Tag: Budrus

Building a different Middle East

Joel Beinin | The Nation

15 January 2010

Like every other woman in her village Umm Hasan wears a headscarf. Her husband and other male relatives are not on the scene. But this is not an obstacle to her animated interactions with the sixteen Israelis and foreigners she has never previously met but welcomes into her home. Among the visitors are a German and a Serb who are making a film about Palestinian hip-hop. Everyone has come to participate in the weekly demonstration against the separation barrier organized by the local Popular Committee.

While the Israelis make preparations for the demonstration, Umm Hasan tells the filmmakers about the current situation in the village. Neria, a young Israeli woman who attended a bilingual primary school, makes a poster in Arabic and Hebrew, “so the [Israeli] soldiers will know what it means” with the slogan: “They destroyed the wall in Berlin; tomorrow we’ll destroy it in Palestine.”

As the visitors arrive, Umm Hasan’s oldest son, Hasan, from whom her name is derived, is leading Friday prayers for a “dissident” congregation. His congregants support the weekly protests. The imam of the “official” village mosque does not. The consensus is that the imam and his followers fear that if they join in they will lose their permits to work in Israel or in the nearby quarry owned by a rich Palestinian who sells stone to Israeli contractors.

Hasan and his brother Muhammad are leaders of the Popular Committee of Ma’asara. Another leader, Mahmud, is currently in France on a political mission. Hasan is a supporter of Fatah, Muhammad supports the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Mahmud supports the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. But these differences are of little consequence, because the Popular Committee includes all the factions in the village.

When Hasan returns from prayers, he serves tea to the guests. There is barely enough time to finish drinking before the guests depart to join about two dozen villagers for the demonstration. Muhammad stays behind because he is under a military court order that forbids him from participating. If Israeli authorities saw him attending a demonstration, he would forfeit a bond of 15,000 Israeli shekels (about $3,950).

The demonstrators march through neighboring villages, with a total population of about 10,000, to Umm Salamuna. There, several kilometers away from the separation barrier, twenty Israeli soldiers in full battle gear stand behind a razor wire, which they have stretched across the road to block the protesters’ advance. Haggai, a young Israeli man who was jailed for two years for refusing to be drafted into the army, addresses the soldiers in Hebrew. Showing them a hand-drawn poster-board map of the area, he explains, “You are not in the territory of the state of Israel and you could not do what you are now doing inside Israel. We are demonstrating peacefully on Palestinian land. You are violating international law. Don’t be surprised if, when you repress peaceful demonstrations, some Palestinians resort to violence. You can choose not to obey your orders.” Jum’a, a member of the Popular Committee, addresses the crowd in Arabic and English, emphasizing that this is a nonviolent demonstration.

Nonetheless, Rami, one of the villagers, is arrested. His apparent offense was stepping on the razor wire. Umm ‘Iyad, an older woman wearing a headscarf and a shawl in the colors of the Palestinian flag, crosses over the razor wire, undisturbed by the soldiers, and proceeds to negotiate for Rami’s release. During the negotiations a drum corps of five young Israeli women and one man and the Palestinian boys they have been teaching to drum sustains a steady succession of beats punctuated by chants in Arabic, Hebrew and English.

The soldiers do not deny that they are holding Rami hostage to force the demonstration to end. Eventually, an arrangement is reached. The soldiers release Rami with his ID card, which he must have to cross any of the more than 500 barriers and checkpoints the army maintains in the West Bank. The demonstration ends.

***

In mid-2002 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon authorized the construction of a separation barrier (known in Israeli parlance as the “fence” and in Palestinian parlance as the “apartheid wall”). About 85 percent of the barrier’s trajectory is to the east of the Green Line that marked the border between Israel and the West Bank from 1949 to 1967–i.e., inside the West Bank. The construction of the barrier is incomplete and its final trajectory is still contested. But if there is ever a negotiated resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Israeli consensus supports annexing Palestinian agricultural lands and Jewish settlements lying to the west of the barrier. This region is now designated as “the seam zone” (kav ha-tefer)–an indeterminate area that is not (yet) legally in Israel proper, but which has been effectively detached from the West Bank.

