[WCUSP] Nothing less than our freedom

[Kate Zaidan]

  Opinion/Editorial
Nothing less than our freedom
Mohammed Khatib, /The Electronic Intifada,/ 7 November 2007
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For the people of our small village of Bil'in, which lies west of 
Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the planned negotiations between 
Palestinian and Israeli leaders in Annapolis, Maryland evoke mixed 
feelings. Like all Palestinians, we pray that our children will not 
spend their lives as we did, under Israeli military occupation.

But our experience has been that Israel, the stronger party, exploits 
peace talks as a smokescreen to obscure facts that it is establishing on 
the ground. During the Oslo "peace" process Israel built settlements in 
the occupied territories at an unprecedented rate. Israel's system of 
settler-only roads, which is now strangling our cities and villages, was 
created during the Oslo process. This makes us wary of the Annapolis 
negotiations.

Israel built settlements throughout the West Bank even though 
international law prohibits an occupying power from settling its 
population in occupied territory. Now Israel intends to annex most West 
Bank settlement blocs either through negotiated agreement with the 
Palestinians, or unilaterally.

Bil'in, like tens of West Bank villages, is losing vital land and 
resources to Israel's settlement blocs. In 1991, Israel confiscated 200 
acres of our village's land and declared them state land. In 2001 
private Israeli developers began building a new Jewish settlement there, 
as part of the Modi'in Illit settlement bloc.

In 2005 Israel's apartheid wall separated Bil'in from 50 percent of our 
agricultural land. In response, we held over 100 nonviolent protests 
together with Israeli and international supporters. Hundreds of us were 
injured and arrested. After our protests and a legal appeal, Israel's 
high court ruled last month that the wall's route in Bil'in must be 
changed to return about half of our land that was taken.

Though we celebrated this success, Israel, with US backing, still plans 
to annex the Modi'in Illit settlement bloc which includes more of our 
land. Unlike the settlements initiated by the settler movements, the 
settlement blocs were built in strategic areas by the Israeli government 
under the Likud, Labor, and Kadima parties. The settlement blocs are 
designed to ensure Israeli control of our movement, borders, access to 
water and of Jerusalem, even following the creation of a "sovereign" 
Palestinian state.

Some Israeli politicians claim that the settlement blocs that Israel 
intends to annex comprise five percent of the West Bank. However, these 
politicians do not include the settlements in occupied East Jerusalem in 
their calculations because occupied East Jerusalem was unilaterally and 
illegally annexed by Israel in 1967.

But in reality, Israel has already de facto annexed the strategic 10.2 
percent of the West Bank that lies between the Green Line and the 
apartheid wall, including the settlement blocs. About 80 percent of all 
Israeli settlers now reside west of the apartheid wall and inside the 
West Bank.

As Palestinians, we have expressed our willingness to live together on 
this land with the Jewish people, and to live in one democratic state 
with Jewish Israelis as equal citizens. However, most Jewish Israelis 
and their politicians have clearly stated that they must live in a 
Jewish state, not in a state for all of its citizens. For this reason, 
we agreed to live in two states -- Palestine side by side with Israel.

For Palestinians, agreeing to live in a state on 22 percent of our 
historic homeland was a great compromise. But Yasser Arafat was besieged 
in his office by Israel because he didn't accept Israel's so-called 
"generous offer" at Camp David. He was punished because he would not 
surrender yet more land, and accept a state composed of isolated cantons 
carved up by Israel's settlement blocs.

We take strength from our faith that no situation of injustice can 
continue forever. In the end we will all have to live on this land as 
equals. When that time finally comes we will discover that we are more 
similar than different. Until then, we will not accept shiny trinkets 
made of words like "state" and "sovereignty" when we know that within 
our "state" we will not be able to access our water, exit and enter 
freely, or move from one place to another without Israeli permission. I 
will not be free so long as Israel's settlement blocs and wall steal and 
carve up my land and surround my capital, Jerusalem.

We have suffered too much for too long. We will not accept apartheid 
masked as peace. We will settle for no less than our freedom.

/Mohammed Khatib is a leading member of Bil'in's Popular Committee 
Against the Wall and the secretary of Bil'in's Village Council./


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-- 
Kate Zaidan
Program Coordinator
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
1213 Race Street
Philadelphia, PA  19107
215-563-7110 [ph]
215-563-5527 [fx]
www.wilpf.org

"Societies and economies can be destroyed by bombs. Societies can also be destroyed by locking every aspect of life like provision of food and water through an economic war."

 Vandana Shiva quote

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