Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTvzkhc6LW0

I'm the one in the red hat - I was completely unaware of the others being arrested until I saw Hassan get taken in after the tier gas - you can't really see when he pushed me down into the wall - the face banged against the bonnet was when he was rather homo-erotically bending me over the police bonnet, which only made things worse. Really annoyed that Bt'Selem didn't get his face!

Another activist here, Shai, who reminds me a lot of Adie, just a lot harder and quieter, made a really decent documentary about protest in Palestine called "Bil'in Habibti" - which I can get a copy of for anyone that fancies. How about I send it out to anyone that donates to the cause? email me blind+bandgers+bi+te(at)gm+ail.com (take out the plusses, can't be dealing with spam!)
http://www.awalls.org/donations

Al' Ma'asara is now falling apart, the border police have become a lot more aggressive, there are now many checkpoints to stop people from even getting there in the first place, people's records are filed, a particular captain has made this his little mission, and is personally breaking down doors and going on night raids with gangs of IDF kids at 3/4 in the morning, there were more injuries last week. All this against non-violent protesters asking for the International Court of Justice's decision that the wall was illegal allong it's current line and should be taken back to the green line or demolished altogether. Farmers asking for their land not to be taken, their olive trees not to be uprooted and planted in a settlement, giving the impression that the olive treee in the settlement has been there for hundreds and hundreds of years (olive trees are up to 2000 years old here, where the world had its first olive grove), for their water to start running continuously without the occupying forces switching it on and off at will, for the settler violence to stop, for their crops to be free from random poisoning with pesticide, for their children to stop turning to violence, being imprisoned for voicing a political opinion, for their confidence to come back, to free their minds and their hearts, to have some hope, to stop begin cut off from 3 sides, as the Israeli settler road already cuts off one side, to stop the disgusting profiteering from the Masters of War, to keep the right to protest, to assemble, freedom of movement, to feel safe from random visits by the IDF, so that they can sleep at night - and still the soldiers don't seem to get it "why wont these savages behave?" is the kind of mentality "why wont these rabble just die quietly and leave us in peace?" If you divide a population and keep them in a box while their populations expand, it isn't a good idea, if you steal their resources, it isn't a good idea, if you purposefully go about destroying what means most to them, it isn't going to bring you peace, if you control their economy, water supply, set up over 600 checkpoints, fence them in with a massive wall, infiltrate their refugee camps and blow up teenagers in their sleep, it isn't going to give Palestinians the opportunity to "pipe down" if you go on and on and on about your own security, upholding it in one of the most aggressive ways in the world but at the same time deny them the basics of self defence, it isn't going to win over terror. The terror attacks have dramatically stopped after the construction of the wall, but it wasn't that that stopped them, people realise they don't work now. That's the reason they gave up on non-violent resistance, because it didn't work. They organised general labour strikes, boycots, all of these things as far back as the ottoman empire, and frequently in the british empire, then they had to deal with Israel, the ALA forces let them down completely and the Arab world, especially the complicity or lack of regard shown by King Abdullah I of Jordan, a Saudi born puppet of the British Empire that had faught alongside T.E.Lawrence in the great arab revolt in WW1, as he struck a deal with Hagana and Ben Gurion that he would only defent the West Bank then he could have it, in a word. They protested in the refugee camps to be met with further violence by the Zionist militias, they have tried everything, they have taken their case to the ICJ and its rulings have been ignored, the Arab countries have encouraged and helped get through a plethora of General Assembly resolutions that are ignored and Israel has ignored over 69 UN Security Council resolutions since it's inception 61 years ago last week. If you cut off their right to peacefully protest, if you inflict on them further control and further oppression, then you will kill these people inside, and they will want to die. How does a Muslim man die that's been oppressed by Israel? Well it's Haram, it a "shame"/"sin" to kill yourself, so they will just let loose and go crazy, like the man a group of settlers led a pogrom against that came into a settlement wielding an axe and killed a 13 year old boy. The parents will then do a hell of a lot of settler activism, probably led the following pogrom that left 38 injured in the village by the 8th April, I'm sure the count is much higher now, there isn't much forgiveness from the occupying forces. The IDF granted a 24 hour curfew, rounded up the young men and put them in the school yard, three homes were taken over for military outposts, all roads leading in and out of the village were blocked to everyone except settlers for days, all this collective punishment for an individual crime that was perpetrated by a desperate and angry man. This is more than and "eye for an eye" - Israel has taken so many "eyes" that Palestine has become blind, it can't see its way out, it has tried everything and still things are getting worse. What can they do? That's my question, what can they do? What does Israel expect of them? Israel puts them in a cage, uses bribes and divide and rule to fracture palestinian society, kills all their decent leaders or imprisons them, uses a network of informers, makes Palestinians dependant on working for Israel, cuts down their trees kill their livestock, poisons their crops, constructs more check-points than chip shops in England, regularly abuses people at these checkpoints, sexual harrasment or indiscriminate detention - many of the check-points just go up for rush hour and then come down again straight afterwards, just to delay the movement of people, make people late for work etc. (well that's the effect anyway, if the intention genuinely is to stop terror, then they are genuinely foolish), tortures teenagers and young adults, denies the existance of certain gaols to the UN, makes it difficult for even the International Committee of the Red Cross to observe "interrogations" and fulfil their mandate to provide for some of the most basic needs of prisoners, continues to construct settlements at an ever increasing rate calling it "naturaly growth" even though many settlements are half empty, the list really goes on and on and on and on, and this is the West Bank. Gaza is another story altogether. They expect this to bring them security and peace? Come on, it's obvious that the leaders are fulfilling their Zionist agenda to expand Israel and push the Palestinians into transfering into Jordan. The policy that seems to underly everything here is the policy frequently espoused by politicians and military personel in memos "maximum land minimum population" - the policy of taking as much land as possible with as few Arabs as possible. This is really really obvious once you're here, when you see the way the wall snakes around Palestinian villages, the way it zig-zags right up against the houses on the outskirts of a town, leaving a vast expanse of land on the Israeli side. The zionists are winning, the settlers say that they have a 200 year time frame but people think they'll be done a lot sooner than that, annexing the whole of Palestine with as few arabs as possible. But nothing lasts forever, and the beacons of hope in Palestine are dazzling, even if they are few and far between. Optimism is a long way off but there are beacons of hope, working away at what they believe in.

Palestine will be free, but it will take a lot of time and effort on one side and big fat chill pill on the other.