Peaceful Protestors March on in Bil’in
September 18th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Every week Palestinians and Israelis march peacefully, side by side, in Bil’in, against Israel’s illegal colonial settlements and the Apartheid Wall. Each time they are met with arrests, bullets, physical assaults and tear gas — the projectiles of which can be lethal. Protestors have died in Bil’in — lest we forget Bassam Abu Rahmah – and some sit in Israeli prisons as we speak. Their crime? Demanding justice from an oppressive, violent, apartheid State.
In the clip above, PULSE writer Tali Shapiro is nearly struck with a tear gas projectile. Israeli-launched tear gas projectiles have caused death and severe physical injuries. In May Emily Henochowicz lost her eye forever. Tristan Anderson has only recently awoken from a coma and recovered enough to be returned to the US. Tali was nearly made into another example, and this is not the first time she was nearly hurt.
Earlier this month an IDF training unit leader declared: “during war there are no civilians.” He made this statement in a Haifa district court where the civil suit launched by Rachel Corrie’s parents against the State of Israel for the murder of their daughter is being heard. Most (if not all) IDF members likely believe that they are fighting a war (even if it is against a people who have no army of their own and are only resisting colonization and occupation), and secondly, that in this imaginary war there are no innocents. “There are no civilians,” like in Gaza, where more than 1,400 Palestinians (one third of which were women and children) were killed in less than one month by the IDF. Presumably, the charge about there being no civilians also applies to the Israelis, including that IDF member’s wife and children.
Tali travels to Bil’in every week and each time she and other peaceful protestors are met with life-threatening Israeli violence while the world looks the other way. Where are the “Palestinian Ghandis,” they ask? Some are dead, others in prison. But here is another question: where is the outrage, the widespread support for the international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, and the demand by Americans for their government to stop funding the Israeli war machine with their tax dollars?
And still, they march on.
