Saturday, November 17, 2007

Palestine-Israel, The AAtW and the joint struggle this week end 17 Nov 2007

This week we started the week end activity earlier a bit. First activity was the participating in joint struggle of Palestinians of the region the 443 highway pass through. This part of the highway built on lands robbed from the villagers is on the middle of the second high way from Tel Aviv To Jerusalem, that pass through occupied territories of the 1967 war, but the Palestinian villagers are prevented from using it. The villagers of Beit Sira, Safa, Beit Likya, Kharbata Al Masbach, Beit Ur El Tachta and Beit Ur el Foka - joined forces and started struggle against this apartheid road. Naturally, many of the involved wee previously active in the joint struggle of their and neighboring villages, together with the Israeli Anarchists Against the wall, and internationals against the separation fence. Naturally, they invited the internationals an us to participate. naturally we did our best to join the struggle. Naturally the Israeli state forces did their best to block the struggle and more so to prevent the participation of Israelis in that joint struggle. Naturally we tried to over come these blocking, but this Thursday morning we failed nearly completely... but only nearly.

As their logistics stinks, they tried to stop us by checking every car that was passing through the check point on the 443 high way - at the entrance to the Palestinian region. As result of this checking a long queue of cars was formed for about half an hour. If we had tried to achieve it on our own initiative, we could not do that better....

They succeeded to intercept our car and forced us to return to the Israeli side of the region - escorting us towards Tel Aviv. We managed to stop in a near by intersection and before we returned to Tel Aviv, one of us succeeded to evade the police escort an arrived at the demonstration.

At the evening, we had witnessed again the split between super leniency of democracy to the Jews in contrast to the harsh suppression in the Palestinian regions. About 100 people from the city anarchist scene and sympathizers converged in the city central square for a critical mass against the occupation and the war on Gaza. After a while we started (a well publicized and with no permit) an hour and a half of a slow driving - to enable the comrades who had no bicycles to participate. The Samba team with its drums were a nice music to accompany our chants. Slowly we did a big round a bout "tour" in the main streets of the center of Tel Aviv. At each significant intersection we did a few minutes of a whirl riding. And the police were aware of our action as we took all the width of the road lanes in the direction we traveled. Comrades distributed leaf lets and the police officers asked again and again not to obstruct the traffic of the opposite direction.... Only on one of the whirls blocking the intersections one angry police officer asked one of us to show her papers.

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This Friday, we had a bit bigger Friday demonstrations in Bil'in - about 200 participants, about 100 of them Internationals and Israelis. As usually we marched chanting all the way from the village center towards the route of the separation fence. As usual when we reached the foot of the hill the gate to the west is on it the commander of the Israeli state force declared the remaining space as closed military zone. As usual, comrade started to cross the forbidden line. As usual the state force started to shower us with tear gas canisters.

However, it was not so usual whether, and many of the more experienced, made use of the very slow wind, to evade the tear gas and keep staying near the separation fence. Some succeeded to cross the line and approach the state force where they could not use tear gas on our people. Some of us us regrouped among the olive trees and approached the separation fence on the northern side of the gate - challenging there the soldiers positioned on the other side of the fence, who failed to deter us with tear gas. After hearing them intending to shoot at the two of us wearing colored shirts, we returned to the road, for another intrusion into the forbidden area. The soldier had to use physical force to made the people retreat, and detained 4 comrades.

For another hour, the more experienced of us took the initiative again and again to approach the forbidden zone when the wing cleared the tear gas and retreat only after a heavy shower of tear fas canisters shot at us. The majority of the international guests and many of the others were a hill nearer to the village and had a good view on the arena... to be punished from time to time with long shots of tear gas.

All along the afternoon we could see from time to time people suffocate from a tear gas canister the failed to evade, and few limping as result of direct hit of tear gas canisters shot toward them an from rubber coated bullets - luckily not seriously injury this Friday.

After 2 hours of action, most of the people dispersed and the outsiders left the village. Few of us stayed with few of the village activists waiting and applying some ties to hasten the release of the detainees. When the evening arrived, the 4 detainees (including one international, one Israeli and two of the village comity) were released. We politely declined the invitation to join the evening meal and returned to Tel Aviv.
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Joint streggle against the separation fence at Eidna - south Hebron mountain 10-11-07 - link to video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-9C49RyE3c

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