Victory for Direct Action

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6977400.stm

Bil’in has become something of a cause célèbre for the non violent resistance in the West Bank. Each week men, women and children from the village have gathered at the security fence to protest about the annexation of their land. The Israeli army meets these unarmed Palestinians with tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets: injuries, often severe, are very common.

This continued effort to provoke violence and thus legitimize their own role fails every single week. Whilst a few Palestinians might throw rocks, the vast majority resist the understandable urges to respond in kind to IDF violence. Actions like this one in 2005 have been aimed at raising awareness and at resisting the building of the wall which cuts the villagers off from their agricultural land.

Non-violent resistance is a very real danger for Israel. When you can portray those opposed to your programmes as crazed nutters with a bomb around their waist, then you can legitimize the violent repression of the people and the continued acquisition of land and resources. When the Palestinians refuse to legitimate your violence, and peacefully resist, then options are limited. The pictures of IDF soldiers beating defenceless protesters with nightsticks don’t play well on the international front, but they do stir violence from other quarters of Palestine, and the merciless circle continues. The villagers of Bi’lin have refused to be pulled into the cycle, and their painful efforts look like they have at last been rewarded.

Israel’s supreme court has ordered the government to redraw the route of the West Bank barrier near Bilin village, a key focus of anti-barrier protest.

The reason given for the court’s decision..

The court ruled that the route around Bilin was “highly prejudicial” to the villagers and demanded an alternative route be mapped out “within a reasonable period”.

.. is highly cynical, given that most of the wall’s path through the West Bank is highly prejudicial to the villagers, as it annexes much of their land, resources, and in some cases, such as Qalqilya, cuts off the village entirely. This is why it is illegal under international law.(Source, Source, Source)

The reality is more likely to be that Israel could no longer affort the weekly spectacle, which has recieved an increasing amount of international coverage thanks to the superb work of the International Solidarity Organisation, of a peaceful protest being turned violent by IDF troops. The hope is probably that this pocket of resistance will now retreat into itself, and the problems will evaporate.

That is certainly a possibility. The last two years have been a constant struggle for the people of Bil’in, and they have earned their success. Most will not continue to protest in the same vein. However the protests usually included Israelis and other foreigners, who will no doubt seek out other areas of resistance along the path of the Wall. Palestinians can take heart from the victory, and learn from the methods employed. Violence begets violence; Israel knows and employs this fact, understanding that it has both the financial and the military capacity to respond to any level of resistance (the US govt last week approved $30 billion in military aid to send to Israel over the next ten years). Non violence robs the Israelis of their trump card, and removes all their usual cynical justifications for violence. As we see today, it works.

Christopher Rossdale : 04 Sep 2007 14:33 |  Tags: Bilin Direct Action Israel And Palestine Non Violence Resistance |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem