In the verdict released today (Sept 4, 2007) in the petition of Ahmed Abdullah Yasin on behalf of the Bil'in village council against the separation barrier (HCJ 8414/05), by Chief Justice Dorit Beinish and her colleagues, Justice Ayala Procaccia and Justice Eliezer Rivlin, the High Court ruled against the current route of the barrier and ordered the State to prepare a proposal for an alternative route within a reasonable time, which will leave the agricultural lands of Bil'in on the "Palestinian" side of the barrier. This will mean approximately 250 acres of land being returned to the villagers of Bil'in.
The celebrations started with a party held during the late morning for international and local media. Activists from the village and the region involved with the struggle in Bil'in then continued the celebrations on the streets and in the village's municipality building. In the afternoon, the main contingent of Anarchists Against the Wall arrived from the nearby cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and the celebrations gained momentum.
The preparations which had been made in order to face up to the expected negative verdict of the court were easily adapted to deal with the unexpectedly positive verdict. The celebrations started with a party held during the late morning for international and local media. Activists from the village and the region involved with the struggle in Bil'in then continued the celebrations on the streets and in the village's municipality building. In the afternoon, the main contingent of Anarchists Against the Wall (AATW) arrived from the nearby Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and the celebrations gained momentum.
One member of the Bil'in popular committee, Abdallah Abu Rahma was overjoyed: "We have won an important battle, but we cannot forget that this is a long war and it is our future as Palestinians and not just as Bil'iners is at stake. In order to build the barrier, Israel confiscated 250 hectares of land from us and uprooted thousands of trees, but above all tried to shut us and all the other Palestinians up in bantustans. For this reason the struggle must not stop, but go on to become the struggle of the whole people".
AATW member Ilan Shalif describes the celebrations at the village: "With music and dancing, we converged first on the village centre, following which hundreds of Palestinian women, men, teenagers and kids together with Israelis of the AATW continued the procession along the road leading to the route of the separation fence. At the gate to the other side of the fence, instead of the belligerent soldiers and border guards who attack us during each Friday's demonstration, there were just a few soldiers guarding the gate. After a few sweet minutes of celebration there, we changed direction and danced and sang all the way back to the centre of the village".
Photos of the celebrations:After evening prayer, a few of the long-time activists travelled to the nearby city of Ramalla for another party. All the TV channels carried reports on the verdict and the celebration of the long struggle in their main evening news programmes.
http://bilin-village.org/english/Court-Victory-for-Bilin-in-picturesVideo of the celebrations in Bil'in:
http://corky.net/~eran/yossi/Bilin_celebration_040907.AVI
Not long ago, several new fronts of joint struggle carrying forward the Bil'in tradition were added to the sporadic activities in the villages of the West Bank suffering as a result of the separation fence and the occupation. One is the struggle in the Ma'asara region - the villages south of Bethlehem, including Umm Salamunah, Walaja, Artas, Beit Umar, Wadi an-Nis and Surif. The struggle there is against the separation fence with direct actions carried out in addition to the Friday demonstrations.
And recently another target has been added to the separation fence: roadblocks, such as building a symbolic roadblock at the entrance to the Karmei Tzur settlement, and time and again removing roadblocks (sometimes for a few hours or days) which obstruct villagers seeking to travel to nearby towns.
Nonetheless, the present ruling is indeed an achievement and will serve to reinforce the popular struggle against the wall. The joint Israeli-Palestinian struggle against the occupation will go on. Both Palestinians and Israelis will join hands and through their actions the apartheid will fail and the theft will fail.
[Article complied and edited by Anarkismo.net from articles by AATW members (I.S., N.S. and A.G.) and Il Manifesto]