[Peace-discuss] Sarah Lazare reports from weekly protests in the West Bank at Common Dreams

[Robert Naiman]

[There is embedded video at the link, not included below.]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/04/07-0

Published on Sunday, April 7, 2013 by Common Dreams
Mobilization in Al Ma’sarah: “We Will Keep Coming Back”
by Sarah Lazare

“You must refuse to be in the army. Look into my eyes, we are all human,”
declared Mahmoud Zwahre, popular committee leader in the West Bank
Bethlehem district village of Al Ma’sarah, addressing dozens of M4 toting
Israeli soldiers. “We are here to condemn what the Israeli government does
against the Palestinian people. You must let us through.”

He was standing at the 3152 road that winds from his small village to the
towering Efrat settlement, joined by 40 Al Ma’sarah villagers, Israeli, and
international activists. The group had attempted to march to the settlement
to protest the expropriation of Al Ma’sarah’s agricultural lands and
flooding of their fields from settlement water drainage, but they were
blocked by lines of soldiers wielding shields and weapons in front of
parked IDF personnel carriers.

This march fell on Palestinian Children’s Day, an especially pertinent
commemoration just two weeks after more than two dozen children between
ages 7 and 15 were mass arrested by Israeli soldiers while they were en
route to school in the West Bank town of Hebron/Al Khalil, an incident
captured on video.

A handful of children from Al Ma’sarah peppered the demonstration as IDF
snipers surveyed the crowd from a villager’s rooftop.

The Efrat settlement, built in 1983 on Palestinian agricultural lands, has
swelled to a population of over 8,500. Efrat has been declared illegal
under international law, like all Israeli settlements built on the
Palestinian side of the Green Line, yet in 2011 the Israeli government
granted this settlement permission for further expansion.

This is one of over 120 settlements officially recognized by the Israeli
government, outposts of occupation that slice through the West Bank,
isolating villages and farmlands, constricting movement, and aiding Israeli
surveillance of Palestinians. When East Jerusalem is included, the Israeli
settlers number over 650,000, according to the Israeli interior ministry.

Al Ma’sarah villagers have staged weekly protests since 2006 against this
settlement, part of protests coordinated by Palestinian popular committees
throughout the West Bank—mobilizations that have been growing since 2005.
The Israeli Army sends soldiers into Al Ma’sarah to “protect” the
settlements, as during this nonviolent demonstration.

At this children’s day mobilization, protesters chanted 'Occupation No
More' and 'Refuse' standing face-to-face with soldiers, at a mobilization
known for the close proximity that protesters have to Israeli Army forces
sent to block their movement.

When protesters attempted to nonviolently walk through the line of
soldiers, Palestinians in the crowd were shoved by large riot shields,
although some Israelis were allowed to pass. “They are blocking us 12
kilometers from the Green Line,” shouted Al Ma’sarah villager Hasan
Briatya. “They will not let us go to the settlement because we are not
Jewish. If we want to build there, we cannot, because we are Palestinian.
We are different humans from their point of view. This is discrimination.”

Villagers raised their hands, in a show of nonviolence, and called for the
crowd to sit on the ground in front of the soldiers.

“I come from South Africa,” said activist Colin Curkey addressing the
sitting protesters. “I see injustices that were in South Africa, and my
heart cries for the injustice.”

“It is an honor to stand with this struggle,” said Aaron Hughes, member of
U.S.-based Iraq Veterans Against the War, who participated in the march. “I
see a direct relationship between these people living in occupation and the
absurdity of the occupation I participated in. This left me sad because I
could not communicate that to the Israeli soldiers.”

During his recent visit to Israel, President Obama reaffirmed the U.S.
friendship with Israel, with the largest overall recipient of U.S. aid
since World War II according to congressional research service, with
military financing hovering at $3 billion a year. Palestinians protested
his visit by setting up tent encampments near Jerusalem.

“The purpose of the Al Ma’sarah mobilization is to exist,” says Sahar
Vardi, Israeli anti-occupation activist and 2008 conscientious objector who
went to prison for resisting the Army draft. “The show of resistance is
important.”

As the Al Ma’sarah protest neared its end, the crowd held a moment of
silence for all of the Palestinian children who have fallen at Israeli
hands.

 “You see the violence. You see this injustice,” said one villager
gesturing towards the soldiers, his voice hoarse from chanting. “We don’t
have anything. This is for the children who have been killed.”

“We will keep coming back.”

Sarah Lazare is an independent journalist and co-editor of the book About
Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. She is an organizer in the U.S.
anti-war veteran and GI resistance movement, as a member of the
Civilian-Soldier Alliance and an ally to Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Sarah is interested in connecting local struggles for racial, social, and
economic justice with international movements for justice and liberation.

-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
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