Call for Action by the Kibush 40 Coalition
The second week of June will mark forty years since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Six Day war. This is now the longest enduring military occupation in the world. We can use this symbolic moment to hit out at those who benefit and profit from the pain and despair in Palestine, and to send the Israeli and G8 governments a message they cannot ignore.
This is a call-out for international direct actions against the occupation on June 6-12. We call in particular for actions against corporations profiting directly from the occupation that publicly shame them and/or cause them economic damage. Information on corporations involved with the occupation is available from http://www.boycottisrael.co.uk and many other sources, including a recent report by War on Want available at http://www.waronwant.org/download.php?id=443.
Call for Action
40 Years of Occupation in Palestine - June 5-11 The second week of June will mark forty years since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Six Day war. This is now the longest enduring military occupation in the world. While the Israeli government evades negotiations that would end the occupation and lead to a just peace, the lives of Palestinians continue to be crushed daily by closures and economic strangulation, their land confiscated for settlements and their communities made into prisons by the Segregation Wall.
At the same time, violence in the region continues to supply ideological fuel for the G8 governments in their War on Terror', explicitly declared as a never-ending, pre-emptive global war which justifies erasing civil liberties, supporting oppressive regimes, and attacking refugees and migrants. We are all victims of this war: in Palestine and Israel, in Iraq and in Colombia, in Germany and in the U.S.A.
With the occupation at forty it should be clear to all that its forceful hegemony cannot be resisted by established political means alone. This is both morally insufficient and doomed to practical failure. As a strategic and practical alternative, the “Occupation 40? coalition is calling for six days of actions to mark forty years of occupation, on June 6 to 12 2007. A Global Day of Action has also been called on June 9.
The coalition is a democratic and non-hierarchical action platform of grassroots Israeli groups and organizations. Peace organizations, artists, students' groups, internal refugees, anarchists, animal rights activists, communists and individuals participate in this initiative. The six-day convergence in Israel will include demonstrations, direct actions, discussions and cultural events.
This is a call-out for international direct actions against the occupation on June 6-12. We call in particular for actions against corporations profiting directly from the occupation that publicly shame them and/or cause them economic damage. Information on corporations involved with the occupation is available from http://www.boycottisrael.co.uk and many other sources, including a recent report by War on Want available at http://www.waronwant.org/download.php?id=443.
We hope that actions will be organized to be decentralized and trust them to the initiative and self-organization of affinity groups around the world. These days of action fit well into this summer's international action calendar:
* June 5 - An international day of action against militarization, wars and occupations, in the run-up to the G8 summit in Germany.
* June 6-8 - Protests against the G8, with the participation of Palestinian and Israeli activists and Palestine Solidarity groups from around Europe.
* June 5-11 - 6 days of action against the Occupation, in Palestine/Israel and Internationally
* June 9 - Rally in London , Global Day of Action Against the Occupation
* June 10-11 - Protest, teach-in and lobby in Washington DC
Please distribute this call widely, and please organise for action with your groups and networks. We can use this symbolic moment to hit out at those who benefit and profit from the pain and despair in Palestine , and to send the Israeli and G8 governments a message they cannot ignore.
Kibush 40 Coalition:
Anarchists Against the Wall - http://awalls.org
Coalition of Women for Peace - http://coalitionofwomen.org
Gush Shalom - http://gush-shalom.org
Hadash - http://hadash.org.il/
Indymedia Israel - http://israel.indymedia.org
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions - http://icahd.org/
Machsom Watch - http://machsomwatch.org
Ta'ayush - http://taayush.org
Zochrot - http://nakbainhebrew.org
International links:
Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (USA) - http://endtheoccupation.org
Campaign Against Israeli Apartheid ( Canada ) - http://caiaweb.org
Enough Coalition ( UK ) - http://www.enoughoccupation.org
See also:
40 Years Of Occupation In Jerusalem: A Summary Report Programme of events: 6 days of protests to mark 40 years of occupation
40.occupationposter.jpg
http://kibush40.org
add your comments
40 Years Of Occupation In Jerusalem: A Summary Report:
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=5722
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Monday, June 4, 2007
Israel-Palestine, Alt. Media, Benny Tziper - We Deserve the British Academic Boycott!* 04 Jun 2007
Last Friday morning I drove to the Palestinian village of Bil'in. Bil'in, the village that has turned into a symbol of the struggle against the Apartheid Wall and against the confiscation of Palestinian land by fraudulent Jewish real-estate sharks who hide behind fake patriotism. Bil'in, a Palestinian village geographically close to Tel Aviv and central Israel and to call the fake leftists who inhabit Tel Aviv's coffee shops.
It's easiest to cry over the occupation from afar, without ever seeing a Palestinian close up. I believe that there may not be a solution to the Palestinian issue, but that's nothing to do with the fact that one can act like a human being and to show Palestinians, who are imprisoned behind fences and walls only a few kilometers from us, that we share their pain and sadness.
This time I went to Bil'in with my daughter Talila, whose idealism and love of others never stops amazing me and that is expressed in so many different ways. I am so very lucky that none of my children are among those vile conformists who attempt to show how interesting they are by traveling to India and South America!
My mother's cousin Lillian also joined us. She came from Paris for her first visit in Israel after many years of doubts. Lillian, professor of Spanish literature, translator and author, was a communist in her youth. She married a Moroccan Muslim, went to live in Morrocco and had two boys, one of whom I know well. His name is Rashid and he's about my age. He's a nuclear engineer living in Toulouse with his wife and three wonderful children.
Because of all this, Lillian was afraid to come to Israel. She was scared that if she comes, she'll have to undergo an invasive interrogation in the airport. This indeed happened in the El Al section of De Gaulle airport in Paris. She was made to stand on her feet for thirty minutes, attempting to answer questions asked by a woman who spoke very poor French and who had difficulty understanding her answers. She felt pretty humiliated, considering she'd done nothing wrong, and was shocked by the intimacy of the questions. But she wanted to board the flight, so she suffered it all in silence.
Despite all this, Lillian fell in love with Israel, was astounded by everything she encountered and praised the openness of Israelis, the beauty of the vistas in the Galilee and Jerusalem. But her most powerful experience she had here - in my opinion - was our visit to Bil'in. There she saw close up what many Israelis don't want to see. She saw together with me and with my daughter the brute force with which the Israeli soldiers - whom I have nothing against personally, of course, my complaints lie at the door of those who sent them - dispersed the tiny and non-violent demonstration that proceeded, as it does every Friday, from the mosque in Bil'in to the Apartheid Wall.
