Bil'in, a village of Palestine

Fifth Bil'in Conference: Setting the Stage

27/04/2010

[Michigan Peace Team] The Fifth Annual Bil’in Conference, April 21-23, opened with a welcome by Eyad Burnat (Bil’in popular committee) and Luisa Morgantini (recently retired member of the European Union (EU) Parliament). This conference is held in a small village of Bil’in in Palestine, but is organized with input from other Palestinian popular committees, Israelis peace activists and internationals; however, the main effort is from the popular committee of the Bil’in village. This is the village that gives hope to all of Palestine for their creativity in consistent resistance. (MPT has been present at three of the five conferences and seen it develop as a means to unify and inspire Palestinians, Israelis and internationals.)

What if Bil’in held a demo and the army didn’t show up?

26/04/2010

[The Only Democracy?] Some of us have become so used to West Bank demonstrations meaning major Israeli army presence, and, typically, the use of weapons, that we have forgotten what demonstrations in a democracy look like. We’ve forgotten that a protest against oppressive working conditions in downtown New York City, or against oppressive abortion policies in Fredericton, Canada, or against wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in cities including London, Sydney, Paris, San Francisco and Toronto — means police presence only when the protests become so large that they overcrowd public spaces and need direction, when they damage city property, or (get this) when the protesters themselves might be at risk from onlookers with opposing views.

And so we attend demonstration after demonstration — from Bil’in to Al-Ma’asara to Hebron to Nabi Salah, and more — and we are enraged time and time again by the unjustified, disproportionate, immoral response of the army and border police.

But we hardly ever ask ourselves: why are they even here?

The fifth Bil'in International Conference on the Popular Struggle: Closing Statement

24/04/2010

During this fifth annual conference, we felt the absence of our friends who are prevented by the occupations cells and bars from joining us, imprisoned for struggling Non-Violently for our freedom, activists and leaders of the popular committees Abdullah Abu Rahmah, Ibrahim A’amirah, Adeeb Abu Rahmah, Hassan Moussa, Zaydoun Surour, Ibrahim Burnat, Wael Faqi and all political prisoners.

Serious Head Injury in Bil’in Today

23/04/2010

Today Bil’in closed their 5th annual international conference with a mass demonstration against the apartheid wall.

The protest was joined by the former vice president of the European Parliament, Luisa Morgantini; Mustafa Al Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and former presidential candidate and Hisham Abu Raya, a member of the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The European Commissioner for peace in the Middle East, Mark Otti and an EU observer, Thierry Vallat attended the protest.

Report from Bil’in: ‘soldiers showed no discrimination with their firing, shooting directly at the faces of the protestors’

23/04/2010

Today’s demonstration marked the culminating event in the Fifth Bil’in International Conference for Palestinian Popular Resistance, which began on Wednesday, April 21 with a full line-up of speakers including politicians, leaders of Popular Committees, Israeli activists, and international solidarity activists. The conference continued through Thursday and Friday. After the final conference session on Friday morning, in which workshop groups reported on their conclusions in preparation for the conference statement, the conference participants gathered with scores of other Israeli, international, and Palestinians waiting at the mosque for the weekly demonstration.