On July 9, 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that “the construction by Israel of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and its associated regime are contrary to international law.” In Israel this was widely considered yet another confirmation that “the whole world is against us” and that Israel “shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.” Most Israelis do not care to know what happens on the other side of the barrier.

There are currently also weekly demonstrations in the villages of Bil’in and Ni’ilin. There, the demonstrators can actually reach the separation barrier, climb on it or open the gate to it. These actions are “illegal,” so the army uses considerably more force to disperse them than in Ma’asara, firing volleys of high-velocity tear gas canisters, percussion grenades, stink bombs, rubber-coated metal bullets and live 22-caliber ammunition. While the demonstrations are nonviolent, in some villages youths throw stones at the Israeli soldiers after the official demonstration is over.

Bil’in (pop. 1,800) has held weekly demonstrations against the separation barrier since March 2005, the longest continuous nonviolent popular mobilization in Palestinian history. Bil’in has achieved international renown and is the subject of a film, Bil’in, My Love, made by Shai Carmeli Pollak, one of the regular Israeli demonstrators. Since 2006 the village has hosted annual solidarity conferences attended by luminaries who also participate in the Friday demonstrations. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan was shot by a rubber-coated steel bullet at a demonstration during the April 2007 solidarity conference. European Parliament vice president Luisa Morgantini and other dignitaries were injured in a demonstration in June 2008. In August 2009 six members of “The Elders,” a group of widely respected, retired political figures–Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ela Bhatt, Gro Brundtland, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Jimmy Carter and Mary Robinson–visited Bil’in.

Bil’in is also the symbol of a certain victory for popular struggle against the separation barrier. On September 4, 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered that the barrier, whose current trajectory cuts the village off from about one-quarter of its remaining agricultural lands, must be redirected. Chief Justice Dorit Beinish’s opinion stated that the court was “not convinced that it is necessary for security-military reasons to retain the current route that passes on Bil’in’s lands.” Despite this unequivocal ruling, the Israeli army has failed to implement the court’s order. The barrier remains, and hundreds of olive trees uprooted to make way for it have not been replaced.

Therefore, the weekly demonstrations have continued, and the Israeli reaction to the mobilization at Bil’in has become more fierce. In April 2009 a tear gas canister shot by the army during a demonstration killed Basim Ibrahim Abu Rahmah. In December 2009 Basim’s cousin and the coordinator of the Bil’in Popular Committee against the Wall, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, was arrested. He was charged with possession of weapons because he maintains a “museum” in his home displaying spent tear gas canisters, percussion grenades and bullets fired by the Israeli army at unarmed demonstrators. In response, the Elders’ chair, Desmond Tutu, released a statement saying, “My fellow Elders and I met Abu Rahmah and his colleague Mohammad Khatib in August when we visited Bil’in…. We were impressed by their commitment to peaceful political action, and their success in challenging the wall that unjustly separates the people of Bil’in from their land and their olive trees. I call on Israeli officials to release Abu Rahmah immediately and unconditionally.”

On November 6, 2009, to mark the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, some 300 demonstrators at Ni’ilin (pop. 4,600) toppled a section of the eight-meter-high wall that separates the village from part of its lands. The demonstrations have been particularly violent there during the past year. Five residents have been killed and dozens have been wounded. In March 2009 an American, Tristan Anderson, was severely injured at Ni’ilin. In late 2009 he was still hospitalized with brain damage and a fractured skull.

During 2009 Bil’in, Ni’ilin, and Ma’asara were the most visible part of the story. But there is much more. Village-based Palestinian popular resistance supported by Israelis and internationals began in the fall of 2003, when local Palestinians and Israelis stood together against the separation barrier in the villages of Jayyus and Mas’ha.