I should emphasize who the participants in this demonstration were. There is the elderly Palestinian with Parkinson's, who was close to Arafat and looks like a shade of a human being. Next to him there is a guy in a wheelchair, who was paralyzed in the lower half of his body after being shot with live ammunition by soldiers while tending his sheep. There are a few elderly Israelis, demonstration veterans, innocent Israeli and international youngsters, and Palestinians from the village, who really couldn't hurt a fly and for whom the demonstration has become a fixed ritual. And there was, as I mentioned, my cousin Lillian, who passed World War II in hiding.
And there was me. Me, who certainly doesn't pose a threat to the well-being of Israeli soldiers. Despite this, the soldiers attacked the non-violent demonstration aggressively and entirely disproportionately. Tear gas canisters landed on us one after another. This is the army's way of defending those real estate sharks who are scared that if someone will open their mouth too loudly, their plans to build their ugly buildings on land confiscated from Palestinians - idealistically called 'settlements' - will be spoiled.
In the newspapers, including my own, it was reported that two soldiers were injured in Bil'in that day. Maybe they were injured while running after seventy and eighty year-old demonstrators and after children and teenagers. What I know is that among the demonstrators there were some who required medical attention after being chased by the soldiers, but nobody wrote about them.
If my cousin had been as cowardly as the soldiers, perhaps she too could have said that oh god, she was injured by the gas that penetrated her eyes and throat, but she simply got over it, because she is a brave woman. Much braver than the Israeli soldiers, much to my dismay.
We found shelter in the house of Zahara and Hashem. Their house is the furthest one in village, the closest to the Apartheid Wall. Last week soldiers shot at it and threw tear gas canisters at it, knowing full well that there were children and defenseless elderly people in it. This week, the atmosphere was calmer. Zahara served tea made from herbs from her garden to all the demonstrators who crowded in the small living room. Two rooms and a kitchen, that is Zahara and Hashem's entire house. But it glowed with humanity.
Among the people who sat in the living room were youngsters from Zahara and Hashem's family. They all spoke fluent Hebrew. And there was a lecturer of political science from Al Quds University in East Jerusalem. His name was Issa Ibn Zuhairia. He told me of the torturous journey he has to undertake every day and every evening on his way from his house outside Jerusalem to the university that is in the municipal area of the city. He has been trying to get a certificate allowing him to stay in Jerusalem and that will spare him the wait at the checkpoints, but that takes time. Dr. Issa is not a violent person. He is an intellectual who wants to lead a normal life. But that is impossible for him, because that's the way it is. He's a Palestinian. As such, he cannot even step into the campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
No one will let him in there even to visit the library. And I never heard of a single Professor from the Hebrew University who objected to this policy, that under their very noses, they have colleagues who suffer terrible discrimination just because they are Palestinians.
However, there is a storm brewing in Israel about the 'anti-Semitism' of British universities who are threatening to boycott Israeli academics. And what about the boycott we impose on Palestinian academics? I think that the boycott the British declared on us is a wonderful thing, because finally some of our arrogant professors will start to feel a tiny drop of the feelings of Palestinian professors, whose academic freedom is routinely crushed under the force of Israeli occupation. Once there were academics like Leibovich, like Plosser, who protested the occupation with harsh words. Where are they today?
The vast majority of the Israeli academy today cooperates with the evil. When I wrote a few weeks ago in Ha'aretz that the digs undertaken by the Jerusalem-based archaeologist Ehud Nezer in Herodion (which is in the occupied territories) were illegal according to international law, I was attacked by two respected professors from the university with harsh words. They wanted to protect the honor of their colleague instead of admitting, like people with real honor, that confiscation of land is confiscation of land, even if it goes by a scientific name. In the case of Herodion it's the confiscation of the treasures of the past, and in the case of Bil'in it is the confiscation of the treasures of the present for some deluxe settlements.
It is true that one could say that British universities are acting hypocritically, and that they should have boycotted Chinese academics for China's violations of human rights, and Russian academics, for Russia's atrocities in Chechnya. Perhaps that is true, but in my opinon the fact that we are being boycotted should be blessed. After forty years of occupation, it's about time we understand that this situation cannot continue, that while we cry over how persecuted we are, we cynically crush the basic rights of the Palestinians underfoot.
It is true that it is not the professors in the universities who are oppressing Palestinians, but in their silence, they are approving of the atrocities. And with their huge egos they ignore what is happening at spitting distance from them: that there are professors and lecturers just like them who can be treated like dogs by every pissy soldier, whose decision it is whether or not they will give their lesson today, and all this because they are Palestinians.
England, cradle of civilization, I salute those civilized people amongst you, who finally found the courage to to say to Israeli academics that they can't just worry about their own academic freedom, and that true civilization means fighting for the academic freedoms and for the rights of those who do not have them.
You know what? I'm am looking forward to the day when every Israeli who took part in the evils of the occupation will be refused entry into England. I want to see the faces of all those young heroes, who throw tear gas canisters at elderly women and who chase a disabled man in a wheelchair, and then when they're done with the army travel to India and become spiritual.
That disabled guy in the wheelchair, the smiling sheep herder showed me his arm that had just been burned by a grenade. He didn't hate me for being Israeli or Jewish, despite what other Israeli Jews did to him. Zahara and Hashem could also come to me complaining that I am a citizen of the state that has been oppressing them for forty years. Instead they laid out for us a table in her kitchen, sat us around it and served us soup, and vegetable with zatar and home-baked pita bread.
---------------------------------------
By Benny Tziper who joined us again in the Friday contingent of the AATW to Bil'in Friday demonstration.
Translated by Rann Bar-On - original Hebrew at
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/866785.html
============================
[Editor note:
After seeing yesterday screening of chanel 8 of dcumentary about the atrocities of the Israeli soldiers agains palestinian passer by at the road blocks on occupied Palestine ways, my selectivity of posts may be hampered a bit... I. S.]
It's easiest to cry over the occupation from afar, without ever seeing a Palestinian close up. I believe that there may not be a solution to the Palestinian issue, but that's nothing to do with the fact that one can act like a human being and to show Palestinians, who are imprisoned behind fences and walls only a few kilometers from us, that we share their pain and sadness.
This time I went to Bil'in with my daughter Talila, whose idealism and love of others never stops amazing me and that is expressed in so many different ways. I am so very lucky that none of my children are among those vile conformists who attempt to show how interesting they are by traveling to India and South America!
My mother's cousin Lillian also joined us. She came from Paris for her first visit in Israel after many years of doubts. Lillian, professor of Spanish literature, translator and author, was a communist in her youth. She married a Moroccan Muslim, went to live in Morrocco and had two boys, one of whom I know well. His name is Rashid and he's about my age. He's a nuclear engineer living in Toulouse with his wife and three wonderful children.
Because of all this, Lillian was afraid to come to Israel. She was scared that if she comes, she'll have to undergo an invasive interrogation in the airport. This indeed happened in the El Al section of De Gaulle airport in Paris. She was made to stand on her feet for thirty minutes, attempting to answer questions asked by a woman who spoke very poor French and who had difficulty understanding her answers. She felt pretty humiliated, considering she'd done nothing wrong, and was shocked by the intimacy of the questions. But she wanted to board the flight, so she suffered it all in silence.
