On Friday January 11, Palestinian activists set up some 25tents, including a clinic, in the E1 area of the West Bank, and declared theestablishment of a new village. They named it Bab Al-Shams, or “Gate of theSun.” The move signaled a new period of activism against the Israelioccupation. In November, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelminglyvoted to upgrade Palestine to an “observer state,” and thereby recognized itsright to statehood in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem asits capital.
Infuriated, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu vowedto expand settlements, and it was soon after his announcement that the E1 Areawas chosen. This strategic decision was widely understood to be the final nailin the coffin of the two-state solution. E1 is situated in the vast rollinghills between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, the largest Jewish settlement in theWest Bank. While all settlements on the Palestinian side of the Green Line areconsidered illegal under international law, E1 is particularly significant.
By building some 3,000 homes there, Israel will dissect theWest Bank, preventing the establishment of a geographically contiguousPalestinian state. The new Jewish settlement will encircle East Jerusalem, theintended capital of the new Palestinian state. Outraged European governmentsimmediately summoned their Israeli envoys. The British Foreign Office deemedthe decision “deplorable,” and Spain, France, Sweden and others followed suit.Meanwhile, the usual groans of disapproval, unconvincingly punctuated bystatements of “deep concern,” emanated from Washington, where Secretary ofState Hillary Clinton said the decision was contrary to “the cause of peace.”
Other than elevated tones of dissatisfaction, however, itquickly became clear that the Israeli government would be permitted to moveforward unhindered. But Palestinian activists had something else in mind. WestBank settlers often build “outposts,” or settlements even considered illegal bythe Israel government, on private Palestinian land. Doing so involves the theftor destruction of agricultural land, extremely valuable in an already emaciatedPalestinian economy that essentially functions as Israel’s captive market. Itsometimes takes the Israeli government years to evacuate these illegaloutposts, though more often they are retroactively legalized.
Palestinian activists were mirroring these very settlertactics when they staked tents in the E1 Area and declared its name BabAl-Shams. The salient difference is that the land in question is privatePalestinian land being “settled” by Palestinians who had the permission of itslegal owner.
By the time I arrived to Bab Al-Shams on a recent afternoon,some 400 people were present, including Palestinian, Israeli and internationalactivists along with swarms of media. More than 250 had already registered tospend the night at the encampment, one organizer told me.
Buses ” filled with activists that had been organized by thePopular Struggle Coordination Committee ” crossed several on-the-fly Israelicheckpoints to get to the outlying area because E1 had already been declared aclosed military zone by an angry Netanyahu administration. The drivers madeimpromptu stops on the side of the highway, where passengers ” lugging packagesof food and supplies ” swiftly exited and dashed through the hills at thebehest of Israeli soldiers.
Within a few hours, entrances to every surrounding villagewere barricaded by the Israeli military and no one else was able to enter,including several Palestinian Authority officials who said they were sent backto Ramallah after being harassed at a nearby checkpoint. Around 3 a.m., some500 soldiers and police stormed the camp.
Unlike their Jewish settler counterparts, it did not takethe Israeli government long to evict activists from Bab Al-Shams. In less than48 hours, everybody was removed, every tent taken down.
Though short-lived, the village captured internationalattention and challenged biased media depictions of Palestinians askufiya-wearing terrorists hell-bent on hijacking planes and executing suicidebombings. More importantly, Bab Al-Shams ushered in a new era of Palestinianactivism; one in which Israel’s increasingly militant government, along withits colonial settler front of theocratic vigilantes, will be force fed largespoonfuls of its own medicine.
Patrick O. Strickland is the Israel-Palestine Editor forBikyaNews.com (formerly BikyaMasr.com). His writing has been published inAl-Akhbar English, Fair Observer, GlobalPost, CounterPunch.org, and elsewhere
