Budrus, a documentary film now debuting across the US, tells the story of a successful protest campaign by unarmed Palestinian civilians against Israel's military occupation in my small West Bank village. Our struggle's success and the consequent expansion of civil resistance to other West Bank communities may provide hope to viewers desperate for positive news from the Middle East, but today an Israeli crackdown on unarmed Palestinian protesters is threatening this growing movement. For our movement to thrive and serve as a true alternative to violence, we need Americans' to demand that Israel, a close US ally, end this repression.
Budrus depicts our ten month campaign of protest marches in 2003-2004, which included participation by men, women and children, and by representatives from all Palestinian political factions, along with Israeli and international activists, to resist the construction of Israel's Separation Barrier on our lands. Young women, led by my 15-year-old daughter Iltezam, ran past armed Israeli soldiers and jumped In front of the bulldozers that were uprooting our ancient olive trees. The soldiers regularly met us with clubs, rubber-coated bullets, curfews, arrests and even live ammunition. But we won in the end. The Israeli military rerouted the barrier in Budrus, allowing us access to almost all of our land.
The film ends with Palestinian and Israeli activists heading to the neighboring village of Ni'ilin where the struggle to save Palestinian land continues today. But following Budrus's success and faced by a growing numbers of civilians protesting the confiscation of their lands, Israel has responded with military might, attempting to quell this new movement. Twenty Palestinians have since been killed during unarmed demonstrations against the construction of the Separation Barrier.
In Ni'ilin, in the dark of night, Israeli soldiers have staged hundreds of military raids and arrests of civilians from the village; hundreds more were injured -- forty by live ammunition, and five, including a ten year old, were shot dead. Today, a horrid 25 foot concrete wall stands in Ni'ilin, behind which lie 620 acres of village lands taken for the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
Through a five-year protest campaign, another nearby village, Bil'in, has become an international symbol of nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation, with world leaders from Jimmy Carter to Desmond Tutu visiting to show support. On October 11th, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, one of Bil'in's most prominent protest organizers, was sentenced by an Israeli military court to twelve months in jail. His crime -- leading demonstrations in his village that were very similar to those I led in Budrus.
During Abdallah's trial, Israel's military prosecution repeatedly demanded that an 'example' be made of him to deter others who might organize civil resistance. The EU, Britain, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have all condemned Abdallah's incarceration, yet he remains in prison.
Palestinians' wishes are simple -- we want what is ours, our land, with true sovereignty. We want freedom, equality and civil rights -- what Martin Luther King, Jr. called in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail "our constitutional and God-given rights."
But Israel is sending a clear message -- even unarmed resistance by ordinary civilians demanding basic rights will be crushed. It is little known that the second intifada began not with guns and suicide bombings against civilians, but rather with protest marches to Israeli military checkpoints inside the occupied West Bank, and with civil disobedience in the tradition of the US civil rights movement. Israel responded by firing over 1.3 million live bullets in one month into crowds of protesters. When ordinary people could no longer afford to risk protesting, small groups turned, in anger and despair, to armed resistance.
Budrus's struggle showed that civil resistance can bring down walls, both literal and those of the heart, and set an example for a bright future for Israelis and Palestinians in this biblical land. Today Palestinian and Israeli protesters are together confronting Israel's military occupation in other villages. But this hopeful possibility is now threatened again by Israeli bullets and arrests.
For this future to materialize, those who are outraged by the violence deployed against protesters must demand an end to the injustice. If Americans want to see the example of Budrus continue to spread, individuals, civil society groups and the US government must act to pressure Israel to end its brutal crackdown on civilian protesters.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/17/newsid_2519000/2519637.stm
Unfortunately, Israleis, befuddled by catastrophically optimistic promises of Israeli doves and PLO Trojan Horse, took Arafat at his word. Big mistake!!!!!
Should've listened to the Arabs.
P.S.
Maybe once in a while they can also march in resistance to belligerence of Hamas, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade,Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Qassam Brigades.
Just to balance the scale. No?
Perhaps a protest against this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CUSyC0IHxc
No? Why not. Oh, they're freedom fighters ennobled by righteous struggle... beside being media darlings.
By Hussein Agha, Robert Malley
Mr. Malley, as Special Assistant to President Clinton for Arab-Israeli Affairs, was a member of the US peace team and participated in the Camp David summit. Mr. Agha has been involved in Palestinian affairs for more than thirty years and during this period has had an active part in Israeli-Palestinian relations.
"the Palestinians' principal failing is that from the beginning of the Camp David summit onward they were unable either to say yes to the American ideas or to present a cogent and specific counterproposal of their own.
Toward the end of the summit, an irate Clinton would tell Arafat: "If the Israelis can make compromises and you can't, I should go home. You have been here fourteen days and said no to everything. These things have consequences; failure will mean the end of the peace process.... Let's let hell break loose and live with the consequences."
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/14380
Palestinians who are marching now participated and facilitated a wave of terrorism against Israeli women and children.
Why didn't they march against their own militants blowing up Israeli buses, kindergarten and cafes?
Answer- because overwhelming support for suicide bombing campaign (Oslo Wars) among Palestinain populace.
And now that the Security Wall has defeated their belligerent designs-- suddenly --- we're marching for peace and co-existence. That's all we ever wanted. Yeah, right.
"1,441 Palestinian children killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000 compared to124 Israeli children.
At least 6,348 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000 compared to 1,072 Israelis.
39,019 Palestinians have been injured since September 29, 2000 compared to 8,864 Israelis.
7,383 Palestinians are currently imprisoned by Israel and one Israeli by Palestinians.
24,145 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since 1967 compared to zero.
Israel currently has 223 Jewish-only settlements built on confiscated Palestinian land compared to zero.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
Numbers are higher at this time
Copy and google if the link fails.
The saddest part is that watching this, all I could think about was--what a waste of human lives.
If the The Oslo War was coup the main; election of Hamas was the final coup de grace.
Now disjointed, militarily defeated in both in W. Bank and Gaza , and heartily distrusted in Cairo, Riyadh, Jerusalem and Washington. the best Palestinians can hope for is a some truncated form of independence for W. Bank and a Caliphate in Gaza.
q> on the altar of Arafat's intransigence
Of course! It is never Israel's fault! They would not give Palestinians the right of return- something that is extended to all Jews in the world, even those Jews that have no connection whatsoever with Israel- but it is all Arafat's fault because he was offered a bum deal.
And poor Clinton didn't get the Nobel he wanted...
Jews don't have a right of return to Israel. Neither do Palestinians. Is that clear enough for you?
The IDF prefers to use of children as human shields.
Rand is there something you're not sharing with the rest of us? Is it a sin to be your fan?
If people can't even be fair regarding the meaning of the word "abusive", how can we expect them to be reasonable in the difficult matters that the Palestinians and the Israelis are dealing with.
The wall IS effective. Having said that,it should run on the green line and not within the West Bank. Settlements should stop. Palestinians should declare a state with all the responsibility that entails for them.
An accurate depiction of the conflict is not their goal.
Israel occupies Palestine. Palestine does not occupy Israel.
Thank you.
They clearly understand who the ally and who the enemy is in this conflict.
ahhhhh, which Palestinians.
There are two Palestinains territories and the rulers of the two can't even agree to meet.
Although you're right. There will probably be two Palestines:
East Palestine and Gaza Islamic Caliphate with Sheik Yassin City as capital.
There is one Palestine and it is occupied by Israel.