Despite all this, Lillian fell in love with Israel, was astounded by everything she encountered and praised the openness of Israelis, the beauty of the vistas in the Galilee and Jerusalem. But her most powerful experience she had here - in my opinion - was our visit to Bil'in. There she saw close up what many Israelis don't want to see. She saw together with me and with my daughter the brute force with which the Israeli soldiers - whom I have nothing against personally, of course, my complaints lie at the door of those who sent them - dispersed the tiny and non-violent demonstration that proceeded, as it does every Friday, from the mosque in Bil'in to the Apartheid Wall.
I should emphasize who the participants in this demonstration were. There is the elderly Palestinian with Parkinson's, who was close to Arafat and looks like a shade of a human being. Next to him there is a guy in a wheelchair, who was paralyzed in the lower half of his body after being shot with live ammunition by soldiers while tending his sheep. There are a few elderly Israelis, demonstration veterans, innocent Israeli and international youngsters, and Palestinians from the village, who really couldn't hurt a fly and for whom the demonstration has become a fixed ritual. And there was, as I mentioned, my cousin Lillian, who passed World War II in hiding.
And there was me. Me, who certainly doesn't pose a threat to the well-being of Israeli soldiers. Despite this, the soldiers attacked the non-violent demonstration aggressively and entirely disproportionately. Tear gas canisters landed on us one after another. This is the army's way of defending those real estate sharks who are scared that if someone will open their mouth too loudly, their plans to build their ugly buildings on land confiscated from Palestinians - idealistically called 'settlements' - will be spoiled.
In the newspapers, including my own, it was reported that two soldiers were injured in Bil'in that day. Maybe they were injured while running after seventy and eighty year-old demonstrators and after children and teenagers. What I know is that among the demonstrators there were some who required medical attention after being chased by the soldiers, but nobody wrote about them.
If my cousin had been as cowardly as the soldiers, perhaps she too could have said that oh god, she was injured by the gas that penetrated her eyes and throat, but she simply got over it, because she is a brave woman. Much braver than the Israeli soldiers, much to my dismay.
We found shelter in the house of Zahara and Hashem. Their house is the furthest one in village, the closest to the Apartheid Wall. Last week soldiers shot at it and threw tear gas canisters at it, knowing full well that there were children and defenseless elderly people in it. This week, the atmosphere was calmer. Zahara served tea made from herbs from her garden to all the demonstrators who crowded in the small living room. Two rooms and a kitchen, that is Zahara and Hashem's entire house. But it glowed with humanity.
Among the people who sat in the living room were youngsters from Zahara and Hashem's family. They all spoke fluent Hebrew. And there was a lecturer of political science from Al Quds University in East Jerusalem. His name was Issa Ibn Zuhairia. He told me of the torturous journey he has to undertake every day and every evening on his way from his house outside Jerusalem to the university that is in the municipal area of the city. He has been trying to get a certificate allowing him to stay in Jerusalem and that will spare him the wait at the checkpoints, but that takes time. Dr. Issa is not a violent person. He is an intellectual who wants to lead a normal life. But that is impossible for him, because that's the way it is. He's a Palestinian. As such, he cannot even step into the campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
No one will let him in there even to visit the library. And I never heard of a single Professor from the Hebrew University who objected to this policy, that under their very noses, they have colleagues who suffer terrible discrimination just because they are Palestinians.
However, there is a storm brewing in Israel about the 'anti-Semitism' of British universities who are threatening to boycott Israeli academics. And what about the boycott we impose on Palestinian academics? I think that the boycott the British declared on us is a wonderful thing, because finally some of our arrogant professors will start to feel a tiny drop of the feelings of Palestinian professors, whose academic freedom is routinely crushed under the force of Israeli occupation. Once there were academics like Leibovich, like Plosser, who protested the occupation with harsh words. Where are they today?
The vast majority of the Israeli academy today cooperates with the evil. When I wrote a few weeks ago in Ha'aretz that the digs undertaken by the Jerusalem-based archaeologist Ehud Nezer in Herodion (which is in the occupied territories) were illegal according to international law, I was attacked by two respected professors from the university with harsh words. They wanted to protect the honor of their colleague instead of admitting, like people with real honor, that confiscation of land is confiscation of land, even if it goes by a scientific name. In the case of Herodion it's the confiscation of the treasures of the past, and in the case of Bil'in it is the confiscation of the treasures of the present for some deluxe settlements.
It is true that one could say that British universities are acting hypocritically, and that they should have boycotted Chinese academics for China's violations of human rights, and Russian academics, for Russia's atrocities in Chechnya. Perhaps that is true, but in my opinon the fact that we are being boycotted should be blessed. After forty years of occupation, it's about time we understand that this situation cannot continue, that while we cry over how persecuted we are, we cynically crush the basic rights of the Palestinians underfoot.
It is true that it is not the professors in the universities who are oppressing Palestinians, but in their silence, they are approving of the atrocities. And with their huge egos they ignore what is happening at spitting distance from them: that there are professors and lecturers just like them who can be treated like dogs by every pissy soldier, whose decision it is whether or not they will give their lesson today, and all this because they are Palestinians.
England, cradle of civilization, I salute those civilized people amongst you, who finally found the courage to to say to Israeli academics that they can't just worry about their own academic freedom, and that true civilization means fighting for the academic freedoms and for the rights of those who do not have them.
You know what? I'm am looking forward to the day when every Israeli who took part in the evils of the occupation will be refused entry into England. I want to see the faces of all those young heroes, who throw tear gas canisters at elderly women and who chase a disabled man in a wheelchair, and then when they're done with the army travel to India and become spiritual.
That disabled guy in the wheelchair, the smiling sheep herder showed me his arm that had just been burned by a grenade. He didn't hate me for being Israeli or Jewish, despite what other Israeli Jews did to him. Zahara and Hashem could also come to me complaining that I am a citizen of the state that has been oppressing them for forty years. Instead they laid out for us a table in her kitchen, sat us around it and served us soup, and vegetable with zatar and home-baked pita bread.
---------------------------------------
By Benny Tziper who joined us again in the Friday contingent of the AATW to Bil'in Friday demonstration.
Translated by Rann Bar-On - original Hebrew at
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/866785.html
============================
[Editor note:
After seeing yesterday screening of chanel 8 of dcumentary about the atrocities of the Israeli soldiers agains palestinian passer by at the road blocks on occupied Palestine ways, my selectivity of posts may be hampered a bit... I. S.]
