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Boston support group for the International Solidarity Movement

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10-15-04 "I should struggle against the wall" by Moha in Budrus, West Bank

10/3/04 Second report by Moha Hares, Salfit region

9/30/04 First report by Moha East Jerusalem, Old City

10-15-04 "I should struggle against the wall"
Resistance to the Apartheid Barrier in Budrus

by Moha in Budrus, West Bank

In the village of Budrus, a small community near the Green Line,
northwest of Jerusalem, Palestinians organized a demonstration on
Friday, the first day of Ramadan, against the apartheid barrier that
threatens to unjustly annex to Israel much of their land.

This demonstration is part of an ongoing campaign against the barrier
and for justice that began in Budrus in December 2003 when Israel
started breaking ground for the barrier. Budrus is one of the many
places where Palestinians are organizing nonviolent popular resistance
to the injustices of the occupation and annexation of their land.

Palestinians in this community have already achieved some success.
Because of dozens of demonstrations and actions against the apartheid
barrier since Israel began clearing the ground in December 2003, Israel
has been forced to change the path of the barrier, making it go closer
to the Green Line. It still threatens to take much of the village's
land and trees.

A local village leader told me of the resistance efforts of Budrus,
beginning with the second intifada. He said, "All the people felt they
needed to be in union. All the people in all the political parties
became one."

I arrived and met with internationals from Germany, Japan, the UK, the
US, Israel, New Zealand and Sweden and discussed what we were going to
do and how we could support the Palestinians. Since there was no
construction going on that day, the action was going to be a march, and
we joined this Palestinian-led initiative.

We congregated at the mosque in town, and left after the midday
prayers. There were about 25-30 internationals and about 150-200
Palestinian men (no Palestinian women joined us). Spirited slogans of
resistance blared from the megaphone as we marched down from the village
to the land, through craggy rocks, cactus, and fields.

We arrived at the site of the wall, and saw where bulldozers had ripped
up the ground, a giant gash in the land. As children climbed to the top
of a hill, there was a sound bomb fired and people said there was a tear
gas canister fired, but it was so open that it didn't do much. When I
reached the top of the hill, the soldiers had left.

We proceeded to march over hills and back to the village, seeing much of
the path that bulldozers had cleared to build the wall. There were
uprooted trees and huge boulders that had been pulled from the ground,
all against the wishes of the community.

It was a relief that no one had been hurt or arrested, because there was
some apprehension based on previous experiences of the violence of the
Israeli military against demonstrators.

A young Palestinian man named Mahmoud told me about organizing and
resistance in what was dubbed the third intifada, the intifada against
the wall. He too spoke of the unity of the village and how active
everyone was. He said, "Every person felt responsible, and thought, 'I
should struggle against the wall.'"

The struggle continues, and its success depends on all of us.

Peace,
Moha

Oct 9th, 2004

BACKGROUND AND UPDATE (REPORTS BELOW)

We've heard from one of the newly arrived Olive Harvest delegates that
something unusual happened today. What we understand so far is that as
Palestinians (and Bostonians) picked olives, settlers appeared and
rather than attacking, offered them water, and said it is fine to pick
on "their" land.

Often times settlers shout at, threaten, beat and even shoot Palestinian
farmers trying to reach Palestinian owned land desired by the settlers.
If settlers are successful in keeping Palestinians away, the Israeli
government will declare the land "unused" and make it available for
settlement expansion. Thus the Olive Harvest campaign is rightly
referred to as a campaign of nonviolent resistance to occupation and
colonization. We don't have more details yet but hopefully a report on
this pleasantly surprising "incident" will be forthcoming. You will
recall that this happens during an upsurge in settler violence,
including last week's attack near Hebron that left two internationals
hospitalized, and the random daylight killing of a Palestinian taxi
driver... so a report like this is quite a relief!

Please see these two brief reports below by "Moha," of Brookline, MA, as
the group visited Jerusalem and Ramallah and prepared to harvest today.

