Friday, November 30, 2007

Palestine-Israel, The joint struggle continue in Bil'in region and in the Bethlehem region 30 Nov 2007

Wednesday direct action at Izbet-Al-Tabib was one of the sporadic joint direct actions against occupation Palestinian villages invite the Anarchists Against the Wall (AAtW) to join. --- "The action at Izbet Al Tabib this morning started out well with a decent number of internationals Palestinians and Israelis. The army also showed up in force and attacked the people after a few minutes. People succeeded to dismantle only part of the road block they intended to. Two Israelis were arrested and taken away to Kdumim police station. The two who were arrested were released after few hours and the army returned to the village with many soldiers and increased the size of the road block".
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On Friday, the first joint action the AAtW activist participated in was in Um Salmuna - the Bethlehem region. Later morning, people marched from the village towards the route of the separation fence. Just when they reached the high way they had to cross, lot of Israeli state force accompanied the march. Some pushing by them was not serious enough to disrupt the demonstration. Near the route of the fence in built the villagers hat their noon prayer, and the demonstrators returned to the village.
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In Bil'in we had our 146th Friday demonstration. As the more belligerent state force personal went to confront the near by regional demonstration at the 443 apartheid road, we had a very peaceful demonstration. At noon, we marched from the center of the village towards the route of the separation fence. When we arrived at the foot of the hill the gate to the robbed lands on the west side of the fence, he had a surprise. There were only small number of soldiers and border police gendarmes. They declared the rest of the road as closed military zone and threatened us as usual. However, when people slowly moved beyond the forbidden line, they refrained from brutal attack. They threatened and blocked our advance after intruding 30 meters into the forbidden zone but no real physical harassment. After a long while they threatened they will arrest people so we retreated very slowly from the intrusion and then finished the demonstration.

For a while we looked from the hill on the confrontation between the stone throwing youth and the state forces. -----------------

The regional demonstration against the apartheid highway 443 the Palestinians of the region it pass through are forbidden to use, started at noon. The march of demonstration towards the highway was intercepted at the point they tried to block our way and failed on the previous demonstrations. Participant report that the state force used batons "freely" and detained one Palestinian and one Israeli who tried to protect him from brutal attack. As response to the brutal attack, youth who dispersed on the near by hill threw lot of stones on the state force and on the traffic of the apartheid road.

The demonstrators tried to apply pressure to hasten the release of the two detainees, but they were released only an hour after the demonstration ended.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Palestine-Israel, another week end of struggle of the AAtW people 24 Nov 2007

It started on Thursday morning - last work day of the Israeli week. The Israeli comity for dismantling the mass annihilating arms expanded its boundaries. The conference of the sponsors of the Israeli atom bomb in Tel Aviv university was an opportunity for counter action. The comity, the Israeli green peace activists an the people of the anarchists against the wall organized a counter conference. Activists held placards, gave speeches and distributed leaflets to a big queue of audience of the conference as security measures held them for a long time at the entrance of the auditorium....
Next came the already traditional three joint demonstrations against the occupation and the separation fence.

In Bil'in it was the 145th Friday demonstration. It differed a bit from these of the last few months as the whether was on our side... As usual, when we crossed the line at the foot of the hill the gate in the separation fence is on its top, the Israeli state forces showered as with tear gas.. but the very weak Eastern wind blew it to their direction. It was nice to see them retreat up the hill and hear the anxious commander order them to stop shooting and throwing tear gas grenades. Celebrating the small victory two comrades climbed on an temporarily abandoned border police jeep and got punished later when 4 people roughly detained, one had his head banged three times on an army vehicle, another was shot at with a tear gas canister which burned him a bit and broke his hand.

While we were confronting and arguing with the soldiers half way up the hill, a team of the border police advanced along the road to the village in pursuit after the less bold comrades who were retreating to the village, to avenge the lost honer of the state forces. As they could not use tear gas and batons, they shoot people with metal bullet coated with rubber. As results, two of the Israelis needed medical treatment in hospital: one comrade was shot at his head resulting in a light concation, and another was shot at her knee.

After a long verbal arguments and confrontation we retreated slowly back to the village waiting for the release of the detainees before returning home. It is usually done after the end of the confrontation between the state force and the stone throwing kids that usually start their take after the nonviolent demonstration is attacked by the state force... And indeed, so it happened.

During the time of waiting we exchanged information with the comrades who returned from the parallel demonstration at the apartheid road 443 and with the comrades who escorted the injured comrades to the hospital in Ramalla.