On November 9, 2003, Budrus (pop. 1,400) became the first village to organize a formal weekly march from the village center to the site of the construction of the barrier. Two soldiers were wounded by stones in a demonstration at which there were no Israelis and foreigners. Wounded soldiers make news in Israel, so the Palestinian struggle against the separation barrier also received publicity.

Jonathan Pollak, a young Israeli activist, came to Budrus and asked ‘Ayid Mrar, a leader of the recently formed Popular Committee, “How can we help?” ‘Ayid replied, “It’s very important that you come and participate with us.” Relating the story later ‘Ayid recalls, “When foreigners and Israelis began coming to my house, people didn’t like it at first. People had never seen the other face of Israelis. They thought Jews are either soldiers or settlers. Then Israelis started to come to demonstrations. Now people accept and welcome it.”

During one of the weekly demonstrations Iltizam, ‘Ayid’s teenage daughter, organized a women’s contingent, which broke through the army lines and stopped the bulldozers from working. Women in Ma’asara did the same, under the leadership of Umm Hasan. Budrus too, is the subject of a film. Budrus, directed and written by Julia Bacha, held its world premier at the December 2009 Dubai International Film Festival, with ‘Ayid and Iltizam in attendance.

There have also been demonstrations in many other villages whose lands have been confiscated due to the construction of the separation barrier. The Israeli army and border police have killed some twenty Palestinians (six in 2009 alone) while attempting to disperse these protests. Hundreds have been injured and arrested. Many of the organizers are under military orders banning them from participating in the weekly demonstrations.

Israelis have joined the demonstrations, in large numbers on special occasions, and in smaller numbers on a regular basis. The most persistent Israelis have been associated with Anarchists against the Wall, a name given to the group by the Israeli media but which they accepted for its provocative character. A good number of the anarchists and other younger Israeli activists have learned Arabic as a result of their extensive stays in West Bank villages or through study motivated by political commitment. They have the wounds to prove that commitment. Jonathan Pollak was hit by a tear gas canister at one of the Bil’in demonstrations and suffered two brain hemorrhages and a wound requiring twenty-three stitches. Matan Cohen was shot in the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet at a demonstration at Beit Sira. He later enrolled in Hampshire College and became a prominent organizer of the campaign there that culminated in the college endowment fund divesting from six companies doing business in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. An Israeli court recently accepted the contention of the border police who shot Matan that his wound could have been caused by a stone with the exact dimensions of a bullet.

Internationals, many organized by the International Solidarity Movement, have spent time in the villages, eaten and slept in local homes and participated in the weekly demonstrations. They have been tear gassed, wounded and killed, most famously Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death by a Caterpillar bulldozer in March 2003 while trying to prevent it from demolishing a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah.

Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners jointly confronting the Israeli army; locally organized and led protests, substantially nonviolent and uniting adherents of all the Palestinian factions; peacefully demonstrating Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners tear gassed, severely wounded and killed by the Israeli army; women wearing headscarves playing an active and independent political role: these are not the common images of Israeli occupation and Palestinian resistance in North American journalistic, diplomatic and scholarly discourse. But they are central components of an ongoing movement deeply rooted in the social fabric of the West Bank. While not necessarily opposed to existing political parties or urban-based elites, this movement has been organized by local forces seeking to unite all the elements of village communities in order to protect their lands from the encroachments of the separation barrier.

Despite its peasant base and leadership, the movement is extremely sophisticated. ‘Ayid Mrar says, “If we resist a bulldozer we aren’t opposing the Israeli soldier. We are opposing the bulldozer [coming to destroy our land.] We are resisting the wall. If the Israeli soldier puts himself between us and the bulldozer, he is putting himself in danger. But we have no weapons, and there is no violence or fighting on our part…. Our problem is not with Israel and not with Jews. Jonathan is a Jew. Our problem is with the occupation. If we want to have a developed, peaceful region, we have to work together. We can have peace on the basis of equality.”

