Palestin-Israel, Is it the end of the joint non violent strugle against the separation fence in Bil'in?? 28 Apr 2006

The joint demonstration against occupation and against the separation fence in Bil'in' of the village people and these of the Anarchists Against The Wall initiative of this Friday put in question the future of the joint struggle. More than a year old non violent joint struggle was "kidnaped" for the second consecutive time by youth of Bil'in who do not share nor respect the non violent strategy of the Bil'in village comity for the joint struggle against the separation fence. This Friday noon - like in the other Fridays of the last 13 months, we started the march from the center of the village on the road to the route of the separation fence - used to robe more than half of the lands of the Bil'inians. As reminder to the first big demonstration in Bil'in of a year ago we carried the huge six-by-thirty meter Palestinian flag made especially for that demonstration.

We were about 100 participants - including twenty Israelis, and twenty internationals. When we arrived to the route of the fence, we put the flag on the non protected East side of the route of the separation fence and stood in front of the armed forces of the Israeli occupation who blocked the entrance to the route of the fence and the passage to the other side with two armored cars on which were 10 border policemen.

Soon, a verbal confrontation started and even a short physical one when few of us tried to climb on the armored cars and were pushed down with batons. Like in the previous Friday demo - the usual confrontation between the stone throwers and the state forces was prevented as the armed forces were not dispatched to the border of the olive trees orchards on the sides of the road to provoke them. Thus, after a while, when these of them who were with us in the main demo became restless they started to throw stones on the policemen on the armed forces. These retaliated with a shower of shock grenades - mainly on the nonviolent demonstrators near by.

The first shower of stones and shock grenades was short, and many of the people who run away returned. After a while of resuming the nonviolent verbal confrontation, the stone throwing was resumed in even more intense measure - responded with harsher repression that including shooting of rubber coated bullets and some tear gas. From then on, the stone throwing did not really stooped and the demonstration dispersed.

It seems that the political changes in the occupied Palestinian areas resulted in the diminishing of the influence of the Bil'in village comity for the struggle against the separation fence. Thus, the previous agreement with the stone throwers that they will do their thing in a separate area near by but not within the non violent demonstration is not respected any more.

It also seems that the stone throwers got more "recruits" from the village youth who did not even tried to cover their faces while throwing the stones.

In the afternoon news programs of the main radio channel they reported that there were 200 demonstrators in Bil'in. They added that one soldier was injured by stone, and four demonstrators were injured too.