The world will understand us more

from The Guardian Unlimited, 6 June 2007


A Palestinian boy blows up a balloon in front of Israeli border police during a non-violent protest against the construction of Israel’s West Bank barrier. Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP

Audio can be found HERE

In the fields around the village of Ma’asara, south of Bethlehem, between the rows of vines, olives and almond trees, a long white scar has been carved across the face of the hillside.

For now it doesn’t look like much, but in a few months – when the bulldozers and workmen have finished – it will form the latest stretch of Israel’s vast concrete and steel West Bank barrier. Here it will push 9km deep inside the occupied West Bank, cutting the people of Ma’asara and the surrounding villages off from land they have farmed for generations. Within the barrier, and so effectively connected to Israel, will be the Jewish settlement of Efrat, part of the larger Gush Etzion settlement bloc.

In Ma’asara it has fallen in part to a school physics teacher named Mahmoud Zawahri to decide what to do about it. For the past six years, since the start of the second intifada – the last major uprising against the occupation – Palestinian opposition to Israeli policies in the occupied territories has been dominated by violence: waves of suicide bombings that claimed hundreds of Israeli lives, rocket attacks, abductions and shootings.

Mr Zawahri, 35, is trying to establish a campaign of non-violent resistance, a weapons-free protest. In making his argument he represents a small but growing number of Palestinians who look back with frustration and disenchantment on past militant violence.

“We need to continue to bring new ideas that reflect the effect of the wall,” said Mr Zawahri. “We believe in non-violence because we want to pass our message to the world through a way which is very white and very black. It’s good or bad, white or black. You have the rights, so there is no need to use violence. You have the right that this wall is illegal and built on your land.”

In 2004, the international court of justice said in an advisory opinion that where the barrier runs inside the West Bank and East Jerusalem it is illegal and should be dismantled. Israel argues that the barrier is a security measure necessary to stop the entry of suicide bombers.

Talk of non-violence is a challenge to the influence of the armed factions that dominate Palestinian society, an argument that says their suicide bombings not just failed to advance the Palestinian cause but set it back so far that now Israel’s military occupation has got tougher, with more checkpoints, frequent incursions and a rapidly growing barrier, and that it brought an economic and political crisis and a violent feud between rival Palestinian factions.

“The second intifada was necessary but the way we behaved? They showed the world that we are terrorists,” said Mr Zawahri. Many Palestinians are quick to compare the failings of the second intifada with what they perceive as the successes of the first, begun in 1987, which was more a popular uprising and far less dominated by the militants. Within a few years, Israel and the Palestinians had signed up to the Oslo accords that brought the creation of a Palestinian Authority and, however briefly, the hope of genuine peace between two states.

Every Friday, the villagers from Ma’asara and the surrounding area gather a few hundred yards from the route of the barrier, among them also activists from Israel and abroad. For now they have obtained a brief court injunction halting the construction so they gather for prayers first, before making speeches on megaphones and then marching back up the road towards their homes. On one Friday march earlier this month, young men from each of the political factions took turns chanting slogans against the occupation as dozens of armed Israeli soldiers walked behind the marchers. Mr Zawahri tried to keep the demonstrators in order, rushing in at one point to drag off a young Palestinian who was on the verge of scuffling with the troops.

Later, he admitted it was often hard to rein in the younger men. In other West Bank towns like Jenin and Nablus the militant groups are powerful forces. In Ma’asara, however, school teachers like Mr Zawahri have more influence. “We can’t control them all but we have to try and push them onto the right path,” he said. “We can guide them in the right direction.” Sometimes, he said, it meant allowing his protesters to throw stones and push the soldiers, but he insisted there should be no weapons at any of the rallies.

Most previous efforts at peaceful protest have faded away, except notably in the village of Bil’in, to the north of Jerusalem, where for the past two years, a regular Friday protest by Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners has been held against the barrier. However, although there are no weapons, there is frequent stone throwing which Israeli troops respond to with tear gas canisters and rubber-coated bullets.

The broader sense of disillusionment with the past decade is striking. Businessmen, particularly in Gaza, say the years since the second intifada have pushed up costs, cut salaries and badly damaged business. “People are getting poorer and poorer and that brings more violence,” said Fadi Liddawi, 31, who runs a business in Gaza City selling imported ceramics wholesale. “Where there is money there is peace. Were there is no money, no peace.”

Others sense the influence of the militant groups is beginning to wane. “Today these groups lack the unanimous respect of the people,” said Imad Ayaseh, who runs the Martyr Abu Jihad technical college in Ramallah that trains former political prisoners. “The people were given promises for the past 15 years but in reality nothing has been achieved. All these leaders in the end fight among themselves for a share of the government while the people are lost in the streets.”

