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Civil Disobedience and the Will to Resist
août 5, 2008
Source : Middle East Times
By Mel Frykberg
BIL’IN, West Bank — The Israeli High Court of Justice has recently given the state just 45 days to submit a new route for part of the separation wall that cuts through the Palestinian village of Bil’in, near Ramallah in the central West Bank. Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch and Justices Eliezer Rivlin and Ayala Procaccia also laid into the state’s representative for ignoring a previous court ruling on the issue just over a year ago after the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements took the state to court.
An angry Beinisch told the state’s representative Avi Licht: "We rule that this route cannot remain as is, and we determine what will and will not be in the new route."
The Palestinian villagers had originally petitioned the court in 2005, through their Israeli lawyer, Michael Sfard, to reroute the wall after arguing that approximately 500 acres of village land had been expropriated from the village for the wall’s construction and for the enlargement of Israeli settlements.
The villagers only have limited access to this land through a gate in the fence which the Israeli army opens and closes on an irregular basis.
Prior to the villagers’ petition, the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 2004 stated that construction of the barrier across the 1967 boundary, in West Bank territory, violated international law.
Israel rejected the Hague ruling, but in September last year the High Court of Justice ruled that the route in the Bil’in area was illegal, and ordered the state to devise, within a reasonable time, an alternative route that would be less detrimental. The court also instructed the state to plan the route so that it runs through state land, not privately owned Palestinian property.
However, the villagers again petitioned the court two months ago, saying that the state has still not presented an alternative, and that work is being done on the ground that jeopardizes implementation of the order.
Israel started building the separation wall or barrier to separate Israel proper from the West Bank after a wave of suicide bombings, with many of the bombers coming from the Palestinian territory, killed hundreds and injured thousands of Israelis following the beginning of the second Intifada or Palestinian uprising which began in late 2000.
However, human rights organizations argue that Israel is pursuing a land-grab and a policy of collective punishment in the name of security.
The barrier significantly deviates from the internationally recognized Green Line, the demarcation route following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, cutting into Palestinian territory as Israel tries to incorporate illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank into Israel.
This has caused untold hardship for Palestinians, especially farmers, with many being cut off from their agricultural fields, while other villagers have been separated from their families and social services.
There are also Palestinian communities who are trapped in pockets between the Green Line and the separation barrier. Only a minority with special security clearance can cross the Green Line into Israel and in order to pass through the separation barrier to access the rest of the West Bank, special permits are required too.
The success of Bil’in villagers in petitioning the high court was also partially due to intense media coverage and international scrutiny following weekly demonstrations by the villagers, Israeli sympathizers and international activists, many of whom were wounded during the protests.
Several months ago, the visiting vice president of the European parliament, a Northern Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a senior Italian judge were all injured while taking part in a demonstration against the wall
The chairman of Bil’in’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, Abdallah Abu Rahma, told The Middle East Times that his committee’s campaign of non-violent civil disobedience "has been largely successful due to the support of both Israelis and internationals."
While attorney Sfard was pleased about the court’s recent decision again backing the rights of Bil’in villagers, he expressed reservations about the final outcome saying that despite the high court rejecting four of the state’s routes to date, the Israeli government had still not complied with a single verdict.
In the interim as the villagers await the final routing of the fence through their village, Bil’in village committee has filed two lawsuits against two Canadian construction companies who are building condominiums in the village for Israeli settlers.
The Fourth Geneva Convention specifically forbids the transfer of a civilian population onto occupied territory.
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem District Court is battling the Jerusalem municipality which is refusing to seal and evacuate a building occupied illegally by Israeli settlers in the Silwan district of East Jerusalem.
The court first ordered the Israeli settlers to vacate the building 18 months ago. Since then the issue has been debated eight times, including twice in the supreme court. The latest ruling in the case was handed down last week by the Jerusalem District Court, which rejected an appeal by the settlers living in the building and denied a request to delay its evacuation.
Palestinians and human rights organizations accuse some Israeli groups, and the Jerusalem municipality, of carrying out a policy to establish facts on the ground by Judaizing East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of a future Palestinian state, in a bid to ensure a higher Jewish demography.
Under International law, East Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinians.