Toward the end of 2009 a national coordinating committee of the local popular committees was being formed. Jonathan Pollak is the media coordinator for Israel and international media and webmaster. His first effort in this capacity was an op-ed on the Huffington Post blog about the arrest of Abdallah Abu Rahmah. Jonathan believes that the wave of recent arrests (over thirty in Bil’in alone since last June) and the escalation of violence against demonstrators are due to Israel’s fear of “a paradigm shift to grassroots resistance.”

The mobilizations are rooted in the particular dynamics of each village and depend on the balance of local political forces, family dynamics and economic factors like the possibility of obtaining permits to work in Israel. Together they form a peasant-based social movement that is becoming increasingly conscious of its political significance and filling the void in Palestinian leadership created by the futile struggle between the Palestinian Authority, dominated by Fatah, and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.

Is this movement likely to contribute to a resolution of the conflict anytime soon? ‘Ayid Mrar is doubtful. “I don’t know when the occupation will end,” he says. “Not in one or two years. Maybe in a hundred. If the Palestinian people achieve their freedom, we don’t want relations of enmity with Israel. We want to build a different Middle East.”

Letter From Budrus

By Mark Sorkin
Originally published in The Nation

The van drops us off at the top of a hill and rattles around the bend. It is the middle of the afternoon in Budrus, a tiny village in the occupied West Bank ten miles northwest of Ramallah, and the neighborhood seems deceptively quiet. A few boys and girls linger outside their homes, picking at cactus bushes. Others peek out from second-floor windows to watch the visitors walking by. A dirt road winds down to an expanse of olive groves that stretches for about 700 dunams (175 acres) to the Green Line, the internationally recognized border with Israel. It’s a bucolic scene, violently interrupted by the razor-wire fence on the outer edges that threatens to tear through the middle of the groves. If construction here continues, the 1,200 residents of Budrus–the vast majority of whom depend on agriculture for work–will lose a large portion of their fields. An Israeli bulldozer has already carved a preliminary path, and uprooted trees lie in its wake.

According to the official map released by Israel’s Defense Ministry, the proposed route of the separation barrier will not only pass through this patch of land but will also loop around to encircle Budrus and eight nearby villages, creating a closed enclave with a population of 25,000. Once the area is sealed, access to fields, offices, construction sites, university classrooms, friends and relatives outside the enclave will be restricted. Even those who need emergency hospital care will be subjected to the caprices and bureaucratic diktat of the soldiers guarding the gates. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem estimates that the completed barrier will create eighty-one such enclaves and will expropriate almost 1 million dunams east of the Green Line, affecting a total of 875,600 Palestinians, or 38 percent of the population in the West Bank.

Many residents in Budrus fear that conditions in the enclave will become so dire that they will be forced to abandon their land. This alarming possibility has prompted them to mobilize en masse, and they have succeeded so far in stalling construction and calling attention to the dubious legality of the plan. They’re not alone: Since the first bulldozers broke ground in August 2002, thousands of Palestinians throughout the West Bank have teamed up with Israeli peace activists and international humanitarian groups to stage nonviolent demonstrations against the barrier (which, it must be noted, is built as a fence in some areas and, elsewhere, a monstrous wall made of thirty-foot concrete slabs). Confrontations between protesters and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have become increasingly chaotic, leading to hundreds of injuries, detentions and at least seven deaths. But the residents in Budrus haven’t taken up arms, nor have they appealed to the Palestinian Authority or other factions for support. Doing so, they believe, would only strengthen Israel’s claims that a barrier is necessary to deter attacks. Instead, they have organized an autonomous, highly disciplined campaign to prevent construction until Israel agrees to build on the Green Line.

Anticipating a struggle in their area last fall, village leaders got together and formed the Popular Committee Against the Wall. By the time the IDF arrived on November 12, the committee had developed a strict set of rules: Everybody in the village was expected to participate in the protests, and nobody was allowed to throw stones. “The soldiers were prepared with their weapons,” says Ayed Murar, 42, head of the committee. “But when they saw all our people sitting peacefully on our land–old men, women, children, everyone–they turned back.”

