In the shadows of the wall

Ever since the concrete structure first started to eat into vast swathes of Palestinian territory, Bilin has been the centre of resistance to both its route and its purpose, from weekly demonstrations on Fridays, placing Arab settlements on the Israeli side and petitioning Canadian courts for redress. Sadly, as a result, several Palestinians have been killed defending their land, ushering new waves of activists to the town. 

 

Iyad Bernatt is president of Bilin’s Popular Committee for Resisting the Wall and Settlements, an initiative for non-violent activism. Born and raised in the town, he has been a prominent voice against the wall, suffering repeated arrest, injury and intimidation from the occupation forces. Sadly, Bilin is just one of the many villages that suffered from constructing the wall, and Iyad is just one of the Palestinians for whom resistance has had to be a way of life.

 

Iyad Bernatt: They differ from one place to another. For example, in the Qalqilya region the wall separates the whole village from the city, turning the city into a de facto prison. In some areas, the wall separates students from their schools, in others, the wall separates farmers from their lands – as has happened in Bilin and the surrounding villages. The farmers are facing huge difficulties in reaching their land, causing an increase in neglect and, as a result, unemployment. Let’s not forget that the farmers depend on olive oil to make their living; now after the wall, instead of selling it, the farmers have to buy it – a situation made worse after the occupation bulldozers uprooted thousands of olive trees in order to build the Apartheid Wall and the settlements. The wall is a curse on the Palestinian people; it is designed to expel the people from their lands and to put them in prisons only slightly bigger than Nuqqib and Asqalan prison.

 

IB: In general, the wall has had a large impact on each and every Palestinian. Personally, during the last five years, I have been prevented more than once from going to the other side of the wall by the occupation soldiers, mainly due to my activities in the weekly demonstrations in Bilin – this is in addition to several injuries and arrests inflicted on me during them. They have even broke into my house several times during the night, which affected the psychological status of my children. A large force of Israeli soldiers invading your house at 2am, masked and holding different kinds of weapons, is not what you call a good experience.

 

IB: They were crying, shouting and panicking, of course. Sometimes I hear my daughter Mayar – she is 4 years-old now – shouting while she is sleeping. Even their dreams became filled with nightmares.

 

IB: Travelling is incredibly difficult; you must pass through a gate that only opens at certain hours during the day. Sometimes, you are forced to wait behind the gate until the person in charge comes to open it. There are several obstacles devised by the occupation soldiers against the farmers to discourage them from reaching their land. They use the excuse that this zone is closed for non-military individuals or that the soldier who has the key is not available or absent. I keep asking myself: “What happens if the soldier who has the key dies?”

 

IB: If we compare the Berlin Wall with this one, we will find a lot of things they share between them – but the main one is political and racial separation. But this wall is 750km long, which equals 30 times the length of the Berlin Wall. Yet look at how that was regarded.