Celebration replaces weekly protest in Bil'in 

Sunday September 09, 2007 03:28 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC saed at imemc dot org

After an Israeli court decision earlier this week ruled to change the course of the Wall around Bil'in village, the weekly Friday protest in Bil'in was replaced by a celebration of the court decision.

Every Friday for the last three years, the villagers of Bil'in have gathered at the site of the Wall construction through the middle of their village. But this Friday, instead of a protest at the Wall site, there was a celebration.

Israeli forces were still present, with guns ready to fire and cameras filming the participants. But there was no tear gas fired, no rubber bullets or live ammunition, and no invasion of the village afterwards, as there usually is in Bil'in each Friday.

Instead, Israelis and internationals joined the Palestinian villagers in Bil'in to celebrate what they consider a major victory of the non-violent resistance in Palestine. The court case, one of only four such cases to even be considered by the Israeli court system (out of more than 120 petitions), challenged the planned route of the Wall through the middle of the village.

With the Court's decision, the village will still lose a lot of its land to the Israeli Annexation Wall. But the amount of land lost is far less than it would have been had the case been lost.

Those who gathered in Bil'in on Friday afternoon were thankful for this rare victory, and credit the combined effort of non-violent resistance and legal petitions with bringing this victory to the village.

According to an international activist present at the celebration, "Activists, demonstrators and participants gathered at the International House in Bilin where baklava, a traditional Palestinian sweet, was served to the guests passing through. At the entrance was an arrangement created out of tear gas canisters collected over the many demonstrations laid out to acknowledge the brutality that has been faced by the village and the demonstrators over the three years it has been going on."

The activist, a member of the International Solidarity Movement, added, "The villagers and their supporters marched towards the wall today, committed to non-violence, stopping people before the gate and telling them not to speak, provoke, or argue with the soldiers. This was not a day to run from tear gas, but to speak, listen, and dance freely."

The celebration lasted around two hours, with participants listening to speeches, and singing songs of victory. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was present, as well as other Palestinian officials.

BIL'IN! BIL'IN!: Beginning of the Fall of the Apartheid Wall By Uri Avnery

 

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Note to Readers:

The Israeli settlements as well as the Land-Grab, Apartheid Wall in the Palestinian occupied territories have been built illegally on confiscated Palestinian lands. These represent a major violation of international law, Geneva Conventions, and they obstruct reaching a peaceful resolution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Israeli occupation forces abduct and kidnap Palestinians from their homes and at checkpoints, on daily basis. Most media refer to these abductions and kidnappings as arrests, which is inaccurate and not true as the Israeli occupation government has no jurisdiction over Palestinian citizens inside their own territories.

Further, when Israeli occupation forces kill Palestinian civilians, particularly when the victims are women and children, this should be referred to as an act of terrorism, and perpetrators should be described as terrorists.

Since the end of the second intifadha in 2005, not a single Israeli civilian was killed by Palestinian resistance organizations. However, Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces, almost on daily basis.

Note to Journalists:

Any journalist who does not describe this as terrorism is biased, unfair, not objective, and a participant in terrorizing the Palestinian people, so the Israeli occupation of Palestine can continue endlessly.

Note to Translators:

The Arabic definite article, Al (or its variant, El) should be written with a hyphen separating it from the noun it is associated with, for example Al-Aqsa. If a hyphen is not used, as in Al Aqsa, it confuses non-Arabic readers. They may think that it is an abbreviation of the name Albert, as many Americans do.

The Arabic definite article Al (or El) should be written as such, whether it is Shamsiyah or Qamariyah in pronunciation, simply because we are dealing with the written form of the language, not the spoken one. Using the Shamsiyah so many forms in writing is inaccurate and confusing to non-Arabic readers, to say the least.

Only standard (fasih) pronunciation of Arabic names should be used. Non-standard ('ammi)  should be avoided avoided. Example: Names like Abu Sunainah, Abu Rudainah, and Abu Shebak are written by some translators in the non-standard forms of Abu Snainah, Abu Rdainah, and Abu Shbak.

The standard pronunciation of the vowel at the end of names is (a), not (e), particularly if it is followed by (h), like in the cases of Haniyah and Rudainah, not Haniyeh and Rudaineh.

The standard pronunciation of vowels in the following names is (ai), not (ei) as written by  some translators: Hussain, not Hussein and Hassanain, not Hassanein. This is the same long vowel pronounced in the English words "rain" and "brain."

 

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