Postscript to my last post: this morning members of our delegation were furiously texting each other with the horrible news that our dear friend Iyad Burnat, leader of the Popular Committee in Bil’in was shot during their weekly demonstration today.

According to reports on Bil’in’s Facebook page, Iyad and the other marchers were approaching the separation wall when the IDF opened fire with tear gas and coated steel bullets – two of which struck Iyad directly. Hearts sinking, we waited for a full report – much to our relief, we eventually learned that his injury was not life-threatening.

Just another reminder of the unbearably high stakes faced weekly by the Palestinian nonviolent activists in villages across the West Bank…

Al-Ma’asra Popular Committee Leader Hassan Brijeh

Earlier in the week, our Bil’in host Iyad Burnat told us that a neighboring village, Al-Ma’sara, was celebrating the 7th anniversary of its popular resistance against the occupation – and was inviting other village communities involved in the movement to march join them for their weekly Friday demonstration. Although our original plan was to march in the weekly demonstration in Bil’in, this turned out to be a rare opportunity to see the wider movement in action. So on Friday, our delegation traveled with Iyad to show solidarity with the people of Al-Ma’asra.

Al-Ma’asra is located in the Southern Bethlehem area, with a population of approximately 950 residents, 50 of whom are between the ages of 6 and 18. Like many villages in this location – near Israel’s coveted Gush Etzion settlement region – the construction of the separation wall is cutting off Al-Ma’asra from accessing more than half of their land and the main water supply.

About 90% of the houses in Al-Ma’asra are located in Area C – a region in which Israel is rapidly demolishing houses and moving out its Palestinian residents. (I’ve written extensively about this issue here, among other places).  Like Bil’in, Nabi Saleh and so many other villages, Al-Ma’asra has turned to popular resistance – including weekly nonviolence demonstrations – to protest the theft of their land and devastation of their livelihood. And like these other villages, they have been subject to the Israeli military’s devastating use of tear gas, sound bombs, coated steel bullets etc. Since the beginning of their demonstrations, more than 30 of their inhabitants have been arrested.

After we arrived in Al-Ma’asra, we received a briefing/update from Mohammed Brijeh (above, later at the rally), after which we joined the growing ranks of villagers, Israeli solidarity activists and internationals who were quickly pouring into the village’s main street.  Then at 12:00 pm we gathered together and began marching. The street was filled with approximately 300 individuals: young and old, representing a myriad of nationalities and ethnicities. But it was clearly the people of Al-Ma’asra who were leading the way: leading us in chants, singing songs and waving to their neighbors,

After 15 minutes or so, we noticed a long line of Israeli soldiers in riot gear, standing in formation across the street, blocking our way to the wall. The crowd pressed up close against the soldiers and standoff commenced. When the villagers were told they were denied passage, Mahmoud stepped forward and starting chastising the soldiers in English. Careful not to use any physical violence or overly incendiary rhetoric, he asked the soldiers why they were not allowed the right to live and assemble freely in their own village.

He explained to them they could oppress them all the wanted, but that one day, like all oppressed people, they would be free. Pointing to their extensive riot gear, their bullet-proof vests, their M-16s, their helmets, he told them that none of this expensive equipment would ever bring them peace – then pointing to his head, he said “it’s not what you wear, it’s what’s in here that you need to change.”

Perhaps the most powerful moment for me came when he said to one soldier, “What would your mother think – would she want you to bully the people of this village, to oppress them, to take their land away from them? Shame on you!” The chant spread quickly through the crowd: “Shame on you! Shame on you!”

About 20 minutes or so into the standoff, there was a roll call of participants, a myriad of countries were called out with the obligatory hometown cheers. (Among those represented: the US, Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, France, Spain, and more). A succession of speakers then got up on a raised area to the right of the soldiers to give speeches. They introduced Iyad, and he offered greetings (below) from their brothers and sisters in Bil’in.

After Iyad spoke, one of our delegation participants, Estee Chandler, called out “We have a rabbi here!” Then one of the organizers shouted, “We have a rabbi here! Let’s here from the rabbi!”  And before I could even think about what I might possibly say, I got up and started to address the crowd (below).

I told them that the Torah teaches us – as all spiritual traditions do – that God stands with the oppressed and demands that we do the same. Thus, I said, this demonstration was a sacred act for all of us – a mitzvah. And that it was all the more sacred because it contained such a diversity of nationalities and religions. I told them we were honored to stand together with our Palestinian brothers and sisters who were struggling for justice and dignity and that we would take this message back with us when we returned home to the US.

After the speakers, something of a waiting game began. The demonstrators sat down in the street in front of the solders, singing and chanting as the soldiers were obviously conferring on their next move. Eventually, the commander told us we have 5 minutes to disperse before they opened fire on us. Little by little, the crowd got up and walked back down the street. Some of the younger villagers went to another main street where we later could see some kind of skirmish in the distance.