Anarkismo.net: Israel, Call for Action 40 Years of Occupation in Palestine - June 5-11 ; 04 Jun 2007
The second week of June will mark forty years since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Six Day war. This is now the longest enduring military occupation in the world. While the Israeli government evades negotiations that would end the occupation and lead to a just peace, the lives of Palestinians continue to be crushed daily by closures and economic strangulation, their land confiscated for settlements and their communities made into prisons by the Segregation Wall. --- At the same time, violence in the region continues to supply ideological fuel for the G8 governments in their War on Terror', explicitly declared as a never-ending, pre-emptive global war which justifies erasing civil liberties, supporting oppressive regimes, and attacking refugees and migrants. We are all victims of this war: in Palestine and Israel, in Iraq and in Colombia, in Germany and in the U.S.A.
With the occupation at forty it should be clear to all that its forceful hegemony cannot be resisted by established political means alone. This is both morally insufficient and doomed to practical failure. As a strategic and practical alternative, the “Occupation 40? coalition is calling for six days of actions to mark forty years of occupation, on June 6 to 12 2007. A Global Day of Action has also been called on June 9.
The coalition is a democratic and non-hierarchical action platform of grassroots Israeli groups and organizations. Peace organizations, artists, students' groups, internal refugees, anarchists, animal rights activists, communists and individuals participate in this initiative. The six-day convergence in Israel will include demonstrations, direct actions, discussions and cultural events.
This is a call-out for international direct actions against the occupation on June 6-12. We call in particular for actions against corporations profiting directly from the occupation that publicly shame them and/or cause them economic damage. Information on corporations involved with the occupation is available from http://www.boycottisrael.co.uk and many other sources, including a recent report by War on Want available at http://www.waronwant.org/download.php?id=443.
We hope that actions will be organized to be decentralized and trust them to the initiative and self-organization of affinity groups around the world. These days of action fit well into this summer's international action calendar:
* June 5 - An international day of action against militarization, wars and occupations, in the run-up to the G8 summit in Germany.
* June 6-8 - Protests against the G8, with the participation of Palestinian and Israeli activists and Palestine Solidarity groups from around Europe.
* June 5-11 - 6 days of action against the Occupation, in Palestine/Israel and Internationally
* June 9 - Rally in London , Global Day of Action Against the Occupation
* June 10-11 - Protest, teach-in and lobby in Washington DC
Please distribute this call widely, and please organise for action with your groups and networks. We can use this symbolic moment to hit out at those who benefit and profit from the pain and despair in Palestine , and to send the Israeli and G8 governments a message they cannot ignore.
Kibush 40 Coalition:
Anarchists Against the Wall - http://awalls.org
Coalition of Women for Peace - http://coalitionofwomen.org
Gush Shalom - http://gush-shalom.org
Indymedia Israel - http://israel.indymedia.org Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions - http://icahd.org/ Machsom Watch - http://machsomwatch.org Ta'ayush - http://taayush.org Zochrot - http://nakbainhebrew.org
International links:
Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (USA) - http://endtheoccupation.org
Campaign Against Israeli Apartheid ( Canada ) - http://caiaweb.org
Enough Coalition ( UK ) - http://www.enoughoccupation.org
http://kibush40.org
40 Years Of Occupation In Jerusalem: A Summary Report:
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=5722
With the occupation at forty it should be clear to all that its forceful hegemony cannot be resisted by established political means alone. This is both morally insufficient and doomed to practical failure. As a strategic and practical alternative, the “Occupation 40? coalition is calling for six days of actions to mark forty years of occupation, on June 6 to 12 2007. A Global Day of Action has also been called on June 9.
The coalition is a democratic and non-hierarchical action platform of grassroots Israeli groups and organizations. Peace organizations, artists, students' groups, internal refugees, anarchists, animal rights activists, communists and individuals participate in this initiative. The six-day convergence in Israel will include demonstrations, direct actions, discussions and cultural events.
This is a call-out for international direct actions against the occupation on June 6-12. We call in particular for actions against corporations profiting directly from the occupation that publicly shame them and/or cause them economic damage. Information on corporations involved with the occupation is available from http://www.boycottisrael.co.uk and many other sources, including a recent report by War on Want available at http://www.waronwant.org/download.php?id=443.
We hope that actions will be organized to be decentralized and trust them to the initiative and self-organization of affinity groups around the world. These days of action fit well into this summer's international action calendar:
* June 5 - An international day of action against militarization, wars and occupations, in the run-up to the G8 summit in Germany.
* June 6-8 - Protests against the G8, with the participation of Palestinian and Israeli activists and Palestine Solidarity groups from around Europe.
* June 5-11 - 6 days of action against the Occupation, in Palestine/Israel and Internationally
* June 9 - Rally in London , Global Day of Action Against the Occupation
* June 10-11 - Protest, teach-in and lobby in Washington DC
Please distribute this call widely, and please organise for action with your groups and networks. We can use this symbolic moment to hit out at those who benefit and profit from the pain and despair in Palestine , and to send the Israeli and G8 governments a message they cannot ignore.
Kibush 40 Coalition:
Anarchists Against the Wall - http://awalls.org
Coalition of Women for Peace - http://coalitionofwomen.org
Gush Shalom - http://gush-shalom.org
Indymedia Israel - http://israel.indymedia.org Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions - http://icahd.org/ Machsom Watch - http://machsomwatch.org Ta'ayush - http://taayush.org Zochrot - http://nakbainhebrew.org
International links:
Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (USA) - http://endtheoccupation.org
Campaign Against Israeli Apartheid ( Canada ) - http://caiaweb.org
Enough Coalition ( UK ) - http://www.enoughoccupation.org
http://kibush40.org
40 Years Of Occupation In Jerusalem: A Summary Report:
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=5722
Palestine-Israel, The joint struggle against the separation fence and occupation - Bil'in and south of Bethlehem 04 Jun 2007
The struggle in Bil'in was intensified towards the expected verdict of the Israeli higher court of "justice" about the route of the separation fence and the building of a new neighborhood of the settler colonialist town Modi'in Ilit on lands of Bil'in. During the week a joint direct action tried to dismantle infrastructures built for the settlement on a land piece even Israeli court officially accepted it belongs to Bil'in citizens. In spite of it - Army and police intervened and confiscated a tractor doing the work.
In Friday demo, the participants: Palestinians, internationals, and Israelis of the anarchists against the wall initiative, marched as usual on the road leading from the village to the route of the separation fence - used for robbing most of Bil'in lands for the settlers town. As usual on the last weeks, when we reached the bottom of the hill the gate to the other side of the fence is on its top, we encounter a spool of barbed wire blocking the road, and gendarme officer with his team declaring the area military closed.
When the gendarmes were retreating up the hill so they will be safe from tear gas canisters thrown on us, few of us just followed them while they started to shower tear gas on the demonstrators who were far enough...
