Friday Protest II

See Friday Protest I for background.

Unfortunately for Kieran, this time it was far more interesting. There were twice as many internationals as the last time, including a large contingent from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the largest and most well-known (Israelis would say "notorious") of the international pro-Palestinian protest organizations.

More importantly, we got face-to-face with the Israeli soldiers.


A kid with his school project. No idea who the girl is, but I think the stuff on the other side of the placard includes grenades and TG canisters.


It's Friiii-day.


Beautiful day for a protest. Off in the distance you can see the line of Israeli soldiers. They're going to have a more stressful day than the last time I was here.


The press gathered on the thin road to film the coming chaos. You can see the razor wire across the bottom of the screen. Most of the Palestinians were about ten meters to the left. About ten seconds after I took this photo, the first tear gas canisters were fired. One ricocheted off the ground in front of me, and hurtled past my ear, missing by about half a meter.


I love the smell of tear gas in the morning.


A lot happened in between the last photo and this one. First, some ISM kids pulled the razor wire off the road. A contingent of ISMers, Palestinians, and foreign press then walked up the road to confront the Israelis. A full scale scuffle broke out, all of which was caught on camera by one of the ISM cameras. "I love zoom," murmured the blonde activist with the videocam.

She wasn't quite so enthusiastic a couple of minutes later, when one of her buddies was knee-dropped by a pissed-off Israeli and arrested.

Meanwhile, a pair of Japanese and I decided to join the frontline. Throwing our hands in the air for the benefit of unseen Israeli snipers, we walked down to where the fun was. The photo was taken just after the scuffle and just before I started walking towards the crowd.


Never thought we'd get this close. The Israeli front and center in this picture was later pulled off the front line by his commander. The kid had lost his cool, grabbed the Palestinian flag from a protester, and flung it on the ground. (Of course, he'd been instigated; the Arab with the flag had stood in front of him, and let the wind flap the flag into the soldier's face. The ISM won't tell you that.)

The Israelis are, believe it or not, honestly out to avoid undue confrontation. All they have to do is hold the line without embarrassing Israel in front of Western cameras with a "disproportionate" display of violence. They know the Palestinians won't actually try to breach the line. They just need to keep their teenage troopers calm enough to get through four hours of clicking cameras and shouted abuse.

Soldiers who are too surly or hot-tempered are yanked off the front line. Likewise for those who are unsure of themselves. No heroes. You keep your place in line if you can stand still and keep a straight face. Let the Palestinians and the goyim flap their arms and wag their tongues. They'll go home soon enough. They always do.


The picture sucks because in this little kerfuffle, I got bumped into. The guy on the ground is a white activist, and he is getting destroyed. To be fair, he had been protecting a local Palestinian leader from being curb-stomped, and in doing so, had chased down an offending Israeli soldier and aimed a kick at him. He was immediately tackled by another two soldiers. The kid got kicked a few times, but he gave as good as he got.


A protest is 90% theatre. The guy on the ground must have been the class clown in high school. Here, he's balancing a huge rock on his belly (to anchor him in place symbolically) while shouting Palestinian slogans. Shutters flash, videocams whirr. Another image of the Intifada for the history books. I wondered what those Israeli kids thought of this man's posturing.


I found myself feeling sorry for those Israeli boys. Most were younger than me. Look at this fatso being toyed with by the class clown. He should be eating a chocolate bar, playing Halo 3.

How many of them were here against their convictions? How many of them hated having to be prison guards for four million caged Palestinians, to participate in this weekly farce, and to be demonized as the brutal, unthinking pawns of the Zionist War Machine- as the very faces of Occupation?

At the same time, how many were the sons of settlers? How many thought of Arabs as no better than cockroaches and believed in Israeli Manifest Destiny?

How many were one step away from refusing to serve in the army because of the Occupation? How many thought the Occupation appalling, but in the absence of strong leaders on both sides and a clear plan for peace, believed its temporary continuance necessary for Israel's security? And how many thought it desirable, and wanted to throw the Palestinians over the Jordan?


Remember this guy? He was shot in the knee a couple of weeks ago. He's since made a full recovery. Here he negotiates with the Israeli obersturmbannfuhrer.



The negotiations continue. What for? He's talking to a wall.


Israeli snipers. There are four of them in this picture.


Some farmer is going to be pissed. A bunch of kids set his spare tire on fire. Later, this scene got one-upped. A crowd of hollering youth found a tractor tire- it was almost five feet tall. They proceeded to roll it down the hill at the Israelis. Later, they set it on fire.


This guy is my hero. A cripple in a powered wheelchair, this guy was at the front of the last Friday Protest I was at, as well as this one. Here, he Xaviers past the remains of a tire fire.



A salvo of tear gas canisters explode in the fields ahead of us.


It wasn't till I saw this that I understood the fundamental point of the Friday Protests. I suddenly became aware of how much of a performance they are. The Palestinians aren't trying to tear down the Wall- hell, they aren't even trying to reach it. They aren't trying to hurt or abuse Israeli soldiers, or get some measure of physical vengeance.

They are performing.

For the tourists, for the visiting journalists, for the newscameras, putting on as theatrical and memorable a display as possible. They want the pictures and video taken to be as powerful, as symbolic as possible, so that when they are uploaded into Facebook albums and splashed on newspapers and websites, the people who see them- whether they are idealistic Westerners reading ISM publications, ordinary rat-racers checking the morning news on BBC.co.uk, or families of Japanese tourists looking up their daughters' blogs- will know, and remember, what is happening in Palestine.


The Leader gives a thundering interview to a Reuters cameraman from Brazil, flag in hand.



Yep. These guys all stay at my hostel in Jerusalem. Different Japs from a couple weeks ago, but who can tell? Here, the Leader is making a speech thanking the Japanese for coming to Bil'in, and asking them to let everyone they meet know about the Friday Protests. There were so many Japs there yesterday that at one point, one of the chants was: "The People of Palestine! The People of Japan! The People of Palestine! The People of Japan!"

A pity they understood neither chant nor speech.

I'll be back in Bil'in next week. With a face mask.