A-Infos (en) Palestine-Israel, MEDIA*, Village a symbol of resistance

Every Friday, as midday prayers draw to a close, a few dozen people meet outside the small 
mosque in Bilin and march though the West Bank village, calling for an end to Israel’s 
occupation of Palestinian territory. ---- By the time they have entered a thin, dusty 
grove of olive trees, adjacent to the barrier that separates Israel from the West Bank, 
and often farmers from their land, the crowd has usually grown to at least 100, mostly 
Palestinians but also foreigners and Israelis. ---- On the other side of a barbed wire 
fence, Israeli soldiers in riot gear wait. They blast a siren, then warn the demonstrators 
that they have illegally entered “a closed military zone”. ---- Seconds later, the 
soldiers fire tear gas into the crowd. Sometimes, they shoot rubber-coated bullets.

The non-violent demonstrations in Bilin, which began in 2005, have made the village a 
popular symbol of the grassroots struggle against the separation barrier and the illegal 
annexation of Palestinian land.

Although the High Court two years ago ruled the barrier illegal and rejected the 
government’s claim that it was for security purposes, there has been little move to 
dismantle it.

In fact, the military has taken a harder line against the protesters, detaining known 
Palestinian activists in the village of about 1,600 and arresting Israelis. In recent 
months, soldiers have been conducting raids in Bilin searching for leaders of the protests.

Supporting the Palestinian cause is not simple for Israelis – it can come at a steep price.

B, 20, an Israeli boy who requested his name not be used, takes part in the Bilin 
demonstrations every week. None of his friends or family knows he does, and for good 
reason: two years ago when he defected from the army, just weeks into his mandatory 
service, his parents threw him out of the house.

Members of his family are mizrahi, quite literally eastern, Jews of Arab origin. Like most 
mizrahi, they are conservative and right wing, supporting hard-line political parties such 
as Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.

B does not consider his actions unpatriotic. By demonstrating in Bilin, he said, he was 
guarding Israeli democracy.

He cites an example of a recent demonstration, when a soldier tore down a Palestinian flag 
a protester had placed on the separation barrier.

“Taking the flag down doesn’t protect anyone. The Palestinians have a right to display 
their view … I was told in school this is a democratic country.”

So B put on a gas mask and draped another Palestinian flag on the barbed wire.

“The protest is also about justice and being moral.”

Arthur Nelsen, a Middle East analyst and author, comments that neither B’s attitude nor 
age is surprising. “There does seem to be a new generation of youngsters making themselves 
heard.”

And, according to Mr Nelsen, Israeli democracy does indeed seem to be under fire. He cites 
attacks on Breaking the Silence, an Israeli NGO opposed to the occupation, raids against 
the left-wing organisation New Profile and attempts to ban the Nakba commemoration as 
clearly aimed at repressing dissent. “The current authoritarian government in Tel Aviv has 
had a chilling effect on free expression.”

Still, Israelis continue to speak out.

Suzanne Moses, 80, is another peace activist. Now retired from her career as a flight 
attendant, she divides her time between a home in Switzerland, which she shares with her 
husband, and Tel Aviv.

“I don’t have some huge ideology,” Mrs Moses said, pointing out that, like the majority of 
Israelis, she supports a two-state solution. “I don’t wake up in the morning thinking 
‘I’ll fight the occupation!’ I just think that we should act morally.”

As a Holocaust survivor, Mrs Moses experienced inequality firsthand. Born in southern 
Germany, she was sent to Gurs, a concentration camp in France, at the age of 11. After the 
end of the Second World War, she was stateless until she immigrated to Israel from 
Switzerland at 29.

But the Holocaust does not excuse the occupation or settlements, Mrs Moses said.

Settlements have become a political flashpoint in recent months as a new US government 
tries to push Israel to stop building new outposts in Palestinian land in hopes of 
revitalising peace talks.

Mr Netanyahu, however, has refused. Earlier this week, the defence forces confirmed 
building in at least 11 settlements in occupied land was taking place.

And when Mrs Moses and others join Palestinians in the olive groves, there is often the 
risk that they will face violent settlers, intent on destroying the annual harvest.

In one such olive grove on the edge of Jamma’in, a small village nestled in the hills of 
Nablus, Israelis and Palestinians pluck fruit from the trees, side by side. Idyllic at 
first glance, the scene is fraught with tension – just days before, gun-toting settlers 
from Kfar Tapuach harassed Palestinian families. Sometimes the settlers throw stones and 
human excrement; occasionally, settlers set fires to the groves.

Without the aid of Israeli volunteers, Palestinian farmers are often too frightened to 
gather their crop, even if they depend on it for their livelihood.

That is why Nurit Tohai, 62, joins.

“Everyday, something happens to the Palestinians because of the settlements,” Mrs Tohai 
said. “As an Israeli, I feel like I need to do something.

“If you don’t go,” she said, “they don’t eat.”

For Keren Manor, 32, there is a need to better her society.

“As an Israeli, I have a responsibility to fight the things being done in my name,” she said.

Ms Manor, once an officer in the army, now attends demonstrations on a regular basis.

She has been arrested and fined “many times”. In January, during Operation Cast Lead, she 
was held in jail for three days before being released. And at one non-violent protest in 
the West Bank village of Nilin, an Israeli soldier shot a rubber-coated bullet into her 
leg. Surgery was required to remove the bullet lodged in her thigh.

When she first started participating in the protests, Ms Manor’s parents, whom she 
described as “mizrahi… mainstream and militaristic”, thought it was dangerous for her to 
be around Arabs. “Now they worry about me going to places where the army and the settlers 
are.”

Her parents’ political attitudes have also changed, and Ms Manor credits her activism. In 
the last election, she said, her father voted for Meretz, a left-wing party that is 
opposed to both settlements and the occupation. It is a testament, Ms Manor said, to the 
power of grassroots movements.

Such shifts in the mizrahi community, which hovers around 50 per cent of the population, 
are particularly threatening to the Israeli government, Mr Nelsen said.

“The establishment has also tended to punish [mizrahi] more severely, as an example to 
others in their community. Many believe that Tali Fahima, a Moroccan Jew who befriended a 
leader of the Jenin Al aqsa Martyrs Brigades, had to be vilified with a lengthy prison 
sentence so as to deter others in her community from following her lead.”

But Ashkenazis, Israelis of European descent, also find themselves the targets of 
censorship or punishment as Ben Ronen, 26, a peace activist, reports.

During Operation Cast Lead, Mr Ronen attended a non-violent demonstration at the Sde Dov 
air force base near Tel Aviv. On January 11, Mr Ronen, along with 18 other protesters, was 
arrested.

That was only the beginning of his trouble.

When he got out jail three days later, he returned to his apartment in Tel Aviv only to 
find that it had been torn apart by police. They had taken posters that called for 
boycotting Israel, and T-shirts that included slogans against the separation wall.

The items police took, Mr Ronen says, were “nothing too radical”.

A few nights later, however, Mr Ronen was stopped on a busy Tel Aviv street. “I was 
standing at an intersection,” he recalls, “and all of a sudden there was a hand on my 
shoulder.” Two detectives joined the first and they informed Mr Ronen he was under 
investigation for the posters and T-shirts they had obtained from his home. They took him 
to the police station. After two hours, they released him.
=========================================
* The National of Abu Dhabi - on activists mainly with the Anarchists Against the Wall 
initiative

The harassment, which Mr Ronen calls “KGB style”, continues still today. The detectives 
call him by name, he says, stop him in the street day and night, and search his 
belongings. “You have to deal with it if you live in this country.”
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