After a short time they tried to drive back our group that was too near for treatment with tear gas. They detained two members of the village popular comity, and tried to push the rest of us down the hill so they will be able to retreat and shower us with tear gas... After few rounds, I remained alone near the soldiers - refusing to get down till the road will be cleared from tear gas, taking advantage of the shame of the gendarmes to push hard an old Jewish demonstrator... So, they let me stay there till the commander issued an order to stop shooting tear gas grenades as all the others retreated far enough.
But, the demonstrators had not returned to the village, but were trying to approach the fence through the olive woods on the two sides of the road. Again and again a shower of tear gas prevented the advance, while the state force advanced slowly towards the village while showering tear gas and sporadicly shooting bullet coated with rubber on us and the stone throwing youth who tried to deter them. Two hours were enough for us this Friday and we returned to Israel.
----------------------------
South Bethlehem
In the region there are few villages but not all of them hold a regular Friday activities. This Friday there were two activities in the region in which AATW people participated.
The first one was in Um Salmuna. The activity started at 10:00 in the morning with a meeting and speeches.
Afterwards, people marched to the fields located on the other side of the route of the separation fence and did symbolic agricultural work in them including in fields adjacent to the Efrata colonialist settlement.
After the midday prayer, there was the second action in the near by Artas village. There people converged at the route in which the works are in progress. People rolled rocks to the already cleared route and symbolic replanted an already dried uprooted tree, surrounded it with rocks as protection.
Link to photos from a previous action in Artas: http://activestills.org/photos.php?setname=Artas&PHPSESSID=1bf7babf216c08dbc132536ab33370c1#id=513999359 In both actions, the Israeli state forces kept distance - and just monitored it from a distance.
Related links:
http://awalls.org
http://activestills.org
http://www.kibush40.org
http://matzpen.org
Ilan S.
http://ilan.shalif.com/anarchy/glimpses/glimpses.html
In Friday demo, the participants: Palestinians, internationals, and Israelis of the anarchists against the wall initiative, marched as usual on the road leading from the village to the route of the separation fence - used for robbing most of Bil'in lands for the settlers town. As usual on the last weeks, when we reached the bottom of the hill the gate to the other side of the fence is on its top, we encounter a spool of barbed wire blocking the road, and gendarme officer with his team declaring the area military closed.
When the gendarmes were retreating up the hill so they will be safe from tear gas canisters thrown on us, few of us just followed them while they started to shower tear gas on the demonstrators who were far enough...
After a short time they tried to drive back our group that was too near for treatment with tear gas. They detained two members of the village popular comity, and tried to push the rest of us down the hill so they will be able to retreat and shower us with tear gas... After few rounds, I remained alone near the soldiers - refusing to get down till the road will be cleared from tear gas, taking advantage of the shame of the gendarmes to push hard an old Jewish demonstrator... So, they let me stay there till the commander issued an order to stop shooting tear gas grenades as all the others retreated far enough.
But, the demonstrators had not returned to the village, but were trying to approach the fence through the olive woods on the two sides of the road. Again and again a shower of tear gas prevented the advance, while the state force advanced slowly towards the village while showering tear gas and sporadicly shooting bullet coated with rubber on us and the stone throwing youth who tried to deter them. Two hours were enough for us this Friday and we returned to Israel.
----------------------------
South Bethlehem
In the region there are few villages but not all of them hold a regular Friday activities. This Friday there were two activities in the region in which AATW people participated.
The first one was in Um Salmuna. The activity started at 10:00 in the morning with a meeting and speeches.
Afterwards, people marched to the fields located on the other side of the route of the separation fence and did symbolic agricultural work in them including in fields adjacent to the Efrata colonialist settlement.
After the midday prayer, there was the second action in the near by Artas village. There people converged at the route in which the works are in progress. People rolled rocks to the already cleared route and symbolic replanted an already dried uprooted tree, surrounded it with rocks as protection.
Link to photos from a previous action in Artas: http://activestills.org/photos.php?setname=Artas&PHPSESSID=1bf7babf216c08dbc132536ab33370c1#id=513999359 In both actions, the Israeli state forces kept distance - and just monitored it from a distance.
Related links:
http://awalls.org
http://activestills.org
http://www.kibush40.org
http://matzpen.org
Ilan S.
http://ilan.shalif.com/anarchy/glimpses/glimpses.html
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Palestine-Israel, the joint struggle against the separation fence and occupation intensify 26 May 2007
Villages popular comities against the separation fence cooperation with Israeli anarchists against the wall expanded from Bil'in to the south of Bethlehem. For about 4 years since the camp for join Israeli-Palestinian struggle against the separation fence at Masha, there were many joint actions between the Israeli AATW and village comities. Since the joint direct action against the fence at Zabuba three and a half year ago, many joint demonstrations and direct actions occurred at villages along the route of separation fences. The longest and most famous one is the struggle in Bil'in, the newest (for the last few months is in the region south of Bethlehem in which few villages are involved together (Um Salmuna, Artas, Beit Umar, and others).
In Bil'in, this Friday, the belligerence of the Israeli forces intensify. The new policy of not allowing the nonviolent demonstration to approach the route of the fence intensified. They returned to the policy they had the first half year or so of demonstrations where the Friday demonstrations were blocked from coming near the route.
(The first time we overcome it was in the big demonstration at the day the state forces tried to force curfew on the village, brought lot of forces to occupy the village, and tried to enforce the claim of the regional commander that there will not be any more demonstrations in Bil'in. After a about eleven hours of attrition struggle in the roads leading to the village and its streets, the state forces yielded, retreated from the village and the near by route of the separation fence... and we marched to the route... and we walked along it with out interference of the few state forces present.)
To day, when the demonstration of Palestinians, internationals, and Israelis of the AATW initiative just came near the foot of the hill the route is on its top, the barrage of tear gas canister was started.
Only very few of us who were in the front succeeded to come nearer to the soldiers who blocked the road and two of them (one Israeli and one of the village comity) were detained and released only hours later. The rest of us dispersed among the olive trees on the two sides of the road, trying to evade the tear gas grenades and approach the fence where it was possible - even for a short period.
The state forces tried to make the demonstration shorter so they showered us with plenty of gas grenades and added some shooting of metal bullets covered with rubber. One of them hit the ambulance while I was for a short time behind it...
Frustrated as they could not disperse us completely and confronted with stone throwing kids, teams of the state forces advanced to the fringe of the built area of the village and showered us with huge amount of tear gas. In non of the 110 demonstrations in Bil'in I participated the quantity of the tear gas was so high.
A house near the road - few of us were guests in, got a special treatment and after the attackers went away it was like a fortress an army tried to conquer with grenades...
For some twisted logic and demagogic purposes, the army spoke person issued a fabricated announcement that "the demonstration in Bil'in was very calm due to the absence of the Israeli activists who usually incite the Palestinians..." The fact is we were the usual number of Israeli activists, lately, as we divide between Bil'in and other Friday demonstrations against the fence.