In the end, all the demonstrators dispersed; I felt a myriad of emotions at that moment. I had no doubt that the decision to disperse came from the organizers, who understandably wanted to avoid violence in the streets. Still, I admit it felt galling that in the eyes of the IDF, this was a just another “successful” job of unruly crowd control . On the other hand, the message of solidarity and defiance had been delivered – as it had been every week for the previous seven years in Al-Ma’asra and would for many more years to come. And in so doing, new relationships were created, new coalitions built – and the movement was that much stronger for having come together that day.

During our standoff in the street with the IDF, it occurred to me that this was precisely the same circumstance that occurred on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965. The demand for justice was the same, the solidarity was the same, the message of nonviolence was the same, as was the  show of force by a brutal and overmiltarized gauntlet. Though that particular standoff ended violently, I was all too mindful that, in a sense, there is a reenactment of Bloody Sunday every week in villages throughout the West Bank.

PS: Upon our return, we learned to our dismay that the village of Bil’in was tear-gassed during their demonstration that day.  We were told that several canisters actually landed near Iyad’s house and at one point most of the village was shrouded in choking white smoke.

This is life on the front lines of the Palestinian popular resistance – just a small sample of the regular crimes committed against a people who are literally choking on an unjust and illegal occupation.

Just finished my first full day with our delegation to Bil’in – I think I speak for all our participants when I say we are honored and thrilled to be here.

As I mentioned in my previous post, our group is made up of Chicago-area Jews and Palestinians, with one participant from Los Angeles. We are longtime friends and fellow activists for a just peace in Palestine and we organized this trip to show solidarity with the Palestinian nonviolence resistance movement on the West Bank.  While individual members of the delegation have different personal opinions on the politics of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and might differ on how a solution should politically be achieved, we are united in the conviction that full equality and civil rights should be enjoyed by all the people – Jews and Palestinians alike.

With Iyad Burnat

Our “home base” for the trip is Bil’in; our host is Iyad Burnat, a prominent leader in this movement. Iyad serves as the head of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall, which has led weekly demonstrations against Israel’s separation barrier for the past nine years and has been one of the leading communities in the Palestinian popular resistance. I’ve written a great deal about Bil’in over the years and I’ve closely followed the news out of this small but mighty West Bank village. And like many, I was transfixed by the Oscar nominated documentary, “5 Broken Cameras,” directed by Iyad’s brother Emad, which movingly documented Bil’in’s ongoing struggle.

Our hosts here have been gracious and wonderful – Iyad (in the orange shirt, top pic) and his wife Tasaheel (in the blue hijab)  and his cousin Mustafa and his wife Sabrin have joyfully welcomed us into their homes and their families. This is clearly much more than a chance to learn about a movement – it is an opportunity to share in a way of life, to forge new relationships, to make dear new friends.

In our introductory tour, Iyad explained that Bil’in was one of the early West Bank villages to organize regular nonviolent demonstrations against the wall that was cutting the village off from a significant portion of agricultural land in order to create a buffer around the nearby settlement of Mod’in Ilit. Bil’in’s efforts have borne fruit – in September 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the wall should be moved back 500 meters. The ruling was finally carried out by the military on June 2011, which restored 1,100 dunams of farmland back to the village (almost half of their of their originally confiscated land.)

And yet the struggle continues: the wall continues to choke off the people of Bil’in from their livelihood and the occupation continues to take a major toll on the life of the village. Our group will be participating the demonstration at the wall at Bil’in’s weekly demonstration this Friday – at which time similar demonstrations will take place in villages across the West Bank. This act of solidarity will be, without question, the most important aspect of our itinerary.

One of the newest additions to the village is a new garden dedicated to the memory of Bassem (“Pheel”) Abu Rachme, a much beloved and very charismatic leader in Bil’in who was killed in 2009 when a tear gas canister struck him in the torso. His killing was captured on camera in “5 Broken Cameras” in one particularly heart-rending moment.

Last month, the IDF officially announced it was closing the investigation into his death. According to a report in +972:

The military prosecution claims it was unable to determine the identity of the Israeli soldiers and border policemen involved or whether open-fire regulations were breached. This, despite the fact that as B’Tselem and Yesh Din pointed out in a joint press release condemning the decision, three video segments filmed during the demonstration show that Abu Rahmeh was situated to the east of the barrier, did not act violently and did not endanger the soldiers in any way…

Late last year, a soldier who served in the same unit that killed Abu Rahme gave testimony about the incident to Breaking the Silence. “…(T)his one time, one of the soldiers simply aimed at someone directly, and [the tear gas canister] hit his chest and he got killed. .. The guy who shot him … was kind of pleased with the whole thing, he had an X on his launcher,” the former soldier continued. An X on a weapon indicates a “kill.”

Bassem’s memorial garden (above) lies in the land that was recently reclaimed from the relocation of the wall. The myriad of small black planters are made of tear gas canisters. Please read the long tribute from the plaque at the garden, below, to get a sense of this man who will always occupy a dear place in the hearts of the villagers of Bil’in.

In my next post I’ll write about our memorable visit to Nabi Saleh, another prominent village involved in the Palestinian nonviolent resistance. Back soon.