The activist that was shot at his head in Bil'in was admitted to a local hospital when we returned to Israel. He was released after an intensive checkup - bruised, in some pain, and shocked but at the late evening started to get over it.

The Joint demonstration at the 443 apartheid high way done as a regional joint project was rather peaceful. The state force did not try to block people from the region to arrive at it. Their effort to block the way of the demonstration from arriving at the margin of the high way - where the concrete blocks prevent Palestinians from the near by village to drive their cars to it, was half hearted and overcome easily. (They succeeded to hit some kids but not much more.) When the people stood along the high way, they shouted their opinions for the drivers and passengers using it what are their opinion on the apartheid road.

After the demonstration, Few youngsters who were restrained during the demonstration started after it ended to throw stones on the state forces. These responded with invading the village with jeeps pursuing the kids shooting them with tear gas canisters and rubber coated bullets. However the youngsters evaded the Israeli state force who shortly afterwards left the village.

The organizers of the regional demonstration against the apartheid 443 high way, announced that the demonstration will continue every week and invited Israelis to join in the future demonstrations.

The action in the Bethlehem region was not so spectacular. Activists of the villages Artas Um Salmuna, and from Bethlehem, converged near the Efrata intersection. The alarmed state force were afraid the demonstration will infringe on the high way and prevented the AAtW contingent (blamed to be the instigators of such steps by state spokes) from mingling with the Palestinians - keeping them separated few meters away, till the demonstration ended.

443 highway Friday 23-11-07 - link to video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsT6m5WPp-k

A short movie made during the critical mass in Tel Aviv of November 15. http://clk.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/

Bil'in Friday demonstration - 16-11-07 - link to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCNmQKFI46k

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Palestine-Israel, The AAtW and the joint struggle this week end 17 Nov 2007

This week we started the week end activity earlier a bit. First activity was the participating in joint struggle of Palestinians of the region the 443 highway pass through. This part of the highway built on lands robbed from the villagers is on the middle of the second high way from Tel Aviv To Jerusalem, that pass through occupied territories of the 1967 war, but the Palestinian villagers are prevented from using it. The villagers of Beit Sira, Safa, Beit Likya, Kharbata Al Masbach, Beit Ur El Tachta and Beit Ur el Foka - joined forces and started struggle against this apartheid road. Naturally, many of the involved wee previously active in the joint struggle of their and neighboring villages, together with the Israeli Anarchists Against the wall, and internationals against the separation fence. Naturally, they invited the internationals an us to participate. naturally we did our best to join the struggle. Naturally the Israeli state forces did their best to block the struggle and more so to prevent the participation of Israelis in that joint struggle. Naturally we tried to over come these blocking, but this Thursday morning we failed nearly completely... but only nearly.

As their logistics stinks, they tried to stop us by checking every car that was passing through the check point on the 443 high way - at the entrance to the Palestinian region. As result of this checking a long queue of cars was formed for about half an hour. If we had tried to achieve it on our own initiative, we could not do that better....

They succeeded to intercept our car and forced us to return to the Israeli side of the region - escorting us towards Tel Aviv. We managed to stop in a near by intersection and before we returned to Tel Aviv, one of us succeeded to evade the police escort an arrived at the demonstration.

At the evening, we had witnessed again the split between super leniency of democracy to the Jews in contrast to the harsh suppression in the Palestinian regions. About 100 people from the city anarchist scene and sympathizers converged in the city central square for a critical mass against the occupation and the war on Gaza. After a while we started (a well publicized and with no permit) an hour and a half of a slow driving - to enable the comrades who had no bicycles to participate. The Samba team with its drums were a nice music to accompany our chants. Slowly we did a big round a bout "tour" in the main streets of the center of Tel Aviv. At each significant intersection we did a few minutes of a whirl riding. And the police were aware of our action as we took all the width of the road lanes in the direction we traveled. Comrades distributed leaf lets and the police officers asked again and again not to obstruct the traffic of the opposite direction.... Only on one of the whirls blocking the intersections one angry police officer asked one of us to show her papers.

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This Friday, we had a bit bigger Friday demonstrations in Bil'in - about 200 participants, about 100 of them Internationals and Israelis. As usually we marched chanting all the way from the village center towards the route of the separation fence. As usual when we reached the foot of the hill the gate to the west is on it the commander of the Israeli state force declared the remaining space as closed military zone. As usual, comrade started to cross the forbidden line. As usual the state force started to shower us with tear gas canisters.