A comrade responded in a post to our mailing list to that announcement:
"Funny, cause after most of the Israelis left...
Two shabab got lightly injured, the last houses of the village were surrounded by tear gas for close to an hour, including children suffering from gas, and a bit of contamination of farming plots that were otherwise organic.
One of the houses was especially hard hit by gas, with visible burn marks from the canisters on the door (that also lost it's handle), and a visit from the soldiers that reportedly included denying the residents (and an Israeli activist that got a gas canister thrown at her feet during negotiations) to get them to stop shooting so one of the injured could be transported outside for treatment.
From next door it seemed like a bad rock concert. And just like that, after the show, the band of soldiers magically retreated backstage into the valley then out the back door.
'Cause it's Friday, and there's nothing else to do.' ". R.
South of Bethlehem - the new focus of the joint struggle against the separation fence and occupation.
First, the text of the invitation to participate distributed in the radical activists mailing lists:
"This coming Friday, May 25th the residents of the south of Bethlehem area will hold a large demonstration against the wall which separates them from Bethlehem and steals their lands.
This week the struggle reached the village of Artas, near Al Hader. It happened when the construction crews reached the fertile lands of the village. The reason for the planned route of the wall is the planned construction of two new neighborhoods in the settlement stretching from it's current border to the route of the wall.
Early Sunday morning the bulldozers destroyed an entire orchard of apricot trees in spite of attempts by villagers and other activists who slept on the land. IDF soldiers continued their work as farmers wept at the site of their ancestral land being torn up.
Naturally, the next day, the villagers responded by holding a demonstration on the land where the trees stood. Just as naturally, in the context of the Israeli occupation, the private security guards employed at the site by the Ministry of defense shot live ammunition at demonstrators and journalists. Likewise, it was just as natural for the soldiers who arrived later to befriend the shooters and arrest 3 Palestinians including the owner of the land on trumped up charges of assault.
The popular committee against the wall and the settlement of the south Bethlehem area invites you to join the protest march against the wall of racist separation and of theft. The demonstration will begin at Um Salamuna, with a soccer game on the path of the wall, and will conclude at the village of Artas.
Please register in advance for the demonstration
From Jerusalem: S. 054-XXXXXXX
From Tel Aviv: I. 052-XXXXXXX"
Following is a report of an activist of the ISM:
"Greek human rights worker arrested at demonstration against land destruction in Artas, Bethlehem
Today, May 25th, the residents of the south of Bethlehem area held a large demonstration against Israel's Apartheid Wall which separates them from Bethlehem and steals their lands. The demonstration started in the village of Umm Salamuna, where Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals held a soccer game on the path of the Wall.
From there, at least 150 Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists made their way to the village of Artas to protest Israel's land destruction. This was a non-violent demonstration, aimed at reaching the land of the Abu Swai family, which soldiers claimed today was a “closed military zone. After Friday prayers on the land, the non-violent demonstrators attempted to cross the barricade of Israeli soldiers. The army responded with force. George, an activist from Greece, was arrested and is currently being held in an Israeli jail in Hebron.
Martinez described the incident: “The demonstrators were completely non-violent. Not a single stone was thrown. But the soldiers started to beat and kick people. I saw at least two people being choked by soldiers. Then they went after George. He wasn't doing anything but they arrested him anyways.
An Israeli activist heard one of the detaining officers say that George was being arrested for “assault.
After half an hour, the demonstrators sat on the ground affront the soldiers, refusing to leave the area. The demonstrators all then began shouting, “We want George! We want George!
The army, however, placed George in a police jeep and escorted him to the police station in Hebron.
According to Gaby Lasky, George's lawyer, George will be taken to court tomorrow afternoon or evening in Jerusalem. The judge will hear the charges brought against George, including assaulting soldiers and disrupting soldiers' work. Video footage disproving the charges has been obtained and will soon be in the hands of George's lawyer and also the Greek consulate, to be used in George's favor at the trial tomorrow.
Earlier this week, the struggle reached the village of Artas, near Al Hader. It happened when Israeli construction crews reached the fertile lands of the village. The reason for the planned route of the wall is for the construction of two new neighborhoods in the illegal settlement of Efrata, stretching from it's current border to the route of the wall.
Early Sunday morning, an Israeli bulldozer destroyed an entire orchard of apricot trees in spite of attempts by villagers and other activists who slept on the land to stop it. Occupation soldiers continued their work and ate sandwiches as farmers wept at the site of their ancestral land being ripped apart. Three Palestinians were arrested the following day for continuing to protest the land destruction. They have all recently been released.
(Video and photos of land destruction here: http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/05/21/in-the-belly-of-the-wailing-democracy-called-israel/)
Video of today's action available upon request.
For more information, contact: ISM Media Office, 0599-943-157, 0542-103-657"
In Bil'in, this Friday, the belligerence of the Israeli forces intensify. The new policy of not allowing the nonviolent demonstration to approach the route of the fence intensified. They returned to the policy they had the first half year or so of demonstrations where the Friday demonstrations were blocked from coming near the route.
(The first time we overcome it was in the big demonstration at the day the state forces tried to force curfew on the village, brought lot of forces to occupy the village, and tried to enforce the claim of the regional commander that there will not be any more demonstrations in Bil'in. After a about eleven hours of attrition struggle in the roads leading to the village and its streets, the state forces yielded, retreated from the village and the near by route of the separation fence... and we marched to the route... and we walked along it with out interference of the few state forces present.)
To day, when the demonstration of Palestinians, internationals, and Israelis of the AATW initiative just came near the foot of the hill the route is on its top, the barrage of tear gas canister was started.
Only very few of us who were in the front succeeded to come nearer to the soldiers who blocked the road and two of them (one Israeli and one of the village comity) were detained and released only hours later. The rest of us dispersed among the olive trees on the two sides of the road, trying to evade the tear gas grenades and approach the fence where it was possible - even for a short period.
The state forces tried to make the demonstration shorter so they showered us with plenty of gas grenades and added some shooting of metal bullets covered with rubber. One of them hit the ambulance while I was for a short time behind it...
Frustrated as they could not disperse us completely and confronted with stone throwing kids, teams of the state forces advanced to the fringe of the built area of the village and showered us with huge amount of tear gas. In non of the 110 demonstrations in Bil'in I participated the quantity of the tear gas was so high.
A house near the road - few of us were guests in, got a special treatment and after the attackers went away it was like a fortress an army tried to conquer with grenades...
For some twisted logic and demagogic purposes, the army spoke person issued a fabricated announcement that "the demonstration in Bil'in was very calm due to the absence of the Israeli activists who usually incite the Palestinians..." The fact is we were the usual number of Israeli activists, lately, as we divide between Bil'in and other Friday demonstrations against the fence.
