The resistance to the Wall I saw in Jayyous was very encouraging and brave, but what I witnessed in Biddu was nothing less than inspiring. On the 7th of January an olive tree planting action was planned. Several ISM activists came to join in the event which was organised by Palestinians from the area and was also attended by other internationals and Israelis, including a group called Rabbis for Human Rights. Popular committees are very actively resisting the Wall in this area, and have had some successes. Mohammed Mansour (a local Palestinian activist whose court hearing I covered in my first report) told me that the reason for this was that they, the Israelis and the internationals had acted together “as one”. He reminded me that “we don’t hate the Israeli people, only the Israeli government”.

We went up to the olive grove and saw the destruction there - it had been turned into a construction site. A huge swathe of land had been cleared and plenty of trees removed to make way for the planned Wall. Caterpillar machines were parked in a sort of building site adorned with the Israeli flag and guarded by private security (i.e. mercenaries) who I assume later called the Border Police. A funny moment came when their truck got stuck in the mud and they jokingly tried to convince us to come and help them move it!

The most moving part of the day was when we came across a poor woman who lived right next to the olive groves. Her family had started to build a garden to grow food in the small patch of land near to her daughter’s grave. Israeli soldiers told them that they would have to dismantle it themselves or be charged for the cost of the bulldozer to destroy it. Hearing such a story made me feel pretty helpless in the face of such oppression, so it was good to move on to action right after that.

Palestinians, Israelis and internationals working together as one (click for larger image)Palestinians had brought up olive tree saplings from the town and we started to plant them on the land which will become effectively annexed to Israeli should the Wall be built there, which was a very strong statement that the people will not allow their land and livelihood to be aggressively ceased by the state. Eventually we moved onto the path actual cleared on which the Wall will be built and started planting them there too. At this point, the Border Police finally tuned up. They did not start trouble, but restricted the planting from coming too close to the Caterpillar site. We had been doing this for about 2 hours by then anyway, so we after we had planted a few trees in the wake of the destruction, had some short speeches from Palestinians and ISMers and a short prayer from a Rabbi we headed back.