On Friday, September 7th, the villagers of Bil’in were joined by international and Israeli comrades. Normally they come together every Friday to express their outrage of the unacceptable Apartheid Wall. Normally the day is filled with military violence, tear gas, sound bombs, and billy clubs are common. Once the military begins to fire gas into the crowds, the non-violent protesters tend to back off eventually leaving only the Palestinian children throwing rocks in anger. A mild response in comparison to the rubber coated steel bullets used against them….
Note in the video that Ben Wedeman just can’t help himself, he never fails to present the narrative that Palestinians attack and the Israeli army responds.
In a report airing this morning on CNN, reporter Cal Perry produced a story on the weekly demonstrations in the Palestinian village of Bilin. The demonstrations include large numbers of villagers from Bilin and internationals (including Israelis), who make a statement against Israel’s so called “security fence” which Israel is building on Palestinian land.
He never mentions that the wall/fence
–steals enormous swaths of Palestinian land,
–separates Palestinians from each other
–the wall/fence has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
The segment was introduced as a piece on “violent vacations”, referring of course to the internationals, especially US residents who travel to the West Bank to support Palestinians in their normally peaceful protests against a policy of ethnic cleansing by the state of Israel. The usual motivating factor as stated by one of the protestors is the fact that Israel is the highest recipient of US foreign aid in the world.
The same demonstration was filmed by the protestors. It shows clearly that there were a large number of Palestinians present which contradicts the impression given by CNN that the protest was organized by internationals looking for a thrill.
It also shows clearly that much of the Israeli fire was unprovoked, contadicting the assertion that the fire was in response to stone throwing. At one point the tear gas lands right in front of the camera.
CNN for its part focused on the internationals and the stone throwers. It has been proven on many occasions that stone throwing is discouraged by the Palestinians and by the internationals. In fact it has also been established that the Israeli army sends in undercover Israeli soldiers or agents of the prison service to provoke Palestinian children to throw stones.
Several masked mistaravim (a Hebrew term meaning ‘those who pretend to be Arabs’), undercover agents belonging to the Israeli Prison Service started to behave aggressively and threw stones at the soldiers. When the Palestinian villagers called on them to stop using violence and to leave the demonstration, they revealed their identity, pulled out their weapons, and arrested two Palestinian and four Israeli demonstrators.
CNN also states that each stone is responded to with a shot of tear gas. In fact the tear gas and the rubber bullets are fired whether stones are thrown or not. As you can see from this video, the Israeli army does not need to be provoked.
Finally, without the presence of internationals, it is highly likely that the bullets used by the army would not be rubber. In fact Israeli novelist Yitzhak Laor, writing in “Counterpunch†the amount of force used by the Israeli army at the beginning of the intifada before any Palestinian picked up a gun.
A month after the Intifada began, four years ago, Major General Amos Malka, by then No. 3 in the military hierarchy, and until 2001 the head of Israeli military Intelligence (MI), asked one of his officers (Major Kuperwasser) how many 5.56 bullets the Central Command had fired during that month (that is, only in the West Bank). Three years later Malka talked about these horrific figures. This is what he said to Ha’aretz’s diplomatic commentator, Akiva Eldar about the first month of the Intifada, 30 days of unrest, no terrorist attacks yet, no Palestinian shooting:
Kuperwasser got back to me with the number, 850,000 bullets. My figure was 1.3 million bullets in the West Bank and Gaza. This is a strategic figure that says that our soldiers are shooting and shooting and shooting. I asked: “Is this what you intended in your preparations?” and he replied in the negative. I said: “Then the significance is that we are determining the height of the flames.” (HaAretz, 11.6.2004).
It was a bullet for every Palestinian child, said one of the officers in that meeting, or at least this is what the Israeli daily Maariv revealed two years ago, when the horrible figures were first leaked.
Approximately 300 Palestinians were killed during those non violent demonstrations. The international community did nothing.
The primary coverage of this story in the US, came only from Democracy Now
Why isn’t this news??
Robert Naiman addresses the issue on the Huffington Post
…There’s nothing on the web sites of the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Los Angeles Times, not even a wire story.
Those who blame the Palestinian people for their fate, attributing it to Palestinian violence, and faulting the Palestinians for not emulating Gandhi, King, or Mandela (whose role in the “armed struggle” is always conveniently elided for the purpose of this comparison) should periodically ask themselves, when Palestinians do engage in nonviolent protest, and are subjected to brutal repression as a result, how come the mainstream U.S. media don’t pay any attention?
Maguire:
“I was invited with my friend to attend a nonviolent conference in Bilin, a village outside Ramallah [in the West Bank], and to give a talk there, which I did. At the end of the conference, we were invited to participate in a nonviolent demonstration with some of the Palestinian members of parliament and Israeli peace activists and local villagers and international visitors.”
“We walked along to try to walk up toward the separation wall, and it was a totally nonviolent protest. And we were viciously attacked by the Israeli military. They threw gas canisters into the peace walkers, and they also fired rubber-covered steel bullets.
“As I tried to move back and help a French lady, I was shot in the leg with a rubber-covered steel bullet, and the young Israeli soldier who shot me was only 20 meters from me. I was stunned by it, and then later on, after having some treatment by the ambulance medics, I went back down to the front line with the peace activists, and we were again showered with gas. I was overcome and had a severe nosebleed and had to be taken by stretcher to the ambulance and treated.”
“And I witnessed there … an old Palestinian man with blood on his face. These were over 25 unarmed peace people who had been viciously attacked by the Israeli military. And it was a completely peaceful protest. It was absolutely unbelievable. I never in all my years of activism witnessed anything so vicious as from the Israeli military.”
Ana Nogueira is an independent documentary filmmaker who has footage of Maguire being shot. www.imemc.org — the web page of the International Middle East Media Center.
Other Coverage in the United States:
Common Dreams Israeli Military Shoots Nobel Peace Laureate