A comrade responded in a post to our mailing list to that announcement:
"Funny, cause after most of the Israelis left...
Two shabab got lightly injured, the last houses of the village were surrounded by tear gas for close to an hour, including children suffering from gas, and a bit of contamination of farming plots that were otherwise organic.
One of the houses was especially hard hit by gas, with visible burn marks from the canisters on the door (that also lost it's handle), and a visit from the soldiers that reportedly included denying the residents (and an Israeli activist that got a gas canister thrown at her feet during negotiations) to get them to stop shooting so one of the injured could be transported outside for treatment.
From next door it seemed like a bad rock concert. And just like that, after the show, the band of soldiers magically retreated backstage into the valley then out the back door.
'Cause it's Friday, and there's nothing else to do.' ". R.
South of Bethlehem - the new focus of the joint struggle against the separation fence and occupation.
First, the text of the invitation to participate distributed in the radical activists mailing lists:
"This coming Friday, May 25th the residents of the south of Bethlehem area will hold a large demonstration against the wall which separates them from Bethlehem and steals their lands.
This week the struggle reached the village of Artas, near Al Hader. It happened when the construction crews reached the fertile lands of the village. The reason for the planned route of the wall is the planned construction of two new neighborhoods in the settlement stretching from it's current border to the route of the wall.
Early Sunday morning the bulldozers destroyed an entire orchard of apricot trees in spite of attempts by villagers and other activists who slept on the land. IDF soldiers continued their work as farmers wept at the site of their ancestral land being torn up.
Naturally, the next day, the villagers responded by holding a demonstration on the land where the trees stood. Just as naturally, in the context of the Israeli occupation, the private security guards employed at the site by the Ministry of defense shot live ammunition at demonstrators and journalists. Likewise, it was just as natural for the soldiers who arrived later to befriend the shooters and arrest 3 Palestinians including the owner of the land on trumped up charges of assault.
The popular committee against the wall and the settlement of the south Bethlehem area invites you to join the protest march against the wall of racist separation and of theft. The demonstration will begin at Um Salamuna, with a soccer game on the path of the wall, and will conclude at the village of Artas.
Please register in advance for the demonstration
From Jerusalem: S. 054-XXXXXXX
From Tel Aviv: I. 052-XXXXXXX"
Following is a report of an activist of the ISM:
"Greek human rights worker arrested at demonstration against land destruction in Artas, Bethlehem
Today, May 25th, the residents of the south of Bethlehem area held a large demonstration against Israel's Apartheid Wall which separates them from Bethlehem and steals their lands. The demonstration started in the village of Umm Salamuna, where Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals held a soccer game on the path of the Wall.
From there, at least 150 Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists made their way to the village of Artas to protest Israel's land destruction. This was a non-violent demonstration, aimed at reaching the land of the Abu Swai family, which soldiers claimed today was a “closed military zone. After Friday prayers on the land, the non-violent demonstrators attempted to cross the barricade of Israeli soldiers. The army responded with force. George, an activist from Greece, was arrested and is currently being held in an Israeli jail in Hebron.
Martinez described the incident: “The demonstrators were completely non-violent. Not a single stone was thrown. But the soldiers started to beat and kick people. I saw at least two people being choked by soldiers. Then they went after George. He wasn't doing anything but they arrested him anyways.
An Israeli activist heard one of the detaining officers say that George was being arrested for “assault.
After half an hour, the demonstrators sat on the ground affront the soldiers, refusing to leave the area. The demonstrators all then began shouting, “We want George! We want George!
The army, however, placed George in a police jeep and escorted him to the police station in Hebron.
According to Gaby Lasky, George's lawyer, George will be taken to court tomorrow afternoon or evening in Jerusalem. The judge will hear the charges brought against George, including assaulting soldiers and disrupting soldiers' work. Video footage disproving the charges has been obtained and will soon be in the hands of George's lawyer and also the Greek consulate, to be used in George's favor at the trial tomorrow.
Earlier this week, the struggle reached the village of Artas, near Al Hader. It happened when Israeli construction crews reached the fertile lands of the village. The reason for the planned route of the wall is for the construction of two new neighborhoods in the illegal settlement of Efrata, stretching from it's current border to the route of the wall.
Early Sunday morning, an Israeli bulldozer destroyed an entire orchard of apricot trees in spite of attempts by villagers and other activists who slept on the land to stop it. Occupation soldiers continued their work and ate sandwiches as farmers wept at the site of their ancestral land being ripped apart. Three Palestinians were arrested the following day for continuing to protest the land destruction. They have all recently been released.
(Video and photos of land destruction here: http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/05/21/in-the-belly-of-the-wailing-democracy-called-israel/)
Video of today's action available upon request.
For more information, contact: ISM Media Office, 0599-943-157, 0542-103-657"
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Palestine-Israel, The joint struggle against the separation fence and occupation - Bil'in and Um Salmuna 19 May 2007
This Friday the theme of the demonstration in Bil'in was the Nacba. This week there was 99 years to the formal robbery of most of the Palestinian lands by the Israeli settler colonialists with blessing of the United Nation and the big imperial powers. We marched at noon on the road leading to the route of the separation fence - Palestinians from the village and the region; international activists; Israelis organized by the anarchists against the wall (AATW) initiative; and media workers of all kinds. Among the participants from Ramalla, were people of the Popular Democratic Front (of Naif Hawatme). One of them was old enough to remember the exchanging of texts between their journals and the Israeli antiauthoritarian anti capitalist (anti Zionist) journal Matspen....
Most of the marchers carried small placards - each with the name of one of the about 500 villages destroyed in 1948 by the Israeli expansionist forces.
When we arrived at the foot of the hill on its top is located the gate to the robed lands on the other side of the separation fence, we encountered a line of barbed wire and lot of soldiers half the way up the hill. Their commander declared with the loudspeaker that there is a military closed space just behind the barbed wire. He warned with retaliation and arrest people who will cross the line.
The people at the head moved aside the barbed wire spool and continued to advance - and got immediately a shower of tear gas canisters.
The tear gas deter most of the people who retreated a hundred meters and dispersed among the olive trees on the side of the road. A small group of comrades who succeeded to march up the hill got a special sower of tear gas and was forced to join the rest of us.
For more than two hours there were waves of people regrouping and advancing a bit, and showers of tear gas forcing us to retreat. At some point, olive trees in the groove were set on fire by the shooting of tear gas grenades, and demonstrators worked to extinguish the fire in spite of the tear gas.
In their efforts to disperse the demonstration soldiers even invaded the fringe of the built area of the village.
After the fires were extinguished the demonstration was ended. I could see one comrade carrying a 20 liter bucket full of tear gas canisters as a kind of trophy - a small part of the hundreds fired on us this day.
