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Title: Anarchists Against the Wall Author: Uri Gordon Date: 2009 Language: en Topics: Anarchists Against the Wall Source: Retrieved on 22nd November 2021 from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp1754 Notes: Published in The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest.
Anarchists Against the Wall (in Hebrew: Anarchists Against the Fence) is
an Israeli action initiative supporting the popular Palestinian struggle
against segregation and land confiscation in the West Bank.
The initiative started in April 2003 when farmers from the village of
Mas’ha invited Israelis and internationals to establish a protest camp
on their land, which was about to be confiscated for part of the Israeli
government’s Separation Barrier. Over four months the camp was visited
by a thousand people and became a center of information and struggle
against the occupation.
The Palestinian non-violent campaign proliferated and the fluid group of
Israel anarchists mobilized to support popular committees in villages
including Budrus, Salem, Anin, Biddu, Beit Awwa, Deir Balut, Beit Surik,
and Beit Likia. The presence of Israelis and internationals usually
forced the army to avoid lethal repression, and forged an unprecedented
binational alliance on the ground. In addition to demonstrations and
human blockades, in several actions entire lengths of the fence were
destroyed.
Attacking what it described as a policy of ethnic cleansing, the group’s
direct actions intended “to open a gap in the wall of hatred and to
provide with our actions a living, kicking alternative to the apartheid
policy of the Israeli government.” It declared that “justice and
equality are achieved by voluntary agreement between people ...the State
is only an aggressive tool of dominant ethnic/class groups” (Federazione
dei Comunisti Anarchici 2004: 49).
From February 2005, the group mainly supported weekly demonstrations in
the resilient village of Bil’in, a mobilization sustained in numbers for
three years despite violent repression. Over this period the group’s
composition changed almost entirely, and the anarchist discourse
somewhat receded. Media attention increased after near-lethal injuries
to Israelis (nine Palestinians have been killed in the campaign), while
the physical and emotional impacts of regularized violence weakened the
initiative’s sustainability. Yet the initiative has succeeded in eroding
Israeli enthusiasm for the fence, and established the alternative of
joint non-violent struggle, which stood in the background of the few
court cases that led to changes in sections of the fence (e.g., Beit
Surik, Budrus, Bil’in).
As of 2008, Anarchists Against the Wall was rejuvenating as a more
decentralized action network. Active relations continue with Bil’in,
with popular committees in the Bethlehem area, and with villages
demonstrating on Route 443, a major Israelis-only road in the West Bank.
Actions inside Israel have included barbed-wire blockades in Tel Aviv,
and support for the public campaign marking 40 years of occupation in
the West Bank.
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REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Anonymous. (2008) Anarchists Against The Wall. Online at www.awalls.org
(accessed March 22, 2008).
Ben-Eliezer, U. (2007) “The Battle Over Our Homes”:
Reconstructing/Deconstructing Sovereign Practices Around Israel’s
Separation Barrier on the West Bank. Israel Studies 12, 1 (Spring):
171–92.
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (Eds.) (2004) We Are All Anarchists
Against the Wall. Fano: I Quaderni di Alternativa Libertaria. Online at
www.fdca.it/wall/media.htm (accessed March 22, 2008).
Gordon, U. (2010) Against the Wall: Anarchist Mobilization in the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Peace & Change 35, 3 (July): 412–33.
Pallister-Wilkins, P. (2011) The Separation Wall: A Symbol of Power and
a Site of Resistance? Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography,
February.
Rossdale, C. (2010) Anarchy Is What Anarchists Make Of It: Reclaiming
the Concept of Agency in IR and Security Studies. Millennium, Journal of
International Studies 39, 2: 483–501.