However, it was not so usual whether, and many of the more experienced, made use of the very slow wind, to evade the tear gas and keep staying near the separation fence. Some succeeded to cross the line and approach the state force where they could not use tear gas on our people. Some of us us regrouped among the olive trees and approached the separation fence on the northern side of the gate - challenging there the soldiers positioned on the other side of the fence, who failed to deter us with tear gas. After hearing them intending to shoot at the two of us wearing colored shirts, we returned to the road, for another intrusion into the forbidden area. The soldier had to use physical force to made the people retreat, and detained 4 comrades.

For another hour, the more experienced of us took the initiative again and again to approach the forbidden zone when the wing cleared the tear gas and retreat only after a heavy shower of tear fas canisters shot at us. The majority of the international guests and many of the others were a hill nearer to the village and had a good view on the arena... to be punished from time to time with long shots of tear gas.

All along the afternoon we could see from time to time people suffocate from a tear gas canister the failed to evade, and few limping as result of direct hit of tear gas canisters shot toward them an from rubber coated bullets - luckily not seriously injury this Friday.

After 2 hours of action, most of the people dispersed and the outsiders left the village. Few of us stayed with few of the village activists waiting and applying some ties to hasten the release of the detainees. When the evening arrived, the 4 detainees (including one international, one Israeli and two of the village comity) were released. We politely declined the invitation to join the evening meal and returned to Tel Aviv.
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Joint streggle against the separation fence at Eidna - south Hebron mountain 10-11-07 - link to video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-9C49RyE3c

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Palestine-Israel, The joint struggle against the occupation and separation fence - Bil'in, 443, Um Salmuna, Idna 10 Nov 2007

In Friday Israelis of the anarchists against the wall initiative joined grass roots Palestinian activists in three demonstrations. First the nearly legendary demonstration in Bil'in - the 142nd since February 2005. As usual, the Israeli state force prevented the nonviolent demonstrations from even reaching the gate to the West of the separation fence. As usual, the showered the people with tear gas when the first few persons crossed a line two hundreds meters from the gate. In parallel, a regional initiative of the people of the villages near the 443 apartheid road connection Tel Aviv and Jerusalem that cross the Palestinian lands but forbidden for them to use. We did there a third action. The state forces tried to block the roads in many places. There were road blocks that tried to prevent people from Bil'in, Beit Ur and Saffa to arrive at Tah'ta, but they only forced us to use round about paved and unpaved roads.

Then, when we start marching they tried to stop us from reaching the near by road block that prevent the travel from the village yo the 443 road. The few soldiers on the mission were pushed along about 100 meters till we arrived 5 meters from the road and blocked there by police and soldiers. The commander there announced a closed military zone and they tried to push us back detaining after two failures due to dearresting Mohamed Hatib.

When we challenge the commander to show the written declaration of closed zone, we found it was phrased in a way that authorized them only to prevent us to cross the few meters to the road itself. Thus, the pushing ended and we staid there and even Mohamed Hatib was released.

In parallel, few comrades tried to block the 443 with a chain, but failed because of bad logistics.

After about an hour the demonstration was finished. The Friday 9th road 443 demonstration on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLWb1LWqYn0

The third action was in Um Salmuna in the Bethlehem region. There, the state forces succeeded to block the way of the march from approaching the building site of the separation fence. A fourth demonstration at the near by Beit Jalla was canceled as the building site was deserted for a while - works stopped and equipment with machines removed - reason not known yet.

Saturday, was another day of action. Not the first time, activists of the anarchists against the wall joined Palestinian activist in the West of Hebron. Today, we joined People of the village Idna. There the completion of the separation fence two weeks ago was used as opportunity for the Israeli state forces to destroy the summer dwellings of the herders of the village in the wast lands - now behind the fence. The people and the herds were forced to transfer to the East of the separation fence.

In a symbolic act, we forced our way through the barbed wire spools that are bordering the route of the separation fence. We marched along the electronic fence and hung on it few placards. After police and army forces arrived and blocked us from continuing the march we returned to the village.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Israel, Anarchist Against The Wall activist Jonathan Polak arrested 08 Nov 2007

Yonatan Polak of the Israeli Anarchist Against The Wall initiative was Just arrested on the street near his house by detectives.
His house is now being searched, and they want to confiscate his computer. All out there feeling solidarity with our struggle are asked to keep informed and updated.
Yonantan was accused of property damage done on last Friday (2d of November) action in Tel Aviv.
He is now taken to Merhav Yarkon police station.
They confiscated his computer, c.d's, and some hardcore posters (saying it's sedition...)
Our lawyer Gabi is on the case, and there are already people near by for support and to sign bail if needed.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Palestine-Israel, Long weekend of activities of the Anarchists against the wall (AAtW) initiative 04 Nov 2007

It started as usual with the 142th joint demonstration in Bil'in. There, it it was as usual in the last few months you can find a lot of details in the various web pages like ainfos.ca, anarkismo.net, infoshop.org, israel.indymedia.org. The only unique to this demonstration was the France contingent and the refraining of the state force from sending team to intrude into the woods of the olive trees located between the fence and the village - to provoke intensive stone throwing by the village youth.

