The AP covered the Palestinian protests against the security barrier in an in-depth story. But there’s something pretty huge missing from this story. In fact, it’s missing from the lead, and from any real description of the protests, until way, way down in the article.
A Palestinian teen tracks Israeli troops with a video camera to document abuse of demonstrators.
A community organizer tours West Bank villages with a PowerPoint presentation teaching the art of creative protest.
These are just two examples of the increasingly savvy methods Palestinians are using to fight Israel’s West Bank separation barrier – a campaign whose danger was driven home this week by the death of a 10-year-old Palestinian boy.
Six years after Israel began building the barrier, Palestinian villagers march almost daily in an attempt to halt construction work that threatens to swallow up thousands more acres of West Bank land. Many protests turn into confrontations between youths hurling rocks and Israeli troops responding with tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and at times live fire.
The aim is to slow construction, draw media attention and ensure that Israeli high court judges hearing challenges to the barrier’s route “will think twice before deciding such a high-profile case,” said Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer representing Palestinian villages.
The art of creative protest—is that what they’re calling stoning these days? Oh, the stoning? You have to read down twenty paragraphs before you find any notice of it whatsoever, or any of the other violent tactics used every single day at the Naalin protests. The AP likes to pretend that the violence doesn’t exist, or is in response to the soldiers responding to the protesters.
“They taught us how to tie ourselves to a tree and blind soldiers with mirrors,” said Abdullah, adding he also learned to surprise soldiers by holding protests in different places to confuse them.
Abdullah Abu Rahmeh, a Bilin activist who worked with Bedouin tribesmen who complain of harassment by Jewish settlers, said he begins by discussing resistance.
“I then show them a documentary of Bilin and I pause at the different strategies we have, like stuffing ourselves in barrels and rolling in front of bulldozers,” Abu Rahmeh said.
At one Naalin protest, Palestinian youths rushed down sloping olive groves, whooping as they climbed onto a bulldozer clearing land for the barrier. The startled driver was quickly chased away while other Palestinians lobbed rocks to divert the soldiers, who hurled back sound bombs and tear gas, leaving plumes of acrid smoke.
The bulldozer’s work was held up for a couple of hours – a successful outcome, Palestinians said.
Although Bilin activists say they teach nonviolent forms of protest, they are reluctant to tell other Palestinians not to hurl rocks, saying it’s a matter left for individual villages to decide.
The rocks that they hurl are generally not pebbles. Soldiers are regularly injured by the rocks and protesters. And protesters regularly lie and fake injuries for the camera.
The AP once again presents an extremely biased article. Notice that there are no quotes from Israeli officials at all. There is no other side presented, something that you’d never see in any kind of article about Israel. And the de-emphasis on the fact that these protests turn violent every single time is a huge omission by the AP. These are not peaceful protests. They are calculated, violent protests, and they unfortunately turned deadly several days ago. The IDF is investigating the soldiers’ use of live fire. Who is investigating the protesters’ use of violence day after day after day?
Certainly not the AP. They end their story with some good advice for protesters:
In the meantime, Palestinians are honing their strategies.
“Now I tell the protesters, take a camera, take a camera,” Kanaan said, holding her own.
That’s a great idea. But I have a better one. Israel should impound the cameras and distribute video of the rock-throwing and violence by Palestinians and “internationals” (you just know the ISM creeps are in this up to their ears). Not that it would change the AP anti-Israel bias. But the facts would be out there for the rest of us.