{"id":2624,"date":"2009-12-16T14:07:11","date_gmt":"2009-12-16T18:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=2624"},"modified":"2009-12-16T14:07:11","modified_gmt":"2009-12-16T18:07:11","slug":"cantarow-resistance-in-bethlehems-villages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/cantarow-resistance-in-bethlehems-villages\/","title":{"rendered":"Cantarow: Resistance in Bethlehem's Villages"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bethlehem_wall\"<\/a>Below, the opening paragraphs of Ellen Cantarow’s\u00a0 Counterpunch<\/strong><\/em> article; you can read the full version here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

December 15, 2009<\/p>\n

Heroism in a Vanishing Landscape<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

Resistance in Bethlehem’s Villages<\/span><\/h3>\n

By ELLEN CANTAROW<\/p>\n

Christmas is coming. My e-mail has returned at least one plea to help Bethlehem \u2013 Christ\u2019s birthplace crucified by Israel\u2019s segregation wall; 25 foot-high concrete punctuated by militarized watch towers surrounds the entire town. PEACE BE WITH YOU reads a huge legend on the wall without (apparently) the slightest trace of irony; stenciled in English. Hebrew, and Arabic, it\u2019s signed, ISRAELI MINISTRY OF TOURISM.<\/p>\n

What lies beyond Bethlehem \u2013 the Bethlehem province or \u201cgovernate,\u201d \u2013 is equally shocking, though invisible to the casual visitor. According to a May, 2009, UN report, Bethlehem governate\u2019s total land mass is 660 square kilometers, but only 13 per cent remains for Palestinians to use. The rest has vanished under the Greater Israel\u2019s ever-expanding colonies and \u201coutposts\u201d; its ever-lengthening wall (declared illegal in 2004 by the International Court of Justice: Israel and its US backer have simply ignored the ruling); and Israel\u2019s designation of most of Bethlehem\u2019s region as \u201cArea C\u201d. (The Oslo Accords diced the West Bank into Areas \u201cA\u201d — Palestinian Authority (PA) rule; \u201cB\u201d \u2013PA and Israel joint rule; and \u201cC\u201d \u2013 Israeli rule. Area C is 60 per cent of the West Bank).<\/p>\n

Palestine\u2019s Stop the Wall campaign, launched in 2002, has been waging nonviolent resistance here to retain and regain land \u2013 weekly demonstrations in the village Al Mas\u2019ara, land-reclamation in other villages (clearing stones, preparing the land for planting, petitioning the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture for supplies and trees), and rallying a population exhausted by over three decades of \u201cpeace process\u201d that has meant only land-theft for the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Stop the Wall was launched by activists like 65-year-old Sharif Omar Khalid whose roots go back to Palestine\u2019s Land Defense Committee (a nonviolent movement begun in 1980), and younger activists who cut their teeth organizing the first Intifada (1987-1990). 46-year-old Jamal Juma, the Campaign\u2019s coordinator, says that when Israel began building the wall in 2002, he and other activists realized an unprecedented danger.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw that this was a huge political project,\u201d he commented this past October. \u201cThe whole country [Palestine] was under siege, all the villages . . . We [began] building a movement against the wall\u201d. The campaign built popular committees in villages menaced by the wall. From 52 of these in 2005 it has consolidated into ten committees, governing a region (the Bethlehem region is one). The campaign can\u2019t possibly cover the entire Palestinian population so it focuses on \u201chot spots\u201d \u2013 places where the wall intrudes or is about to be extended, and land where settlers and soldiers harass villagers.<\/p>\n

(… ctd. here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Ellen Cantarow<\/strong>, a Boston-based journalist, has written from Israel and the West Bank since 1979. This article is part two of a series, \u201cHeroism in a Vanishing Landscape<\/a>,\u201dabout non-violent Palestinian resistance to Israel\u2019s occupation. She can be reached at ecantarow@comcast.net<\/a>
\nNotes<\/span><\/p>\n

For a comprehensive argument that land-seizure is meant not for \u201csecurity,\u201d but for expanding Israel\u2019s borders, see this report by B\u2019tselem<\/a>, an Israeli human rights organization.<\/span><\/p>\n

For a description of Palestinian architectural restoration now underway in 50 villages see RIWAQ \u2013 Center for Architectural Conservation \u2013 www.riwaq.org<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Below, the opening paragraphs of Ellen Cantarow’s\u00a0 Counterpunch article; you can read the full version here. December 15, 2009 Heroism in a Vanishing Landscape Resistance in Bethlehem’s Villages By ELLEN CANTAROW Christmas is coming....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,71,79,80,107],"tags":[191,259,302,1728],"class_list":["post-2624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","category-middle-east","category-palestine","category-palestinian-people","category-west-bank","tag-bethlehem","tag-counterpunch","tag-ellen-cantarow","tag-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}