======================
Um Salmuna - Report of a Participant:
"We met around 12:30 near the village Um Salmuna - about 20 Israelis of the AATW and others, 20 internationals and about 50 Palestinians. The Israeli army "delegation" was accompanied by police and border gendarmes - at least 100 of these.
At about 1:00 the Palestinian had there the midday prayer, and at its end we marched towards the village lands confiscated for the building of the separation fence. The state forces blocked our way. We tried to advance in spit of their resistance, and they detained two of the Israeli activists.
The demonstration continued there till the state forces went away. Then, the demonstrators took another way toward the route of the separation fence is in built there. We succeeded to fell down part of the infrastructure of the separation fence already constructed.
The Israeli activists were released later from Kiriat Arba (occupied Hebron) police station on third side bail after formally accused of attacking soldiers and dis obeying the decry of closed military Zone."
Most of the marchers carried small placards - each with the name of one of the about 500 villages destroyed in 1948 by the Israeli expansionist forces.
When we arrived at the foot of the hill on its top is located the gate to the robed lands on the other side of the separation fence, we encountered a line of barbed wire and lot of soldiers half the way up the hill. Their commander declared with the loudspeaker that there is a military closed space just behind the barbed wire. He warned with retaliation and arrest people who will cross the line.
The people at the head moved aside the barbed wire spool and continued to advance - and got immediately a shower of tear gas canisters.
The tear gas deter most of the people who retreated a hundred meters and dispersed among the olive trees on the side of the road. A small group of comrades who succeeded to march up the hill got a special sower of tear gas and was forced to join the rest of us.
For more than two hours there were waves of people regrouping and advancing a bit, and showers of tear gas forcing us to retreat. At some point, olive trees in the groove were set on fire by the shooting of tear gas grenades, and demonstrators worked to extinguish the fire in spite of the tear gas.
In their efforts to disperse the demonstration soldiers even invaded the fringe of the built area of the village.
After the fires were extinguished the demonstration was ended. I could see one comrade carrying a 20 liter bucket full of tear gas canisters as a kind of trophy - a small part of the hundreds fired on us this day.
======================
Um Salmuna - Report of a Participant:
"We met around 12:30 near the village Um Salmuna - about 20 Israelis of the AATW and others, 20 internationals and about 50 Palestinians. The Israeli army "delegation" was accompanied by police and border gendarmes - at least 100 of these.
At about 1:00 the Palestinian had there the midday prayer, and at its end we marched towards the village lands confiscated for the building of the separation fence. The state forces blocked our way. We tried to advance in spit of their resistance, and they detained two of the Israeli activists.
The demonstration continued there till the state forces went away. Then, the demonstrators took another way toward the route of the separation fence is in built there. We succeeded to fell down part of the infrastructure of the separation fence already constructed.
The Israeli activists were released later from Kiriat Arba (occupied Hebron) police station on third side bail after formally accused of attacking soldiers and dis obeying the decry of closed military Zone."
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Palestine-Israel, Friday joint struggles against the separation fence and occupation. 12 May 2007
In Bil'in the brutality of state force escalate. It is on the background of a storm in the media last few days about the assault of military Captain and his unit on activist of the the anarchists against the wall (AATW) and other participant in an action of removing a road block and demo at Dhaharriya (Near Hebron). The theme of the Friday demo of 11th May in Bil'in (the 118th) was the protesting of the Israeli state persecution of the Israeli Palestinian member of parliament Azmi Bashara. The demonstration of the usual participants - Palestinians from the village and the region, internationals, and Israeli of AATW - marched on the road leading to the gate in the separation fence used to rob more than half of the lands of the village. The march and the chanting was peacefully till we arrived at the bottom of the hill the gate is on its top.
As in the last few weeks since the new Israeli occupation regional commander was replaced, we found there a spool of razor wire blocking the road and Israeli state forces half the way up the hill. The commander shouted in his lowed speaker that the wire mark a closed military zone and threatened to punish us if any one will try to cross it.
As usual the ones in the head of the demonstration crossed that line and in spite of shower of tear gas shooting advanced up the hill, while the rest of us retreated a bit. When the bolder member reached the soldiers they were warned that they will be arrested if not going away. As they refused, the state force detained 10 activists - 6 Palestinians and 4 Israelis, all released after the end of the demonstration.
While the comrades were near the soldiers they could not use against them tear gas, so they used other means instead.... Adib Abu Rahme - Palestinian activist from Bil'in, was shot with rubber bullets from about 3 meters distance today during the demo in Bil'in. He was shot for no apparent reason. (It was also against the Israeli law about the range and body part "legitimate" for such act.) He is of course Palestinian so it didn't make as much noise as the Dhaharriya incident. Anyway, since he was shot from such a close range, the two bullets that hit him, one in each thigh, penetrated, and he had to be operated. He is hospitalized in the Sheikh Zayed hospital in Ramallah, and will have to remain in the hospital for at least two days.
When the state force were in it, they continue to shoot tear gas canisters and rubber coated bullets to force the rest of the participants to retreat all the way back to the outskirts of the village.
=======================
In the other two Friday joint demonstrations - in Yata and Um Salmuna, things were quieter. In the demo near Um Salmuna, it was just a mild pushing and pushing back with Israeli soldiers who blocked the way of the demonstration.
As in the last few weeks since the new Israeli occupation regional commander was replaced, we found there a spool of razor wire blocking the road and Israeli state forces half the way up the hill. The commander shouted in his lowed speaker that the wire mark a closed military zone and threatened to punish us if any one will try to cross it.
As usual the ones in the head of the demonstration crossed that line and in spite of shower of tear gas shooting advanced up the hill, while the rest of us retreated a bit. When the bolder member reached the soldiers they were warned that they will be arrested if not going away. As they refused, the state force detained 10 activists - 6 Palestinians and 4 Israelis, all released after the end of the demonstration.
While the comrades were near the soldiers they could not use against them tear gas, so they used other means instead.... Adib Abu Rahme - Palestinian activist from Bil'in, was shot with rubber bullets from about 3 meters distance today during the demo in Bil'in. He was shot for no apparent reason. (It was also against the Israeli law about the range and body part "legitimate" for such act.) He is of course Palestinian so it didn't make as much noise as the Dhaharriya incident. Anyway, since he was shot from such a close range, the two bullets that hit him, one in each thigh, penetrated, and he had to be operated. He is hospitalized in the Sheikh Zayed hospital in Ramallah, and will have to remain in the hospital for at least two days.
When the state force were in it, they continue to shoot tear gas canisters and rubber coated bullets to force the rest of the participants to retreat all the way back to the outskirts of the village.
=======================
In the other two Friday joint demonstrations - in Yata and Um Salmuna, things were quieter. In the demo near Um Salmuna, it was just a mild pushing and pushing back with Israeli soldiers who blocked the way of the demonstration.
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