Reem Banna performing at Nakba Day observance in Al Ma'asara The village of Al Ma’asara, near Bethlehem, held a Palestinian cultural festival on Friday to mark the 62nd anniversary of the Nakba. Palestinian music, dance and poetry were all on display, offering a timely reminder of Palestine’s ancient history and vibrant culture. Above all, the event was an assertion of Palestinian identity, and of the right of Palestinians to live as free citizens in their homeland.
The festival was opened with a series of speeches from representatives of Al Ma’asara and other villages in the Bethlehem region, and from Siham Barghouti, the Palestinian Minister of Culture. There was then a performance from the renowned Palestinian singer Reem Banna, who sang several songs to great acclaim from the crowd of perhaps 200 people.
Three tents erected alongside of the festival represented the villages destroyed and the people displaced in 1948, and again in 1967. After 62 years, despite ever increasing oppression and persecution, a huge rise in illegal Israeli settlements, the construction of the apartheid wall, and much more, Palestinians remain steadfast. They have not and will not abandon their homeland, and they will not forget the unique and special culture that they are rightly so proud of. This festival was a timely reminder of this.
Bil’in
The weekly demonstration against the apartheid wall in Bil’in also commemorated the 62nd anniversary of the Nakba, where 700,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their home and were made refugees. The demonstration was fronted by a huge wooden key, representing the non-negotiable demand for the right of return for refugees. There were also three men dressed as Handala, the popular cartoon character symbolising the children of the subsequent refugee camps. As the demonstration reached the wall it was met with huge amounts of tear gas and before long the army attempted to enter the village and one Palestinian journalist was arrested. However, the demonstration suddenly changed its focus as the hot tear gas canisters created several small fires which spread quickly across the land and amongst the olive trees. The demonstrators spent about half an hour trying to extinguish the fire with olive branches until a Palestinian fire engine turned up and the demo ended.
Hebron (al Khalil)
Demonstrators painted messages onto the miitary watchtower next to Shuhada StreetThe city of Hebron held a demonstration today to mark the 62nd anniversary of the Nakba. The fourth of the now weekly demonstrations organized by Youth Against Settlements, protesters marched through Hebron to the heart of the Old City, led by the Scouts’ marching drumming band. Participants carried flags, banners and 62 balloons – one for each year of the Israeli occupation. The demonstration reached one of the military bases which blocks access for Palestinians to Shuhada Street, a key thoroughfare in Hebron which only Israelis or foreigners are now allowed to pass along. During the demonstration, ‘Open Shuhada Street’ and ‘This Is Apartheid’ were painted upon the soldiers’ watchtower, which led to the arrest of one Palestinian man.
After an hour of speeches, chants and songs by the military base, the demonstration moved away, along a road that runs parallel to Shuhada Street. Settlers above, who were surrounded by soldiers and police at the time, threw rocks down onto the march. Fortunately, no-one was hurt. Some Palestinian children threw some of the rocks back, for which the soldiers attempted, unsuccessfully, to arrest them. Settlers then poured dirty water and spat upon the demonstrators as they walked along the road beneath them.
The settlements in Hebron are, like all settlements within the West Bank and East Jerusalem, illegal under international law. Palestinian residents of the Old City and the district of Tel Rumeida suffer severe restriction of movement, frequent harassment and occasional violence at the hands of both soldiers and settlers. Shuhada Street has been closed to Palestinians since 1994, forcing shops to close and residents to leave their homes.
Sheikh Jarrah
Around 50 people gathered Saturday to march from the American Embassy along Nablus Road to Sheikh Jarrah where police and soldiers had blocked off the street into the neighborhood, only letting settlers through. After a long speech the demonstration began to dissipate. A group of settlers held up an Israeli flag and a woman from the neighborhood proudly approached them with her daughter waving a Palestinian flag. The crowd followed with chants.
