Bil’in Conference Takes Place in the Shadow of Death

29/04/09

The Fourth Bil’in International Conference on Non-Violent Resistance took place in the West Bank village from April 22-24, but, this year, it was overshadowed by the murder of a local resident.

Basem Abu Rahmah, known to his friends as El-Feel (‘the elephant’), was killed by Israeli soldiers on April 17, during the weekly non-violent protest against the apartheid wall being built through village land.

As the soldiers opened fire on the protest with stun and gas grenades, Basem attempted to plead with them to stop, when an Israeli soldier shot him with a gas projectile directly in the chest.

In his address to the conference, Iyad Burnat, head of the Bil’in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, said that Basem “was butchered by the occupation army without mercy in a cowardly attempt to silence his voice. The voice that always called for freedom and for resistance to injustice.”

The annual conference, attended this year by hundreds of Palestinians and internationals, attempts to build support for popular resistance to the Israeli occupation on both national and international levels.

On the international level, the conference continued its call for solidarity activists to work on boycotts, sanctions, and divestment from the zionist state, including the suspension of the EU-Israel partnership; to apply pressure on institutions such as the EU and European governments to demand that Israel fulfil its obligations under international law; and to continue to present the realities of the situation in Palestine and expose the propaganda of Israel and its allies.

The conference ended on Friday, April 24, with the weekly protest against the apartheid wall. There was added poignancy to this demonstration as residents attempted to erect a memorial to Basem on the spot where he was murdered.

Israeli forces responded to the non-violent protest in their usual fashion, opening fire on the crowd and injuring 25 people, mostly with rubber-coated steel bullets. Three journalists also had their cameras broken by the soldiers. Despite this, the demonstrators succeeded to setting up the monument to their fallen friend and neighbour.

In the meantime, Israel has continued with the construction of the apartheid wall, beginning work over land in al-Ramadin village to the southwest of Hebron (Al-Khalil). According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Israeli forces have also continued seizing and bulldozing civilian land in the West Bank for the purpose of building more zionist settlements.

Both the wall and the settlements have been declared illegal under international law, adding onus to the call of the Bil’in conference that solidarity activists must do all they can to ensure that real international pressure is brought to bear on the Israeli state.