Neve Gordon in The Nation reported this story about a town in the West Bank of Palestine, Ni'ilin, which is fighting for its existence. Ni'ilin and many other places on the West Bank has shown its willingness to resist Israel's military occupation, whose sole purpose is to colonize as much Palestinian land as possible, if not the entire West Bank.

Since 2003, the Israeli group Anarchists Against the Wall (AATW) has supported the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation and specifically against Israel's segregation wall. Week after week, AATW has joined the Palestinian popular resistance against the wall, in diverse areas of the West Bank, including the villages of al-Ma'asara, south of Bethlehem, Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, Bil'in and recently, almost on a daily basis, Ni'ilin west of Ramallah. There, the army is taking extreme steps to suppress the demonstrations, such as occasionally firing live ammunition and imposing siege and curfew.

Neve Gordon's account tells a lot more about why most people are not getting information about the human rights injustices going on in Ni'ilin.

"Jerusalem bulldozer 'terrorist' kills 3 in rampage," read the headline of a CNN article describing the recent attack of a Palestinian construction worker that left three Israelis dead and scores wounded. A Google news search indicates that the brutal assault was mentioned in 3,525 news articles. USA Today, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, BBC, Fox News and Al Jazeera as well as all the other major media outlets covered the incident. Lesser-known media sources, such as the Khaleej Times in the United Arab Emirates, the Edmonton Sun in Canada and B92 in Serbia, also featured the event. Indeed, one could safely assume that almost all news outlets around the globe provided some type of coverage of the attack.

(Demonstrator shot in the arm in Ni'ilin)

Another Google news search, this one using the name Ni'lin, produces only seventy-five results. A few major outlets have carried the story about the brave resistance to Israeli seizures of land staged by the residents of this Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, but CNN, the LA Times and USA Today have not. Sources like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times provided a short caption, no more. Considering that over the past two months the residents of Ni'lin have managed to make a mark on the history of popular opposition, the limited coverage of their campaign is not a mere oversight.

(A car burnt by soldiers during curfew)

Ni'lin's story is one of incremental dispossession. The residents of this agrarian town lost a large portion of their land in the 1948 war. After the 1967 war, Israel took advantage of the town's location near the internationally recognized Green Line and began confiscating its land for Jewish settlements. First, seventy-four dunams (four dunams equal one acre) were expropriated for the settlement of Shilat. Next, another 661 dunams were seized to build the settlement Mattityahu. In 1985, 934 dunams were confiscated to build Hashmonaim, and six years later 274 dunams were appropriated for Mod'in Illit. Finally, in 1998, twenty more were sequestered for the settlement of Menora. All together, more than 13 percent of the town's land has been expropriated for settlements.

LINK above for the rest of the story.

An after word by Gordon is an appeal to help these AATW activists:

When the military realized that violence on the ground cannot stop the residents' emancipatory drive, it began arresting both Palestinian and Israeli protesters in the hope that hefty legal costs would do the job. To support the legal expenses incurred at Ni'lin,

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In appreciation and solidarity,
Anarchists Against the Wall

Video material on the Ni'ilin saga is available below. For the stories corresponding to the above pictures as well as the videos, click here

(Five injured and a paramedic arrested in Ni'ilin)

(18 injured in mass demonstration in Ni'ilin)

(Ni'ilin: Bulldozers subotaged again)