One of the most prominent intellectual supporters of non-violence among the Palestinians is Ahmad Harb, a novelist and dean of the faculty of arts at Birzeit University, just north of Ramallah. At the start of the second intifada he and others like him wrote urgent articles promoting peaceful protest.

“The world understands us more when we use non-violent resistance,” he said. “I believe our strength as such lies in the fact that we are victims, that we are weak. This is the power you see in weakness.”

He argues that the political leadership failed to change their tactics from the days before the groundbreaking 1993 Oslo accords, when the PLO was an armed force living in exile. “I felt that part of the Palestinian leadership had a split personality. On the one hand they signed Oslo, and at the same time they maintained the old, revolutionary discourse of liberating Palestine from the river to the sea,” he said. “That was a deceit on the part of the Palestinian leadership.”

He notes that cultural factors may have inhibited peaceful protest, particularly in a collective psychology of pride and courage that is enhanced by religious exhortations to never give up. Peaceful protest is often regarded as cowardice, he said.

But he also argues that the Israeli response to any form of demonstration has become so tough that protest frequently escalates into violence, as now happens weekly at Bil’in. “The question is how much we as subjects of this occupation can control ourselves and stay peaceful regardless of how the other party responds, regardless of how many people will be killed in the demonstration,” he said. Students at Birzeit tried peaceful marches against the occupation in the past, but after they were met with tear gas and bullets, he said it was harder to make his case. “It begins peacefully and then turns into violence,” he said.

Stop the Bleeding of Bethlehem

Let’s work together to put an end of 40 years of occupation!
from George Rishmawi

Political parties together with local NGOs, social and political activists, and the people of the Bethlehem area are inviting you to join them in their activities against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza strip, and Golan Heights.

There will be a series of activities organized by different groups during the next week.

Wednesday & Thursday June 6-7

A group of local activists in cooperation with the Bethlehem Municipality is organizing a photo gallery at Manger Square. The photos will focus on the impact of the annexation wall on the Bethlehem area. Informational materials on the Israeli occupation will be available for dissemination.

Friday June 8

The people of Artas village, the popular committee, and political parties are inviting you to join them in their weekly demonstration against the wall and land confiscation. The gathering will be in front of the village mosque at 1:15 following the Friday prayers.

Saturday June 9

The Network of the National Christian Organizations in Bethlehem is organizating a Gathering and Candle March in coordination with Alrowad center in Aida Camp at 5:00 Pm.

Approximately 73,226 Dunams, (18,000 Acres) of land is being expropriated and some 20,000 Palestinian residents will be consequently trapped between the Wall and the Green Line (the internationally recognized armistice line of 1967) in the Bethlehem area

The people of the Bethlehem area need your support. Join us in our ongoing acts of resistance to all forms of the Israeli Occupation, including the wall, military checkpoints, settlement construction and expansion, and land confiscation.

For more information contact:

Eyad, – Arabic Language – 0522045633
Samer,- English Language – 059-8169276

Against the Wall in Bethlehem

by ISM Hebron, 1 June 2007

Um Salamona

At approximately 10:30am Palestinian, International and Israeli demonstrators gathered in Um Salamona for a demonstration against the wall and to access land which Palestinians have been prevented from reaching by the IDF due to the construction of the Aparthaid Wall. There were approximately fifty demonstrators who marched towards the location where the wall is being built and who proceeded to pass onto the land owned by a local farmer, Hasan. The demonstrators assisted in tending to the land and collecting leaves from grape vines on behalf of the farmer. In reaching the farthest section of land, approximately 20 soldiers were waiting who prevented the group from passing beyond a dirt track which separated the land from the settlement. Only Hasan was allowed to pass onto the rest of his land to tend to the trees. The demonstrators made it obvious that they had came in non-violent peaceful protest against the confiscation of the land and the wall and the army responded without aggression but still preventing the main body of the demonstration to pass onto the whole of Hasan’s land. The demonstration was considered a success in that the Palestinians were able to access land previously unattainable for many months.

Artas

At approximately 13:00, Palestinian, International and Israeli demonstrators gathered in Artas to demonstrate against Palestinian land being demolished and Orchards being destroyed to make way for the Apartheid wall and what is anticipated to be a Sewage waste facility for the Illegal settlement of Efrat close by. Around 50 demonstrators were present, consisting of men, women, and children. The demonstrators marched from the village of Artas to the location where the land had been destroyed and a large ditch had been created. There were a large number of Soldiers primarily based at the top of the hill, approximately 30, where the wall is to be built but a number of soldiers hovered around the area as well. The demonstrators, as they reached the ditch, began to throw soil and rocks back into the ditch. A tree that had been uprooted was also found close by and as a symbolic gesture, the tree was brought into the middle of the ditch and erected by the demonstrators. Throughout the time, the soldiers kept their presence from a distance and the demonstration passed without aggression. After an hour and a half the demonstrators left the site.

