Volume [6]
No. [2]
December 2009
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Volume [6]
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No. [2]
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December 2009
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Travels in Palestine: Bil'in
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| “Each step we take leaves a blood
mark.” Those words left the mouth of an Israeli activist branding a devastating image in my mind of the beautiful and contentious land called Palestine/Israel, and our role back in the United States. Resistance is playing with
children, cracking jokes, walking down the street with your head held
high shaking neighbors’ hands along the way. Resistance is living
your life.
It was a hot Friday afternoon in the West Bank’s inspiring village of Bil’in. Vicious tear-gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets rained down on the residents of Bil’in along with International and Israeli activists who marched toward the illegal wall, protesting the annexation of nearly 60% of Bil’in’s land. The weekly non-violent demonstration against Israel’s Apartheid Wall had just ended. As the dust began to settle, people descended the hill, stopping to cough, gag or vomit. An older couple draped in colors of the Palestinian flag sat on a pile of rocks near the bottom of the hill. The man sprayed squares of tissue with alcohol, the woman placed them in our hands, and we inhaled the fumes to remind our brain to breathe then wiped our eyes and faces to stop the burning sensation. My throat seared from the noxious tear-gas as I rested under the shade of thick, aged olive trees. Situated on the land surrounding me, stood three distinct Israeli settlements boasting their defiance of international law. Over the last three decades Israel has continued to build one illegal settlement after the other on Bil’in’s land, each one an insulting reminder of Israel’s ongoing and destructive land expansion fueled by racist, apartheid policies. I never realized how close the settlements were to Palestinian homes until I was there; how massive, intrusive, and untenable they truly are. Obama’s short-lived settlement freeze rhetoric was already thawing, and I was experiencing just a small taste of what occupation meant. Occupation is exhausting when you consider 60 years of colonizing, oppressing, racially discriminating, dehumanizing and ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people. Remarkably, occupation doesn’t sleep. Occupation thrives in the nighttime, particularly in Bil’in where families awake from nightmares to nightmares as young soldiers dressed in guns invade families’ homes to inexplicably arrest young men. They leave children scared, heirlooms shattered and men beaten. These soldiers are masked as they target the homes of Bil’in’s resisters. “Why do they wear masks?” an International shouts. “Because they are ashamed.” answers an Israeli. While staying in Bil’in I met some of the most amazing human beings. I learned that resistance is not just marching to the wall every Friday. It is not just staying up all night on rooftops watching for Israeli soldiers |
Tear gas being used against
non-violent demonstrators in Bil'in who sneak through the fields by foot and
storm the streets in a caravan of camouflaged Hummers. Resistance is
playing with children, cracking jokes, walking down the street with
your head held high shaking neighbors’ hands along the way.
Resistance is living your life. Occupation is exhausting when you consider 60 years of
colonizing,
oppressing, racially discriminating, dehumanizing and ethnically
cleansing the Palestinian people. Remarkably, occupation doesn’t
sleep. Occupation thrives in the nighttime, particularly in
Bil’in
where families awake from nightmares to nightmares as young soldiers
dressed in guns invade families’ homes to inexplicably arrest young
men. They leave children scared, heirlooms shattered and men
beaten.
These soldiers are masked as they target the homes of Bil’in’s
resisters. |
