The weekend actions started a bit early. It started with a Thursday action of cutting the fence where they least expect it. Every one of the hundreds of kilometers of the fence/wall is hated and despised by the people on whose land it is built and who are imprisoned by it. Yesterday, on the lands of the village of Surif, Palestinians internationals and Israelis (of the AATW initiative) demonstrated what this resentment means: At any moment any part of the hated wall might be dismantled when an opportunity arises. In an Isolated point along the path of the separation fence, south of Bethlehem such an opportunity presented itself. A small number of people were able to cut through the fence in two minutes and disappear before the army knew what has happened. When soldiers did arrive, the only thing left for them to do was to explain to their superiors how their patrols can not possibly prevent this from happening again.
With the same ease, the same action can be repeated in other locations and just like at Surif, it will be virtually impossible for the army to prevent it. (see video at the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC4lvXfeHvY) nice stills at: https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/7169/index.php
Not that they could not do it for a while if they dedicated huge amount of resources and harsher repression... but the Israeli state have both limits on resources and conflicting trends in the ruling elite. (Expressed again and again in the change of policies about the weekly demonstrations in Bil'in - while new regional commanders tried again and again to put end to the weekly joint demonstrations by harsh repressions and soon Higher levels intervened to restrict the measures used.)
In Friday demonstration in Um Salmuna, the army failed to play its part... People suspect one of the reasons they did not come was that on the previous Friday, in which the usual demonstrations in the region were canceled because of the release of 250 FATAH prisoners, a handful of activists who did came to the site provoked the Israeli unit to lot of maneuvers with out any result...
The Israeli state forces just stayed far away in the near by colonialist settlement just keeping eye contact with the demonstration.
In Bil'in we had again a more "interesting" demonstration than the usual. This Friday we had a very big contingent of internationals who make the march more lively. when we were out of the built area of the village we left the road leading to the gate in the separation fence - where the state forces were waiting for us. We took a path leading to a northern part of the fence and a unit of the state forces rushed there to confront us. when the first demonstrators approached the fence, the state force started to shower us with tear gas... just to discover that the wind carry part of it towards them forcing them to regroup back a little. However, the direction change of the wind enable the small unit to use hand grenades of tear gas which are easier to aim, and they gradually forced us to return inside the village... alas, their stock of tear gas grenades ended so they had to stop the pursuit and return to the point near the gate where the main force stayed. The village comity decided at that point to end the demonstration at this point of tactical victory... promising to the exited and disappointed internationals that there will be more Friday demonstrations to attend to in the near future.
Video of previous Friday demonstration in Bil'in:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nJgsO-n8-o
Ilan
http://ilan.shalif.com/anarchy/glimpses/glimpses.html
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