Dozens of protesters reenacted the 20the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by downing part of the Israeli Annexation Wall built on local Palestinian lands near the Qalandia Airport, north of Jerusalem. The army rushed to the area firing tear gas at the protesters. This is the second time Palestinians down a section of the wall this week.
On Monday, hundreds of Palestinian activists, waving Palestinian flags and wearing florescent jackets downed a section of the Wall and chanted “To Jerusalem we are going, Martyrs in Millions”, referring to the Palestinian right in Jerusalem.
The chant itself became very famous in Palestine as the late President, Yasser Arafat, used to say it very often in his speeches.
Abdullah Abu Rahma of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil’in, said that this is the first step towards a series of activities planned to be held in coming days to express the Palestinian steadfastness and rejection to the Annexation Wall on their lands.
“Today we commemorate 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall,’ said Abdullah Abu Rahma, leader of the People’s Campaign to Fight the Wall. ‘This is the first step in a series of activities we will be holding in the coming days to express our firm attachment to our land and our rejection of this wall.’
In 2004, the International Court at the Hague issued a nonbinding ruling stating that the Wall is illegal and that it should be removed as it is built deep into the Palestinian territories separating the residents from each other and from their orchards and farmlands.
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Statement issued by Bil’in residents who tore down a section of the Annexation Wall
On 9 November 1989 the world witnessed the moment of the demolition of the Berlin Wall. Similarly, at this moment, twenty years later, a group of Palestinians have demolished part of the Apartheid Wall around Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, that bleeds every day… Jerusalem who’s children are homeless under the rain. These young boys and girls who were promised by the martyr president Yasser Arafat that they would raise the Palestinian flag on the churches and mosques of Jerusalem.
Mosques and churches who’s sanctity is defiled while we passively wait for salvation unaware that the responsibility lies on us. Rebuilding popular resistance is essential for Jerusalem and Palestine.
In this event we are calling for a return to the achievements of the popular uprising that began on 9 December 1987. This year, on 9 December, we are calling on people to move en masse towards Jerusalem.
We are calling for the formation of a unified national leadership to lead a mass popular uprising of which all the Palestinian people, groups and political factions are a part of.
This popular uprising will be pro-active and innovative with a strategy to mobilize international support for the justice of our cause, as a way out of the current political impasse.
We will use this support to create international pressure to end the occupation, and establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and to restore unity amongst our people, from the West Bank to Gaza.
