Bilin: Four Detained as Military get Physical with Demonstrators

ISM Report - Bilin, 10th August 2007
About 100 international, Palestinian, and Israeli activists, and demonstrators, gathered in Bil’in village on the morning of August 10th 2007 for what was to be the 131st demonstration against the illegal Apartheid wall and the Israeli settlement of Modiin Ilit.

Demonstrators marched enthusiastically towards the Apartheid wall, chanting and shouting, expressing to the world and media about their hopes for an end to the occupation, their desire to see the Apartheid wall brought down, and wish for the soldiers to go home. As with most demonstrations in Bil’in, things didn’t stay enthusiastic for very long as Israeli soldiers and border police quickly released a hail of tear gas canisters and sound grenades upon the demonstrators.

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A Village Makes Its Own Protest
Nora Barrows-Friedman - Inter Press Service - August 13, 2007
Israel has stated that the purpose of the wall is to prevent suicide bomb attacks, but critics maintain that the underlying intention is to annex as much land as possible to the expanding Israeli settlement colonies inside the occupied West Bank.

Many small farming villages such as Bili'in, which are dependent on agricultural exports to both local and wider communities, have been extremely vulnerable to both economic and social decay after the building of the Israeli wall.

"If we look at the wall, which has confiscated some of the main resources for the Palestinian villagers - namely, the fertile land and the underground water tables - the economic and social structures in the Palestinian areas are changing very rapidly," Jamal Jumaa, coordinator with the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign in Ramallah told IPS.

"Right now, 51 villages have been isolated from their agricultural land, and farmers who have been farming their land for generations are now having to find work in nearby cities or elsewhere. This has changed the society in general from agricultural-based to industrial-based.

"Behind the wall, Israel creates industrial zones. So you have Palestinians losing their land because of the wall and the settlements, then being forced to find work, becoming cheap labour for Israeli industry."

Non-violent protests against the encroaching apartheid wall have become a regular and daily occurrence across the West Bank, but in Bili'in, international activists too have maintained a visible presence at the weekly protests.

"The Israelis are trying to push how far they can go," an elderly British-born U.S. citizen who has joined the protesters told IPS. "And we have to say, 'You've gone too far already.' So we have to protest. And they are hoping the world will keep quiet. And people coming from all over the world here are showing that we won't keep quiet. I'm from England, but I live in America where my tax dollars are paying for that (tear) gas that just attacked me. So I'm paying for that. It's an outrage."