Ethnic Cleansing in Progress…
I have made my home on the road in Budrus, a quiet, almost sleepy town whose only fault has been to exist very near the border of the Green Line. The Israelis got real creative here, and have placed a training firing range right near the town, so there is gunshots being heard almost around the clock. What a way to terrorize a town.
I have made my home on the road in Budrus, a quiet, almost sleepy town whose only fault has been to exist very near the border of the Green Line. The Israelis got real creative here, and have placed a training firing range right near the town, so there is gunshots being heard almost around the clock. What a way to terrorize a town.
But the insanity doesn’t stop there. The Israelis have decided to run the apartheid wall through the town olive groves, annexing/stealing part of the village land. The village has put up quite a resistance, and managed to force the thieves into some negotiation which resulted in less land being stolen, but the fact remains that when the wall is completed, the village of Budrus and eight other villages nearby will be fully encircled by the wall into a prison. The Israeli Occupational Forces will of course control the gates. And so the resistance continues, as futile as it may seem or may be.
Over the past few days a lot has happened, and I haven’t been too good at keeping very detailed notes. First, we went to a protest at one of the neighboring towns where the wall will soon be built, Deir Quadis. This was the first protest at the
town, where the villagers decided to pre-empt the building of the wall and make their displeasure with the Israeli apartheid policies known before the wall comes to their town.
The demonstration was by far the most peaceful of the ones I’ve seen. The Israelis largely kept themselves at a distance on a hill in a nearby settlement, and the villagers were free to march and make noise without any interference. I was just
a tad taken aback by the size of the settlement which borders the village — the Israelis really have gone all out here, stealing as much land as they could for what is quickly turning into a large colony of mid-rise apartment buildings. All
built on land stolen from the Palestinian peoples, with funds provided courtesy of the American taxpayer. Money well spent indeed.
After returning to Budrus from the protest, we took a service car to Qarawat Benni Zaid, another quiet town about twenty minutes away. The town has been asking for an international presence because the Israelis have been driving into the town
on a regular basis shooting, randomly wounding and killing people. Several students have been shot at the school by random fire over the recent year.
We stayed the night at one of the house of one of the village leaders, met with some of the teachers and representatives of various groups and parties, and got a clear picture of what has been happening. The next morning we went to the school, and although the Israelis did not show up that day, we got an awesome interview with the headmaster/principal at the school and a lawyer who spoke really great english, and gave us an awesome overview of the occupation.
I didn’t feel I was really needed at the town given that there were two other internationals who would be staying, so I headed back to Budrus. After spending a few fairly uneventful days here, we headed to Beit Dugu, another local town
where the wall is being built. The villagers again chose to hold a protest, but unfortunately the terrain was completely horrible for any kind of a protest.
The wall in Beit Dugu is being built on a hill full of huge rocks, and the soldiers had the higher ground by the time we arrived. Several attempts were made to surround and grab control of the buldozer, but the soldiers simply shoved us right down the hill, with many people falling right off the large boulders. Plenty of teargas was used, coupled with a number of sound grenades and physical beating with batons. After making several attempts to storm the soldiers, the people gave up, and we ended up watching the wall being built for the next few hours. A depressing sight indeed.
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