Palestinian Flags on a Settler Road!
By Allison and Rann
June 4 2005
The village of Marda in the central West Bank district of Salfit lies at the bottom of a hill that is topped by the massive settlement of Ariel. Two days ago, 500 of the village’s trees were cut as a prelude to the building of the Annexation Wall on village land.
As a non-violent means of protesting the construction of the Annexation Barrier in the Sa`lfit region, a march was held this morning. The march began in Marda and ended in the nearby village of Kifl Hares. The two villagers are separated by a settler road which Palestinians require special permits to use. The march included Palestinians and Israeli and international activists in solidarity with their struggle. There were about 350 demonstrators in all.
We knew there would be trouble before the march began because soldiers had set up check points at both entrances to Marda and had declared these entrances closed military zones. Some demonstrators were forced to park their cars on the nearby road and walk to join the march. Unlike many previous occasions in which activists were prevented from reaching demonstrations, this time in an unusual move, the soldiers stopped people asked them if they were there for the demonstration, and if they said yes, they then allowed them to enter Marda.
At about 11:30AM we began marching down the road away from Marda but were soon stopped by the soldiers. I and many others attempted to push through the line of soldiers, but they used physical force to prevent us from proceeding as planned. At some points there was quite a bit of physical force being used by the soldiers and I was afraid they would start firing tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the demonstration as is the normal occurrence in demonstrations in the West Bank. One Israeli activist, Leiser, was beaten by Israeli soldiers as he was arrested and was hospitalized with a concussion.
After some negotiating we decided to alter our path a bit, traveling across the fields and across the settler road to dirt road that led to Kifl Hares. As we were crossing the settler road, around seventeen(!) army jeeps and hummers blocked the road, holding up settler traffic. The army pushed quite a few people around, including one elderly Israeli man who was pushed off the road and fell hard on his back. Soldiers seemed rather angry that we were waving Palestinian flags in the middle of ‘their’ road. One Palestinian man was violently ‘arrested’ only to be released a few minutes later. Eventually the march was allowed to proceed.
At one point the dirt road ran along the main road so that the march was visible to drivers passing by. We were greeted with taunts of ‘you should be ashamed’ from at least one settler and with victory signs from Palestinians. Not long afterward we successfully arrived in Kifl Hares, and there were several speeches made as well as singing and dancing. It was heartening to see such a successful march conclude with relatively little violence by the soldiers and also to see the raised spirits of all those who marched.
A few thoughts on the demonstration:
- Negotiating with the army very rarely produces any results. If this has been a Palestinian-only demonstration, or if only young Israelis and internationals had supported the Palestinian demonstrators, there would have probably been a lot more violence. The presence of older Israelis thus probably made a huge difference.
- This was a huge victory for Palestinian villagers. Marching across a settler road is an enormously powerful symbol of liberation and one that I hope to see repeated over and over again.
- The huge number of relatively calm forces used by the army (well over 100 soldiers) was interesting. The army could have used a much smaller number of soldiers and a lot more violence. They chose not to, and the demonstration felt more like a European or American one. While those types of marches are rather dull in Europe or the US, the novelty of such a demonstration here was rather uplifting.
Link to photos of road signs altered hours before the demonstration:
https://israel.indymedia.org/media/index.php
Article from Al-Jazeera online:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2A05C458-9839-471D-9224-330398169C00.htm
June 4 2005
The village of Marda in the central West Bank district of Salfit lies at the bottom of a hill that is topped by the massive settlement of Ariel. Two days ago, 500 of the village’s trees were cut as a prelude to the building of the Annexation Wall on village land.
As a non-violent means of protesting the construction of the Annexation Barrier in the Sa`lfit region, a march was held this morning. The march began in Marda and ended in the nearby village of Kifl Hares. The two villagers are separated by a settler road which Palestinians require special permits to use. The march included Palestinians and Israeli and international activists in solidarity with their struggle. There were about 350 demonstrators in all.
We knew there would be trouble before the march began because soldiers had set up check points at both entrances to Marda and had declared these entrances closed military zones. Some demonstrators were forced to park their cars on the nearby road and walk to join the march. Unlike many previous occasions in which activists were prevented from reaching demonstrations, this time in an unusual move, the soldiers stopped people asked them if they were there for the demonstration, and if they said yes, they then allowed them to enter Marda.
At about 11:30AM we began marching down the road away from Marda but were soon stopped by the soldiers. I and many others attempted to push through the line of soldiers, but they used physical force to prevent us from proceeding as planned. At some points there was quite a bit of physical force being used by the soldiers and I was afraid they would start firing tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the demonstration as is the normal occurrence in demonstrations in the West Bank. One Israeli activist, Leiser, was beaten by Israeli soldiers as he was arrested and was hospitalized with a concussion.
After some negotiating we decided to alter our path a bit, traveling across the fields and across the settler road to dirt road that led to Kifl Hares. As we were crossing the settler road, around seventeen(!) army jeeps and hummers blocked the road, holding up settler traffic. The army pushed quite a few people around, including one elderly Israeli man who was pushed off the road and fell hard on his back. Soldiers seemed rather angry that we were waving Palestinian flags in the middle of ‘their’ road. One Palestinian man was violently ‘arrested’ only to be released a few minutes later. Eventually the march was allowed to proceed.
At one point the dirt road ran along the main road so that the march was visible to drivers passing by. We were greeted with taunts of ‘you should be ashamed’ from at least one settler and with victory signs from Palestinians. Not long afterward we successfully arrived in Kifl Hares, and there were several speeches made as well as singing and dancing. It was heartening to see such a successful march conclude with relatively little violence by the soldiers and also to see the raised spirits of all those who marched.
A few thoughts on the demonstration:
- Negotiating with the army very rarely produces any results. If this has been a Palestinian-only demonstration, or if only young Israelis and internationals had supported the Palestinian demonstrators, there would have probably been a lot more violence. The presence of older Israelis thus probably made a huge difference.
- This was a huge victory for Palestinian villagers. Marching across a settler road is an enormously powerful symbol of liberation and one that I hope to see repeated over and over again.
- The huge number of relatively calm forces used by the army (well over 100 soldiers) was interesting. The army could have used a much smaller number of soldiers and a lot more violence. They chose not to, and the demonstration felt more like a European or American one. While those types of marches are rather dull in Europe or the US, the novelty of such a demonstration here was rather uplifting.
Link to photos of road signs altered hours before the demonstration:
https://israel.indymedia.org/media/index.php
Article from Al-Jazeera online:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2A05C458-9839-471D-9224-330398169C00.htm
posted by ISM-NC at 8:51 AM
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