Staging Resistance in Bil'in: The Performance of Violence in a Palestinian Village

Abstract

In direct response to the illegal confiscation of their lands, residents of Bil‘in began organizing daily direct actions in protest and formed what is now called the Bil‘in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements.5 More than six years later, the Popular Committee continues its protest campaign, now holding public action demonstrations every Friday. In a report over 100 pages long, jointly issued in July 2009 by the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign and Addameer (the Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association), these actions of Bil‘in and other affected Palestinian villages are described as “one of the few forms of civil resistance to the occupation that is left in the occupied Palestinian territories” (2009:12).6 The report also notes that the popular protest movement was, from its beginning, not only directed towards obstructing further implementation of Israel’s colonization policies, but was also a strong critic of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and its governing institutions for not supporting the popular resistance struggle