In the Path of the Wall

Here’s a short film showing a non-violent direct action against the Israeli Apartheid Wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in on the 20th July 2005. Four internationals, three Israelis and one Palestinian chain themselves inside a metal cylinder which is placed in the path of the bulldozers that daily come to destroy the land belonging to the village and annex it to a nearby settlement. While the world’s attention is fixed on the so-called ‘disengagement’ from Gaza, the Israeli government is rapidly carrying out settlement expansion and land confiscation and destruction in the West Bank. This film shows the customary force used by the Israeli Occupation Forces when their actions are resisted ( run time is eight minutes).

It’s available at The Internet Archive.

For the story behind this action against the annexation barrier, here’s the original report.

For some photos, check out this blog entry.

Where’s the restraint in Bil’in?

By Haaretz Editorial

After proving their sensitivity and intelligence in dispersing the demonstrations in Gush Katif, the Israel Defense Forces and police could have been expected to apply the same policy in handling the demonstrators against the separation fence in the village of Bil’in.

The IDF and police did not fire at the protesters on the roof in Kfar Darom, even when the latter threw dangerous substances at them, and they refrained from using force even against violent protesters. Similarly, it could have been hoped that the soldiers would hold their fire when facing left-wing and Palestinian protesters.

Instead, outrageous images are published week after week of soldiers kicking left-wing demonstrators and firing salt or rubber-coated bullets – showing their general contempt for the right to legitimate protest.

Three different judges have recently castigated the defense forces for the excessive use of force in Bil’in. Despite this, they once again fired at the demonstrators, this time – last Friday – even before they had left the village area toward the fence.

The demonstrations of the West Bank villagers, whose lands have been confiscated for the construction of the separation fence, have been taking place for the past two years. Together with the petitions to the High Court of Justice, they are a legitimate and sometimes effective means of protest against the annexation of land intended to expand settlements, under the pretense of building the fence. The lands taken from the residents of Bil’in, some of which are privately owned, are mostly intended to expand existing settlements, but also to build a new settlement called Nahlat Heftziba.

Expropriating more than half the village’s lands for nonsecurity purposes arouses unnecessary anger, and it is doubtful whether such measures are necessary or wise. The flexible building plans of the settlements are in dispute. In Bil’in’s case, it is doubtful whether there are even confirmed plans.

Demonstrations that took place in other villages have been effective in getting the fence line moved closer to the Green Line. In Bil’in, the residents still hope their protest will reduce the scope of the disaster.

The demonstrations in Bil’in and the adjacent villages have become the Palestinians’ main protest against the continued expansion of the settlements, and they are even dubbed the “fence intifada.” If the authorities are thinking of putting an end to these demonstrations forcibly, and taking protesters into preventive detention, they should also consider the alternative. There is a fear that the legitimate and very restricted “fence intifada” will lead to the eruption of another armed intifada.

The separation fence is a means to stop terror, but all the sides know that its line marks, to a large extent, the future border between Israel and the Palestinian state. The attempt to annex more territories, to build more settlements and to arouse more hatred among those whose land is confiscated is superfluous.

The most obvious lesson from the dismantling of the Gaza settlements is that they should never have been set up in the first place. One day’s settlement success became another day’s political and security millstone. The injustice imposed on Bil’in residents could still be fixed. But, in any case, the village’s legitimate right to protest must not be tampered with.

School, stones and settlers

by Greta B

It was the children’s second day of school in the old city of Hebron. We had been asked to accompany them to prevent settler children from stoning small boys and girls.

Settlers had gone on a rampage yesterday, stoning us, the police and even the soldiers as they came down their ‘settler hill’. The police did nothing except look at these thugs throwing stones at us. When we asked where the teargas, sound bombs and rubber bullets were, they just shrugged.

Ten minutes after we arrived at the bottom of the hill to escort the children, the military showed up. “This is a closed military zone.” They informed us. “We want you to leave.” As we stood there and argued with them, they took out a piece of paper and pointed at it, telling us that the paper said it was a closed military zone.

Since there was no writing on it and no signature, one of the activists told the soldiers we were going nowhere unless the paperwork was filled out and signed. Off he went, then returned ten minutes later with an apparent filled-out form.

By this time, most of the girls had been escorted safely to school and most of the little boys had been able to get through the checkpoint, just one of the eight that rings the area.

One of the soldiers and some of the police told us, CPT and the Interdenominational tear that we were interferring with their jobs, and they could escort the children just fine. But they don’t and they won’t.

So we will be at the bottom of the hill tomorrow morning.

Soldiers In My House

Three Weeks to Freedom: One family’s story of survival under siege

Wafa Abu Shmais is an English teacher, the mother of four children, a wife, daughter, and an aunt. She is also a Palestinian, Arabic and Muslim, her entire life spent in an apartheid state where the simple fact of not being Jewish makes one not fully human, expendable and hated. Wafa and her family endure the type of racism and oppression not seen in the United States since the slave days and briefly glimpsed with the internment of the Japanese during World War II.

Yet surprisingly as you read her diary encompassing the three weeks in April 2002, which saw the invasion of Nablus and the Massacre in Jenin, (which Israeli hardliners still try to deny even with the film footage and testimony of Kurdi Bear, one of the D-9 drivers proving it) you’ll discover Wafa could easily be your neighbor.

She worries about what American mothers worry about. Her children complain about the same things American children complain about and she and her husband support each other, just like American husbands and wives support each other.

The most remarkable aspect of this diary gleans though frustration and justified anger; the hate Americans are told consumes all persons of Arabic or Muslim decent is missing. The hate is missing for a reason. It doesn’t exist as it has been painted. What emerges from her writing is hope, frustration and disbelief. The image Americans have of Palestine, including heinously distorted history, biblical and actual reflects propaganda rather than truth. Wafa’s story will allow you to know what Palestinians are really like. When she wrote this in April 2002, she didn’t plan on having it published. She just wrote what she was feeling, seeing, thinking and experiencing. She wrote what was happening.

With the exception of some very minor grammatical corrections, the diary is just as Wafa wrote it. We are very proud to present Wafa’s diary covering the three weeks of hell she and her family survived. You’ll find her story inspiring as well as disturbing, yet it is a story that must be told.

Wafa Abu Shmais’ entire book, is online. You can read it right here.

IndyMedia video of military attack on Bil’in


On September 2, 2005, people in the West Bank village of Bil’in tried to peacefully protest the annexation of their land where Israel is building its illegal annexation barrier. Before the demonstration could begin, Israeli occupation forces invaded the village, shooting live ammunation and attacking Palestinian, Israeli and international activists. This video captures what happened.