Bi’ilin a sign of hope and struggle

Our blogger, who is working with the ISM in Palestine, tells us about their experiences in Bi’ilin, site of one of the longest and most active campaigns against the Israeli separation wall

The first non-violent demonstration we attended with the Palestinians was in Bi’ilin. Many local Palestinian activists, international solidarity members, anarchists against the wall and other supporting groups joined in not only to demonstrate against the wall but to celebrate the newly liberated territory. Please check the Bi’ilin website for further reading:

(Bi’ilin is one of the Palestinian villages near Ramallah, which is separated by the illegal wall. The village is surrounded by settlements and have been for many years under prolonged siege both economically and socially. Since the wall began to be built in 2004 many Palestinians have been cut off from their homes, farmlands and water supplies. The continued construction of the wall has not only assisted the settlers to extend their territory and fomented a growing apartheid but it has also added even further grave obstacles to peace in the region. The wall extends further than the green line of the 1967 border.)

We proceeded to the wall in high spirits with flags and singing chants of “Free Palestine”. Once we reached the wall we celebrated the newly liberated territory and proceeded to help built a shack, which would be turned into a cafeteria and a lounge for protestors in a week ahead. All of us worked in cleaning, removing grass and stones from the ground for its preparation of its construction phase. A physical existence in order to help prevent settler attacks from Mitatyaho Mzrath illegal settlement and Israeli soldiers. The village and the international activists see this as one of the first victories for the struggle and it shines some ray of hope to the peaceful resistance as well as helping rebuild shattered homes and recover lost land.

After the demonstration, under the roaring sun, some Palestinian activists invited us to their local media centre (Friends of Freedom and Justice), whom informed us about the latest updates of their struggle in the village and the most recent international day of action (A day of action called the “flytilla”, in which more than 342 activists were blacklisted at their home airports, forbidding them to fly, and another 120 will be deported in the next few days from Ben Gurion airport, more information here:http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/07/201178154823642194.html ). I managed to speak to one of the activists from the local media centre and asked him some questions about the history of the Bi’ilin village as well as life in it since the construction of the wall. He commented that the construction of the wall commenced in 2004 leaving thousands of local Palestinians without a home and access to their farmland, a land, in which they mainly grow olive trees. In Palestine, the Olive tree acquires a great historical significance, economical and most importantly identity and peace significance. The Israeli army has carried out thousands of evictions from houses and farmland on local Palestinians, and hence have uprooted many olive trees causing further damage to the Palestinians culturally as well as economically. Before the wall the village had 3000 inhabitants, today it has been reduced to 2000 people, hundreds of them in jails, as well as 2 deaths in the past few years, including 1200 injured in demonstrations. And the division of the area (C)  in Bi’ilin in two excluding one part for the Palestinians (3300 d. and 4300 d. for the Israelis). Bi’ilin is a present example of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from their homeland, which should be recorded and remembered by everyone, but it’s also a sign of hope for the Palestinian struggle.