In Spite of the "competition" of other joint activities of wider circles (our comrades participate in), our initiative expand in scope and number of participants. Our activists involved this week with the African refugees in the struggle against deportation; With the Israeli Bedouins in the south who struggle against internal transfer from their lands;With the occupied Jerusalem Palestinians facing transfer steps; With Palestinian farmers suffering from harassment of settlers trying to rob their lands bordering the settlements; And of course the weekly demonstration against the separation fence in Bil'in, Ni'ilin, and Muasara (south of Bethlehem). Media reported on activists of the AAtW involved with world wide propaganda. (And we were invited to more actions than we were able to attend.)
BIL'IN
During the week nights AAtW comrades stayed in the village in order to confront Israeli
forces harassment of the popular comity members and others.
Some 30 Israelis and 40 internationals (including a large French delegation) joined local
Palestinians for the weekly demonstration against land theft and the violent oppression of
Bil'in's people. The procession was accompanied by an inspiring march-poem read by one of
the popular committee members and echoed by the marchers. When they arrived at the gate in
the fence, the demonstrators asked the soldiers to let people through to clear the land
behind the wall to prepare for the olive harvest. The soldiers responded with gas.
(However, due to the changing winds, an evident they had, and the returning of a tear gas
grenade, the soldiers had to taste "their own medicine...".)
Instead of olive picking, the demonstrators went on to harvest another kind of local
produce: the fallen gas and shock grenades littering the entire fence area. The soldiers
responded with gas. A couple of kids through a few stones at the soldiers. The soldiers
responded with gas. The demonstrators went on to harvest grenades somewhere else. The
soldiers responded with gas. Finally, with bags full of tear gas and sound grenades, the
demonstrators returned to the village. The soldiers responded with gas.
On the way back from Bil'in we could see in the West the "fire works" of the multi rockets
barrage of 32 tear gas grenades fired on the demonstrators against the separation fence and occupation in Ni'ilin.
Bil'in - 9-10-09 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoK-lu9wJJ4
NI'ILIN
Ni'lin's weekly protest against the wall began as usual with a prayer and a march through the olive groves, to the route of the wall. This time, the 100 or so group of protesters chose to march to an area that has not seen demonstrations for a while, enabling them to utilize the absence of soldiers to cut the razor wire and a section of the actual fence. a few minutes later several military jeeps arrived at the scene, and soldiers began to fire various types of tear gas grenades at the demonstration, in some cases directly at protesters, in violation of the army's own regulations. Notably, the army has renewed the use of an aluminum tear gas canister, the front end of which is shaped like a cone. dozens of these were fired at protesters, and those who were hit by this type of canister in the past said that they are not as dangerous as the extended range canisters ("Saruch" in Arabic) but that a person hit by them might still be injured.
The protesters then moved to a western section of the wall, some of them throwing stones at the jeeps patrolling the route, while soldiers fired tear gas. In the afternoon, a group of soldiers and border police crossed the barrier, triggering a temporary withdrawal of protesters back to the village. When the soldiers returned to their station over the fence, so did a small group of demonstrators, who exhausted their remaining energy by throwing a few more stones at the soldiers. All protesters then returned to the village. No injuries were recorded, aside from some tear gas inhalation and red, sore eyes.
MUASARA
The demo in the village of Ma'asara a smaller than usual demonstration made its way after
the Friday prayer from the center of the village towards the agricultural lands on which
the Apartheid Wall is being built. Attended by some thirty Palestinians, including many
children, twenty internationals and eight Israelis, the procession was stopped by
occupation soldiers, who placed a razor wire fence on the road near the entrance to the
village.
Slogans were chanted and speeches carried in Arabic, English and Hebrew, explaining to the
soldiers the vital importance of the stolen lands to the Palestinian people, especially
now as the olive harvest season is coming up. After several non-violent attempts to go
around the fence failed, the demonstration ended with the promise to return next week, as
always.
This week's demonstration was painted in green, as the children of the village wore their
new T-shirts with the slogan "Beat drums, not people" (in English and Arabic). The
children wearing the shirts have recently been taking drumming lessons from the Israeli
Qassamba group of protest drummers.
===========================
Media:
Stop calling us haters of Israel by Yuval Ofir-Oron - one of the three Israeli refusnics
on tour in South-Africa
The Israeli army, which we were required to serve, controls the lives of 3.5 million
people in the occupied territories.Already many decades that Israel, with all arms,
sending Israeli youth to control the civilian population in the territories.We refused
to do so.
In recent years we have seen the sights of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank.We
saw the faces of children, women and men whom we are asked today to suppress.We can not
serve in the army that violates the values that we believe in, and without them we can not
survive as moral community.We refuse to take part in building a wall that takes land
from farmers, a wall that its whole purpose is to annex more land to the Jewish state and
expand illegal settlements.We refuse to build dirt conceit blocks roadblocks on
Palestinian villages roads and refuse to run checkpoints on land taken by force.We
refuse to uproot olive trees in Bidu.Refuse to invade the houses of families in Azoun.
Refuse to be guards of a one and a half million people in Gaza.Refuse to destroy houses
in East Jerusalem.Refuse to kill those who are fighting for freedom.Against these
crimes we can not close my eyes, we can not sit still.
We were invited to South Africa to tell our story.People want to hear about
conscientious objection in Israel, they want to know what is really happening in the
occupied territories.During our tour we met with high school pupils, students, workers,
pensioners, Jews, Muslims, other white and black people....We are here to bring the
voices of our partner - the Palestinians who are living under foreign occupation, and our
voices, Israeli Jews who will not take part in the Israeli occupation.
Israelis do not want to end the occupation
We're all young Israelis, part of Israeli society.We fight for the future where we
live, the future of our society.This struggle is for us, for our families and friends
and for those who live with us.Today we look around with aching hearts and fear of where
we arrived and more so - were we are going.
We believe that Israeli society has proved unable or not interested, to end the
occupation by its own initiative.Forces of nationalism, militarism, and racism just
strengthening in it. Most Israelis think that the crimes conducted by Israeli governments
are only subjects for in internal political controversy in Israeli society itself, but we
believe that these crimes relate all of human society, so we call upon world community to
demand publicly and firmly that the Israeli occupation will end.
State of Israel should pay a price for the occupation, war crimes, the harm to
innocents.Withdrawal of investments from Israel, severing business ties with wealthy
Israelis, and stopping economic cooperation with Israeli companies, with an emphasis on
companies that maintain relations with the Israeli army or who earns from the existence of
the settlements, all these are legitimate acts of nonviolence and pressure on the powerful
decision makers of Israel, with the goal to put end to the occupation.We join the
Palestinian call for a boycott of Israel, alongside millions of workers unions, and tens
of thousands of individuals around the world.It's time to stop calling Goldstone Anti
Semitic and us Israel-haters.The time already arrived to look directly at the reality we
have created, and to act to change it for our neighbors and for us.
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