Solidarity

On Friday, August 11th, 2006, the Christian and Muslim communities in resistance to the Apartheid Wall near Al-Khadr proceeded to march in protest as they regularly do on Fridays after Juma’a prayers. Only this time they had a new idea.

The Israeli Forces have been building a wall to contain the entire West Bank and this construction is furiously under way in the areas near Bethlehem. Ultimately, Israelis would like to cut Palestinians off from the settler roads and highways that facilitate movement to the zionist side of the Green Line. Israel also plans on annexing as much land as possible. This stretch of wall that is under construction west of Bethlehem will imprison around 20,000 Palestinians between the wall and the Green Line. To that effect a one hundred meter stretch of wall stands alone along the road to Jerusalem, seemingly randomly.

In the last few weeks, a stretch of very sharp barbed wire was erected on a ridge seperating the Muslim cemetary and a local fruit grove from the road. The popular committee against the wall of Al-Khadr decided that as the group of children and community folks descended on the Apartheid Wall, a group of International allies as well as Israeli allies whould go remove some of the razor wire as a symbolic act of defiance to these illegal barriers.

Beyond any acts of symbolic solidarity, we successfully removed all one hundred meters of razor wire and sent it down the hill towards the Israeli Occupation Forces who looked on in shock and awe.