Iyad Burnat's presentation to Third Annual Conference in Bil’in
11/06/2008
Bilin's History
Bilin is a Palestinian village which its history belong to the Roman Era. It was named Bilin because the Roman Empire came to the village and settled there and found no water springs. So they named it Bila Aien, which means without water. Later it began to be called by its present name Bilin.
Before the occupation of Palestine in 1948 Bilin was one of the villages that belonged to Lod district and then to the Ramla district, it was the farthest east village of the Ramla district at that time. After the war Bilin became one of the villages furthest west of Ramallah, almost 17 km from its center. It has a population of about 1,700 and has a mixed secondary school for both girls and boys. It has two mosques and a youth club.
The Apartheid Wall
The length of the wall is 770 km and it will isolate 29 Palestinian villages behind it. The area of these villages is 216,567 dunums and it will destroy the lands of 138 villages in an area of 554,370 dunams. This is approximately %12.6 of the total 1967 green line and will divide the West Bank into separate ghettos.
The Struggle of Bilin
The village land was exposed to many Israeli land confiscation orders:
- In 1978, about 500 dunams were confiscated to build the Matityahu settlement.
- In 1991 another part of the village was confiscated to build Kiriet Seifer Settlement. From the beginning of 2004 the occupation forces are confiscating more and more land building the new Easter Matityahu Settlement.
- Later we discovered that two new settlements are being planned to be built on Bilin’s land. These will belong to Modain Elit which was planned to bone of the biggest settlements in Israeli.
In April 2004 the Bilin Village counsel was informed by the civil administration that the wall will pass through the western part of the village. This wall will confiscate 2200 dunams of the village’s land, bringing the total land confiscated to build the illegal wall and settlements up to 4,000 dunams or %58 of total Bilin land.
At this point the village of Bilin brought a lawsuit against the illegal apartheid wall and settlements. They also formed a popular committee with the help of the National Committee to resist the wall. The Bilin Popular tends to represent all national parties, Islamic parties, independent villagers, as well as the village council and club. They all hold the responsibility of planning and coordinating all activities to face the wall and land confiscation.
In November 2004 the Israeli bulldozers started to destroy our farming land to build settlements, but the people of Bilin were able to rally and prevented them from completing their work. The committee organized the first peaceful march in 02/20/2005 with the participation of Internationals, Israeli Activists, legislative council member and the Bilin people.
In 02/20/2005 after some arrangements the committee announced a comprehensive strike and called on all the people of Bilin to be present on the confiscated and stolen land. They also announced a plan to begin to coordinate all future activities in a peaceful manner to get recoup the stolen land.
Direct Actions and Demonstrations
The Bilin Popular committee depends on a grassroots struggle that uses creative ideas to confront the Israeli Occupation Forces. All these ideas for resistance are drawn from the Palestinian Narrative. Examples:
- Villagers and Internationals chained themselves to the olive trees scheduled for uprooting.
- Villagers and Internationals locked them selves in a mock prison as a symbol of the occupation.
- Creation of a cardboard snake that represents Israeli expansion that eats up everything in its way.
- Finally a cylinder of national unity in the memory of Al-Nakba.
In all these actions the Israeli army was surprised. It took the soldiers a long time to succeed in stopping us on our path to the wall. Each time we protested we were able to delay the work for long periods of time.
The Outposts
On December 23rd of 2005 the Bilin Popular Committee decided to bring a caravan on the confiscated land to show the hypocrisy of allowing Israeli companies to build settlements on Bilin’s land. The villagers were able to bring the caravan behind the wall but no later than that it was removed by the Israeli police and army. Another caravan was replaced but was also taken. On December 25th demonstrators succeeded in building a small room, called the outpost. The Israeli government didn’t grant the permit for the outpost to be built by Bilin Villagers on Bilin Village land as they had for the illegal Israeli settlements. The outpost is still there though and there are Palestinians who are there all the time and use it as a monitoring point to stop Israeli attacks and expansion of the settlements on Bilin’s land.
Legal Action
Since the beginning of the Bilin resistance the Villagers have also relied on legal proceedings to challenge the wall and settlements. On December 4th 2007 Bilin achieved a decision from the Israeli Supreme Court, which is to move back the path of the wall. Until this moment the Israeli army has refused to comply with its own courts decision. It has stayed on the land as pen does on paper, as one villager described it. Instead the village has been faced with more expansion of the settlements on the land of Bilin and more confiscated land for the illegal settlement of Mitatyaho Mizrah.
In these different ways Bilin has been able to reach the heart of the world, through its popular struggle and its resistance to the Israeli apartheid wall.