One arrested at demonstration against land destruction

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
25 May 2007

One arrested at demonstration against land destruction in Artas, Bethlehem

UPDATE 26 May 2007, Gaby Lasky, George’s lawyer, relayed the news that George has been released from Israeli police custody in Hebron.

George was scheduled to appear for trial in 5 hours, around 20:00, this evening at the Russian compound in Jerusalem. Gaby stated that the Greek consulate was very active, which may have pressured the police to release George before the trial.

Greek consulate representatives and solidarity activists were planning to bring video evidence of George’s innocence to the court. George was being faced with trumped-up charges of “assaulting an office leading to injury” and “disrupting soldier’s work.” The video, to the contrary, shows George and other activists being assaulted by the soldiers immediately prior to George’s arrest.

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Today, May 25th, the residents of the south of Bethlehem area held a large demonstration against Israel’s Apartheid Wall which separates them from Bethlehem and steals their lands. The demonstration started in the village of Umm Salamuna, where Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals held a soccer game on the path of the Wall.

From there, at least 150 activists made their way to the village of Artas to protest Israel’s land destruction. This was a non-violent demonstration, aimed at reaching the land of the Abu Swai family, which soldiers claimed today was a “closed military zone.” After Friday prayers on the land, the non-violent demonstrators attempted to cross the barricade of Israeli soldiers. The army responded with force. George, an activist from Greece, was arrested and is currently being held in an Israeli jail in Hebron.

Martinez described the incident: “The demonstrators were completely non-violent. Not a single stone was thrown. But the soldiers started to beat and kick people. I saw at least two people being choked by soldiers. Then they went after George. He wasn’t doing anything but they arrested him anyways.”

An Israeli activist heard one of the detaining officers say that George was being arrested for “assault.”

After half an hour, the demonstrators sat on the ground affront the soldiers, refusing to leave the area. The demonstrators all then began shouting, “We want George! We want George!” The army, however, placed George in a police jeep and escorted him to an unknown destination, though it is believed that George is in one of the police stations in the Hebron area.

Earlier this week, the struggle reached the village of Artas, near Al Hader. It happened when Israeli construction crews reached the fertile lands of the village. The reason for the planned route of the wall is for the construction of two new neighborhoods in the illegal settlement of Efrata, stretching from it’s current border to the route of the wall.

Early Sunday morning, an Israeli bulldozer destroyed an entire orchard of apricot trees in spite of attempts by villagers and other activists who slept on the land to stop it. Occupation soldiers continued their work and ate sandwiches as farmers wept at the site of their ancestral land being ripped apart. Three Palestinians were arrested the following day for continuing to protest the land destruction. They have all recently been relased.

(Video and photos of land destruction here:
https://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/05/21/in-the-belly-of-the-wailing-democracy-called-israel/)

Video of today’s action available upon request.

For more information, contact:
ISM Media Office, 0599-943-157, 0542-103-657

IMEMC: Nonviolent resistance manages to stop bulldozers in Artas

by George Rishmawi , 24 May 2007


Photo, ISM

The bulldozing of the land in Artas village near Bethlehem has temporary stopped after an Israeli court ruled a preemptive halt of work in the village on Wednesday and Thursday.

The court ruling was made after the villagers filed a complaint against the Israeli company which is building a sewer in the villagers land for the settlement of Efrat without their permission, Mr. Khaled Al-Azza head of the popular committee against the wall and settlements told IMEMC.

The case was raised as the villagers decided to protest the illegal land confiscation and went to the land to replant trees, uprooted by the bulldozers on Sunday morning.

Samer Jaber, coordinator of the “Stop the Bleeding of Bethlehem” campaign who has been very active in Artas case, said this is an achievement for the nonviolent resistance, although small.

On Sunday Israeli troops assaulted farmers and other Palestinians who came in solidarity with Artas village including Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, Minister of Information.

The Israeli s security guards who accompany the bulldozers at work opened fire on Monday at a group of villagers who attempted to enter their land. The villagers were accompanied by a number of other Palestinian and International activists.

The guards also opened fire at the journalists who were there to cover the nonviolent protest, however, no injuries were reported.

Troops arrived and arrested three Palestinians from the village and took them to Ofer detention center pending a court hearing on Sunday. The three have been charged with throwing rocks at the security guards.

IMEMC reporter Ghassan Bannoura, who was in Artas covering the incident, confirmed that no stones were thrown at anybody. “The security guards opened unprovoked fire at the villagers and at us, no one threw any stones at them,” Bannoura said.

Israel is planning to run the Settlement sewage system through the lands of the villagers.