Kobi and Rateb Talk about Bil’in
Kobi Snitz from Anarchists Against the Wall and Rateb Abu Rahma from the Bil’in village organizing committee have been speaking at colleges around the northeastern US for the past couple of weeks. They stayed at my place when they were in Boston, and I went with them to talks at Brandeis and Harvard. Their tour was hosted by FFIPP, Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, the group that organized the delegation I went to Israel and Palestine with almost three years ago.
As noted in my last posting, I don’t have time now to say much, but I wanted to link to Bil’in’s struggle against the Separation Wall, or fence in this case, a topic I’ve written about many times. Bil’in’s very useful website has lots of photos, video, news releases, and more. The village has been fighting the wall for years, and the weekly non-violent demonstrations have gone on for almost three years. Rateb and Kobi’s’ slideshow did a great job showing the varied creative efforts to dramatize the Wall’s impact on Palestinian life. These photos and more are on the Bil’in village website. I was glad to saw a few of my own photos there, like this one from January 2005 showing village committee members pointing out the barrier’s route just before construction started (I have many more on my photo site):
Although the tour’s primary focus wasn’t fund-raising, the Bil’in committee and Anarchists Against the Wall have huge legal bills. The village is in constant litigation against the fence in Israeli courts. Although they recently won a partial victory, there’s much more to go.
Anarchists Against the Wall has continuing legal expenses for Israelis arrested during the weekly Bil’in protests. If you can, please donate.
Technorati Tags: Anarchists Against the Wall, Bil’in, FFIPP, Israel, Palestine