The other actions of Friday we participated in were in Tel Aviv. The first was the big demonstration of the asylum applicant from Darfur mainly, who are usually treated as bad as you can expect a racist state like Israel. Activist of the (AAtW) were busy the last two months in organization and giving help to the Darfur asylum seekers from Darfur and other places, with Israelis involved with them.

A comrade who was involved with this demonstration contributed the following text: "Today they are around 3000 asylum seekers and refugees in Israel most of them are African but there are also few from Burma, Iraq and other countries. The state of Israel has no official policy or a law how to deal with them, (though it is bound by some international regulations it try as hard as it dare to evade). Most of them are under the threat of deportation back to there they came from which means death for many of them.

On Sunday morning a proposal will be raised by enlightened Knesset members at the Knesset which suppose to settle the status of refugees and asylums seekers in Israel.
On Friday November the 2nd around 1000 people marched through the main boulevard of Tel Aviv - Rothschild boulevard. Israelis, Eritreans, Sudanese, Burmese, Congolese, Liberians and may other marched against the deportation of refugees from Israel and to legalize the issue and status of refugees in israel. during the march many Israelis joined and it ended at the front of the cinamteque where music played by the refugees and Israeli bands.

The second action was too at the Rothschild boulevard.

In the name of the front for liberation of the public space

Autonomous activists today (Fri. 2.11) removed one of the globes from Rothschild Ave. and returned it to the Stock Exchange in protest against abuse of public space. Last few years the globalization and the neo-liberal capitalist new order found its way into Rothschild boulevard. Various objects pretended to be "art artifacts" were posited along the Rothschild boulevard serving the public relations for big concerns. This time big globuses were distributed along the boulevard.

his Friday, in a direct action, one of the globuses was removed from its place and returned to the near by offices of the share exchange establishment.

The activists warned that if the Tel Aviv Municipality will allow the big concerns to take over the public space and put there advertisement sculptures pretending to be artifacts of art, these will be removed too.

Saturday The joint action of the AAtW with the Palestinian activists against the separation fence and occupation in the Bethlehem region have a bit different quality than the most known one in Bil'in.
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This Saturday, as in few other ocations, the target was road blocks preventing travel of cars within the occupied territories between villages and between roads which Palestinians do travel on with cars. (Internal blocks) as they are usually called.
The target was a road block that cut the traffic from Beit Umar and other villages through the Gabah intersection.

We traveled together - Palestinians, internationals and activists of the AAtW along the villages roads between highway 60 the nearly highway that pass near Gabah. We arrived in the intersection and started to remove the road block. First we moved the concrete slabs to the sides. than we started to move the rocks that where as second line of block.

While we were at it, an armored car with three soldiers pass along the road and intercepted us. They ordered us to stop dismantling the road block... but we just laughed at them, as the only mean that they could force us with was shooting of live ammunition they are not allowed to use when Israelis are among the Palestinians.

When we nearly finished to open a passage through the road block, a military reinforcement had arrived, we decided not to develop a physical confrontation, and mounted our cars to return were we came from. The state force who are instructed to keep in the area a low profile when dealing with road block dismantlers did not even try to arrest any of us. ---------------------------------- Sunday was again a day of action against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian space. Like two weeks ago the action was near the tunnel under the settlers road 443 the Palestinians of the region are prevented from its use. All the entrances of the Palestinian roads intersected with the 443 road were blocked. Fences were put along nearly all the two sides of the part of the road that pass in the occupied territories - forcing the people to use round about second rate roads between the villages and between them and the regional city Ramalla.

This time there was lot of public advertisement for a demonstration near the tunnel under the 443 the Palestinian can use... This brought lot of participants from the neighboring villages, but also lot of Israeli state forces. These, tried to prevent the AAtW activists from joining the demonstration. Our people were detained in two road blocks. Armored cars guard other entrances to the area so we will not be able to go there by foot.

In spite of the Israeli state forces efforts, activists of the AAtW succeeded to arrive at the demonstration place very late though.