Ayed’s brother Muhammed, a thin, mild-mannered sheik, invites me into his home to talk. We’re sitting in his spacious living room, which is furnished with two couches and a dozen plastic green chairs arranged in a circle. The space seems to double as a play area for Muhammed’s children, two of whom hover timidly in the corner, and a conference room for committee meetings. As cups of coffee cool on the table, Muhammed explains, “To have a confrontation locally, you want it to be totally apart from the politicians. We didn’t want to wait for instructions from the PA in Ramallah. The threat was so great that people were prepared to move from their houses to live in the fields. When we saw a bulldozer, we wanted to be able to move immediately.”

The IDF returned at the end of December and declared Budrus a closed military zone. Demonstrations continued on a regular basis for the next few months, often in defiance of curfews. Ayed and a third brother, Naim, were arrested in early January following Israeli intelligence accusations of “terror-supporting activity,” but the charges were dropped once they were determined to be baseless. According to a report in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, the military court issued a statement upon Ayed’s release, declaring, “It is out of the question for the military commander to use his authority to order a person’s administrative detention [arrest without trial] only because of his activity against the fence. This is a mistaken decision that does not stem from security considerations.”

Over the course of about thirty demonstrations, more than 100 people were injured by batons, rubber bullets and tear-gas inhalation. Some youths, after seeing their parents wounded, tried to fight back with stones. But the committee leaders discouraged this activity through a series of public discussions and lectures in the schools, insisting that they would lose the struggle if resistance turned violent. “There was a constant discourse about nonviolence and a tight sense of control,” says Max Shmookler, an American peace activist who lived in Budrus for seven weeks as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement. “The general prohibition on stone-throwing was well understood and respected.”

Protests came to a halt on March 3, when the IDF presented a revised map showing that the route of the fence had been moved to the Green Line. But in early May, leaflets appeared in homes and on shop windows around town with a foreboding message. Muhammed pulls a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolds it and begins to read: “We are calling on the residents of Budrus to be present tomorrow at a meeting with officers of the civil administration.” Later I stop to talk to a cluster of men standing outside a small grocery store, where the same message is taped to the window. They are concerned that activity in the area is scheduled to resume and that construction will, in fact, cross through the olive groves. The rumors are confirmed the next day, and protests resume immediately.

“Instead of taking 1,200 dunams, now they want to confiscate something like 200,” says Ronit Robinson, a human rights attorney representing Budrus. Robinson filed a petition to Israel’s High Court of Justice on May 23, claiming that there is no legitimate reason to cut through the groves. This will buy some time for the residents of Budrus–once the case enters the system, construction will stop until the court reaches its decision–but generally speaking, matters involving the occupied territories haven’t fared well for Palestinians in the past. Nine petitions regarding the barrier have already been rejected (five have settled, two were withdrawn and seventeen remain in process).

Rachel Naidek Ashkenazi, a spokesperson for the Defense Ministry, insists that the path has been suitably adjusted in response to the citizens’ complaints. “The new route is in Israel’s territory prior to the ’67 war, a change that necessitated uprooting of an Israeli forest in the area,” she explains. Does this mean that the precise location of the Green Line is in dispute, or that Israel is reluctant to recognize it? Ariel Sharon’s highly publicized meeting with President Bush on April 14, during which Bush assured the Prime Minister that a final peace agreement would not require Israel to withdraw to its pre-1967 borders, suggests an answer to that question. As envisioned by Sharon’s Likud Party, the barrier will not only deter suicide bombings by preventing Palestinians from entering Israel but will protect settlements as well. The current map reveals a tortuous line wrapping around these “new realities on the ground,” folding settlements and strategic resources into an expanded Israel.

As the International Court of Justice considers the case against the barrier, Israel’s security claims are being weighed against potential violations of international law. Indirectly, the ICJ proceedings could strengthen the case in Budrus, an area without a noticeable concentration of militant resistance or any geographical rationale for encroaching beyond the Green Line. “We’re now in a sort of post-Hague stage, where humanitarian issues are very much in the spotlight,” says Ray Dolphin, a fence analyst with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. “Civil groups are getting involved, Israeli communities are joining in and injunctions are successfully causing the construction to be rerouted or delayed.” All these things combined, Dolphin adds, could pressure Israel to adopt a more delicate approach toward villages like Budrus.

