Video Reports : Two Xmas Day Protests in the West Bank, Sheikh Jarrah & Bil'in

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Tuesday December 29, 2009 15:08

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign

No Room, No Inn : Only Tents in Sheikh Jarrah, Only Tear Gas in Bil'in

In their creative, nonviolent resistance against the Apartheid Wall, for the Xmas Day protest, Bil'in's villagers decided on gifting the Israeli Occupation Forces manning the checkpoint at that obscenity a box of luxury sweets, the intention was for five Santas positioned well back from the Wall - so as to allay any IOF fears that they may be rocks to slingshot them, however, before it could transpire, the well humoured protestors were malevolently doused in a blizzard of tear gas and this continued and continued.

Further away, down south in Sheikh Jarrah where the dispossession and ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem's Palestinians continues apace, the protestors were corraled opposite the mouth of the road where two illegally evicted Palestinian families are forced to camp, this protest was heartening in that the vast majority of the demonstrators were Israelis, some orthodox Jewish, deeply angered by what their government is doing in their name.

This Thursday and Friday, a spate of protests will be taking place in the West Bank in solidarity with the Viva Palestina aid convoy and the Code Pink/Gaza Freedom March and in disgust at Egypt's merciless attempts to kybosh them - in collusion with the US, Israel and the EU to keep Gaza hermetically sealed and suffocating in hunger and despair.

Caption: Video Id: wNFFb8vKjoc Type: Youtube Video
Part 1 : Xmas Day protest in Sheikh Jarrah

Caption: Video Id: S46XiwUUh6k Type: Youtube Video
Part 2 : Xmas Day protest in Sheikh Jarrah

Caption: Video Id: jv5u1yx-PMw Type: Youtube Video
Bil'in protests on Xmas Day

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Comments (3 of 3)

Highway 443 : 28 kilometers of distilled apartheid to Ofer Prison

by Naomi Schlaim - Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall

Wed Dec 30, 2009 12:39

Gideon Levy writes in today's edition of Haaretz: This highway has told the whole story. They pave a road, expropriate Palestinian land and the High Court of Justice approves the expropriation, in its words, "provided that it is done for the sake of the local population."

Afterwards they prevent the "local population" from using the road, and finally they build a wall with drawings of creeks and meadows so we don't see and don't know that we are driving on an apartheid road, that we are traveling on the axis of evil.

Apartheid? What are you talking about? It's just a freeway to the capital, because that's how we like it best. Going (quickly) along with the occupation and feeling like there is none. That way the highway has fulfilled another secret national wish - that they get out of our faces ...

How many people have asked themselves how it is possible that a road that was paved in the heart of the Land of Palestine has no Palestinians traveling on it? How many have noticed the sign that leads to the "Ofer [army] camp", another whitewashed name for a detention facility or the hundreds of prisoners detained there, some without trial? (full article on link).

Protest Outside Ofer Prison, West Bank

by TD - FPC

Tue Dec 29, 2009 23:13

Ofer Prison situated between Ramallah and the illegal Israeli colony of Giv'at Ze'ev in the West Bank and run by the Israel Prison Service was the scene of a vociferous protest today, the 29th December by Palestinians angered at the kidnapping of their children, youths and adults in the ongoing repression by the Israeli Occupation Forces who detain them in that facility - the anger of Bil'in's contingent was whetted by the recent abduction of the coordinator of the village's Friday weekly protests against the Apartheid Wall; Abdullah Abu Rahma who was subsequently charged with the bizarre, Kafkaesque crime of "possessing arms" (spent tear gas canisters in the villages museum).