Gassed
Today Khaled, Radi, and I drive to Bilin, a village in the West Bank about 20 km northwest of Jerusalem. The town is cut in two by the Separation Fence (which is a 30 foot high concrete wall in other places). Palestinian farmers can no longer get to their fields, their land is suddenly no longer theirs, but Israel claims it prevents potential terrorists from slipping into Israel.
We join the weekly march/demonstration, which ends up at the Fence – Khaled and Radi holding high large b&w photos of the Holocaust. Finally, we’re 100 feet from the soldiers, several layers of fence and barbed wire between us. Khaled and Radi are armed with the photos, held up against the fence like protective crosses. (Khaled convinced a young Palestinian guy, who usually throws stones at the soldiers, to hold a photo too.)
A few moments of silence. The soldiers seem confused, one looks away, maybe in response to the photos. Then – a shot, followed by the characteristic hiss coming at us across the No Man’s Land – a tear gas grenade spirals across the ground near us. My first experience of this wonderful “crowd dispersal” invention, my eyes immediately burn, tears fall, and I can’t stop coughing.