Robinson is holding out hopes that the High Court will rule in the village’s favor, but she is skeptical about the likelihood of rerouting that section of the fence a second time. Residents, meanwhile, are bracing for another confrontation with the IDF. Ayed says he is prepared to keep struggling, peacefully and with international help if a new round of protests becomes necessary. “They decided to build this wall in order to protect themselves,” he says. “But now they need twenty soldiers just to guard the wall.”

Budrus Has A Hammer

By Kobi Snitz
Originally published in Zmag

Last afternoon, the Israeli army invaded the village of Budrus during the course of a wedding at which most of the village was present. Many shots were fired, three injuries were suffered and one youth was arrested. Concerned for their friend, a group of people left the village and followed the jeep which took him away. When they were unable to retrieve their friend, the people took out their frustration on the fence which comprises part of the Israeli separation barrier. As a result, about 150 meters of the fence were dismantled and two victory parades were held in the village on the following days. Confidant that world is watching, the villagers addressed themselves to it: “no to the wall” in Hebrew, their trademark “Budrus, we can do it” in English, and in Arabic, they praised the strength of god: “Allah hu akbar” but also sang about their own strength.

This is not the first time that parts of the fence are dismantled. On several occasions, Palestinians supported by Israeli anarchists and by international activists managed to dismantle parts of the fence in meticulously planned actions. However, this time it was different, the young people of Budrus did not wait for Israeli or international activist support or even for the village elders to plan or approve the action. Furthermore, the amount of fencing dismantled goes beyond the symbolic level which often passes for direct action.

Spontaneous action, by which people directly dismantle the structures which oppress them, is often the stuff of songs. Most of the time though, the singing is done at a safe distance from political relevance. For example, American media has romanticized the struggle against legally sanctioned segregation to the point that the singing of its movement songs has become a “hallmark moment”. At the same time, current, relevant struggles are either ignored or demonized. It is probably the case that the words “Palestinian civil rights movement” or “Palestinian non violent demonstration” were never combined on American mainstream media.

Much has been written about the popular resistance to the Israeli separation barrier and about Budrus in particular. Over the last year Budrus has become the most successful example of Palestinian popular resistance, leading some to talk of a renaissance in the popular struggle, reminiscent of the first Intifada. For several reasons, the current demonstrations cannot match the incredible levels of participation in the first Intifada but the current popular intifada has seen important advances. First of all, in several cases concrete gains can be attributed to the resistance and secondly, international and Israeli activists have finally joined Palestinian demonstrations. Indeed those visitors who are able to see the Budrus struggle for what it is, felt lucky to be there to see the people of Budrus tear down the wall. For the few Israelis activists present, it felt like their private version of 1989 at the Brandenburg gate. Back in Tel-Aviv however, it seemed that the celebration will remain a private one. The military censors forbade the Israeli media from mentioning that the fence was dismantled, one mention slipped by in the Saturday evening news and the indymedia carried pictures and reports.

Several months ago, army commanders had informed the village that no more demonstrations would be permitted. In order to make this point the village was essentially put under curfew for two weeks. The people of Budrus are very familiar with the toll that the army can extract, in the course of over 50 demonstrations 212 people were injured from rubber bullets alone in a village of 2000 inhabitants. The number of people hurt from tear gas inhalation is too large to keep track of and last year a, 17 year old, Hussein Mahmoud Hussein Aweideh from Budrus, was shot dead at a demonstration in Beitunia. It is expected that the army will want to retaliate against the village for the latest action with more invasions and perhaps more administrative detentions of village leaders. Another possibility, the one that the Israeli censors must be afraid of is that Budrus will in fact turn out to be Palestine’s Brandenburg gate, the place where the wall began to fall.