In solidardity,
B2P

Hares, Salfit region
October 3, 2004

Today we arrived at the International Women's Peace Service house in
Hares, in the Salfit region.

The past couple days we were in Ramallah for training in consensus
decision-making, nonviolence, and media work.

Saturday night we went to Ramallah center, where almost everything was
shut down as a result of the general strike in solidarity with the Gaza
Strip. The Israeli military had killed around 50 Palestinians (now the
death toll is around 70) in Gaza, in response to the Palestinians
killing at least two Israeli settlers. There was a demonstration in the
center of town - Palestinian flags waving, vigorous chanting. In
another part of town, as we walked down a street that was very empty
with many closed doors, our friend Mohammed said it was usually so
packed with people that you could barely move.

I began to think - why couldn't we do this US, and act in solidarity
with people all over the world? A general strike until the end of the
criminal occupation of Iraq? A general strike until there is debt
relief and AIDS drugs in Africa? A general strike until there is total
global justice and freedom?

As we are riding the bus to Hares, we pass a number of Israeli colonies,
the largest and oldest one being Ariel. Again, it's clear how these
settlements dominate the hilltops and continue a relentless process of
construction and expansion.

We learn of an old woman, in her seventies, who has just died from being
shot in her home in Hares by the Israeli army two months ago. Her body
was returned to the village today from the hospital. Women from our
delegation have gone to pay their respects.

Soon we will begin harvesting olives with Palestinian farmers. The
recent settler violence in the West Bank is of serious concern. We will
certainly be careful.

Thank you all for your support.

Peace,
Moha

First report by Moha
East Jerusalem, Old City
September 30, 2004

These are some reflections I have had so far, but they're not
necessarily directly connected.

In Logan Airport in Boston, I am walking to my gate and I pass a group
of people waiting to board a flight for San Salvador. I begin to think
about US and Israeli support for the military and death squads of El
Salvador and the torture, terror and murder that resulted. I also think
about the parallels to US support for Israeli oppression of the
Palestinians. Both the Salvadorans and Palestinians have suffered
greatly as a result of US support for the brutal repression against them
and their aspirations for freedom and self-determination. The negative
connections make me sad - my family's funding of violence against
Salvadoran and Palestinian families. I hope to make positive
connections, more human connections.

One of the first things I notice on the taxi ride from the airport to
Jerusalem is the Israeli hilltop developments. These may be considered
to be in Israel "proper," but they remind me of photographs I have seen
of illegal colonial settlements in the West Bank. These settlements I
see are new, neat, and systematic. They remind me of the book I was
reading before I left, called A Civilian Occupation: the Politics of
Israeli Architecture. This book was the catalogue of an exhibition
commissioned by the Israeli Association of United Architects on the role
of architecture in the Middle East conflict, but the exhibition was
banned in Israel and the catalogues were destroyed when the IAUA saw the
contents. The reason is clear: the book shows the way architecture and
planning are used to pursue colonization, and expansion and domination.

In the streets of Jerusalem, it is clear who the dominator is. You
often see Israeli soldiers with automatic rifles in the Palestinian
section of the city, but you never see Palestinians with automatic
rifles in the Israeli section of the city. There is a tension
everywhere. We walk by some places in West Jerusalem that have been
bombed. The Sbarro pizza parlor has two security guards. The oppressed
fight back (they have the right to armed resistance, but not to attack
civilians), and their violence is sometimes as ugly as the violence they
suffer, though it is nowhere near the scope or magnitude.

But life goes on. This city, this land, has been here for thousands of
years, and it will endure. And the people who have been in this land
for thousands of years will endure. As a man who runs a bookstore in
East Jerusalem tells me "the Palestinian people have always been here."
It is beautiful to see the vibrancy of Palestinian life in Jerusalem
despite the system of oppression and apartheid.

Peace,
Moha