Last Friday in Bil'in

[loic]

Fridays are demo day in Palestine. It's the weekend but not yet shabbat so religious Jewish Israelis can participate in solidarity. Right now there are about ten non-violent demonstrations each Friday. Activists travel from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem coordinate cars to drive to and between demonstrations

Comments

[prajmetal]

Intense shit.

In lighter news, that FOOD looks AWESOME.

[loic]

The food was fucking amazing.

[tylercox]

You guys are either braver than I am, or crazy.

[dearanxiety]

it's not so scary, really. we are always with emily who is so familiar with the villages and the rituals and the people that we know she will keep us safe. there are several places we never go (ni'ilin and sheih jarash for example) because safety and un-arrestedness is not guaranteeable there. you can see from the photos (here and the ones i posted from last week) how far away from the action we remain. the brave people - like noam - go right up and yell at soldiers and grab people away who are being arrested!

which reminds me, i have a video to post on my page...

[loic]

It's way way safer than East Oakland, East Palo Alto or Hunters Point. Not that I go those places if I can avoid it. It'd say a Bil'in demo has Mission-levels of risk of injury. If you don't want to put yourself in harms way then it's easy to avoid it.

[piajurin]

So is it Tel Aviv Israel or Tel Aviv Occupied Palestine?

[dearanxiety]

tel aviv is in israel, not in the occupied territories... jerusalem is half and half (east jerusalem is palestine).

[loic]

Under UN Security Council Resolution 242 the land occupied in the 1967 war is not recognized as part of the state of Israel. Israel does not grant its residents the right to citizenship, however it still maintains complete or partial authority over 97.3% of occupied Palestine. It annexes land from Palestinian individuals and communities to build cities for Israeli citizens who live under Israeli law with Israeli rights and are provided with Israeli services, all of which are denied their neighbors. Israel is building a "separation barrier" (aka "security barrier" or "apartheid wall") to separate the occupied West Bank from Israel, but instead of following the internationally recognized borders of Israel it juts into the West Bank significantly. Take a look at the map.

All of this is clearly illegal under international law, clearly immoral and clearly counter to a lasting peace that doesn't rely on the extermination of the Palestinian people.

[piajurin]

Literally just got this on twitter:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1263147942240