Al-Ahram - Beyond the wall

[Englander]

Something is astir in Bilin -- mass Palestinian demonstrations based on non-violence and Israeli participation. Graham Usher reports from the West Bank village

14 - 20 July 2005
Issue No. 751

Sheikh Taysir Al-Tammimi, one of the leading Islamic clerics in the West Bank, gently pulls away the barbed wire that has been laid before him. He then spreads out his prayer mat, facing Mecca. A hundred or so Palestinians cross the imaginary line that once demarcated the coiled border and kneel behind him. Fifty Israeli soldiers stand and look. As the prayer ends, two hundred people quietly applaud, some of them foreign activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), most of them Israeli Jews, from different parts of the Israeli peace camp. It is an act of non-violent protest of almost Gandhian simplicity. For the moment, it works. Israel's military phalanx, its iron wall, is rendered politically and morally mute.

We are in Bilin, a minuscule Palestinian village two and a half miles east of the Green Line. Before the demonstrators -- behind the Israeli soldiers -- is a scar of freshly razed white earth, the preliminary ruptures for the next section of the West Bank wall. Behind that is the vast, sprawling settlement metropolis of Modin Illit, which the wall "defends" by devouring 600 of Bilin's 1,000 acres of land.

Since February, Bilin's 1,600 residents have mounted 50 demonstrations against the wall. Two principles govern them. One is non- violence. One day they chain themselves to olive trees, demonstrating that the wall not only steals their land but their lifeblood. Another day they give out letters to the troops, explaining in Hebrew that the struggle is "not against Israel as a state but against Israel as an occupation".

This week they are commemorating the first anniversary of the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) ruling on the wall: that it and the settlements it "effectively annexes" are illegal under every tenet of international law and must be dismantled. A mock up "scales of injustice" has been erected on the back of a truck. On one weight, the lesser one, hangs the world; on the other, the heavier, hangs Israel. Uncle Sam holds the balance. It tells much of what you need to know about the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The army has not responded in kind. Since the protests began over 100 Palestinians, Israelis and other have been injured from teargas, beatings, rubber coated steel bullets and live ammunition. Dozens have been arrested, including, in June, two of Bilin's brothers, Abdullah and Rateb Abu Rahme, allegedly for throwing stones. An Israeli military judge dismissed the charge after the army's own videotapes showed it to be spurious. The prayers too were eventually dispersed in an explosion of tear gas and rubber bullets, leaving 14 injured, four arrested and an ambulance struck by gunfire.

More at;
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/751/re1.htm

[Scurrilous]

1. Court: Border Police `lie about violence at fence protests'

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/605856.html

<snip>

"For more than six months, dozens of Israelis and hundreds of Palestinians have been demonstrating every weekend against the construction of the separation fence near the West Bank village of Bil'in. These demonstrations, defined by participants as peaceful, frequently turn into violent clashes with the Border Police's Company 22, assigned to disperse the demonstrations.

An investigation by Haaretz has found that policemen from that company have made false accusations against demonstrators and even made arrests on the basis of those accusations. Palestinians thus detained can be held for eight days before being brought before a judge.

In other cases, soldiers gave false testimony about rock throwing and other violence when most of the protests were peaceful. However, there were instances in which Border Police were hurt by rocks thrown by demonstrators at Bil'in.

In recent weeks, three judges harshly criticized troops after watching videotapes that nullified their allegations. In at least two cases the judges questioned the excessive force used against peaceful and restrained protesters. Footage taken by Shai Caremeli-Polack, who documents the demonstrations for the organization Anarchists Against the Wall, was presented in the various court hearings and contradicted the claims of Border policemen that the conduct of demonstrators had compelled them to use batons, kick and fire tear gas directly at the demonstrators."