The Wall/Fence in Bil'in: 2005-2010

bilin weeklly demo 23-4-2010

The conference began on April 21 with all Palestinian political factions represented and speakers included politicians, leaders of Popular Committees, Israeli activists, and international solidarity activists.

Due to a mainstream media blackout on the five-year struggle in Bil'in, most Americans are unaware of the thousands of nonviolent Palestinians and growing legions of Israeli and International activists who have been waging a nonviolent campaign of resistance to the construction of the route of Israel's Wall in the Occupied Territories and to end the occupation of Palestine.

Farmers, mothers, children and activists have been braving teargas, beatings, bullets, arrest, and even death to rise up against the route of The Wall/Fence and most well equipped army in the world, with nothing more than their own bodies and the innate persistent determination within all people for justice and freedom.

In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that The Wall is a violation of International Law because it cuts through the West Bank appropriating Palestinian land and destroying Palestinian villages and economy in order to establish more illegal settlements.

The Wall/Fence in Bil'in and the Israeli army prohibit the indigenous people to tend and harvest their olive groves. Over 2,003 dunums of prime agricultural land have been confiscated by The Electric Fence. The Israelis have built apartments for Jewish only settlers, which the indigenous people are forbidden to even enter.

In Bil'in, the Green Line is five miles from The Wall/Fence and the Popular Committee in Bil'in has been fighting the Israeli government and forces with legal actions and nonviolent demonstrations.

The Israeli government attempts to justify their land theft by returning to the Ottoman Law that states if the landowner doesn't tend his land it can be confiscated by the State. The Israeli army and The Electric Fence have prevented the indigenous people from accessing their legally owned land, thus depriving them of food, income and human rights.

After the indigenous people of Bil'in brought their case to the Israeli Municipal Court and the High Court; both courts agreed the building of the settlement dwellings was indeed illegal and ordered the construction to cease in January 2006. Construction continued and the settlers have moved in.

The High Court accepted these 'facts on the ground' but the indigenous people and all who believe in equal human rights and international law will never give up seeking justice and resisting the route of the wall/fence. In many West Bank villages, the indigenous people are being joined by growing numbers of locals, Israelis and internationals and many have been injured, arrested and yet return for more-except those who have been imprisoned, incapacitated or killed by Israeli forces.

My first visit to Bil'in was in January 2006.I met many locals and a few internationals and Israelis who had created their own facts on the ground with an outpost where they held the ground 24/7. They slept for weeks at a time inside the 10x10 brick house on sleeping bags on a dirt floor, a few hundred yards from where a settlement of 700 upscale apartments was being erected for Jewish only settlers upon legally owned Palestinian property.

Bil'in Outpost, January 2006:

The indigenous people of Bil'in brought their case against the settlement to the Municipal Court and that Court agreed the building of the settlement dwellings was illegal and ordered construction to cease. But, building continued and the day I was there, a half dozen USA made Caterpillar tractors were moving earth for the anticipated paved road that only Jewish colonists- most of them from the USA-will be allowed to travel upon.

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