***image2***The Occupation forces have stepped up their threats and retaliations against Budrus, western Ramallah, in a vain attempt to force the villagers to accept the ghettos of the Wall and to renounce the struggle for their land. On Sunday, the Occupation forces stormed the village before daylight to hang statements on the doors of houses and shops in Budrus. The text warned people not to approach the area of the Apartheid Wall or to destroy parts of it. Dubbed a âfinal warning,â the Occupation forces announced severe collective punishment if the village would not surrender into complete submission to the Occupation.
Occupation forces completed the Apartheid Wall in Budrus in 2004. Since the first day that bulldozers came to destroy the peopleâs land and livelihoods, the village stood united against the attack of the Occupation. The strong popular resistance confronting the Wall and the Occupation caught the interest of the Arab media for more than 6 months and made Budrus into a symbol of Palestinian steadfastness. Yet, as soon as the Occupation bulldozers completed their work, the struggle of the village was forgotten by public attention â as if the people of Budrus had suddenly surrendered to a fate behind ghetto walls. On the ground, however, the people never gave up their rights and strong resistance continues, beyond the focus of the cameras and microphones. The people of Budrus still confront the Zionist project on a daily basis, destroying parts of the Wall and attacking the military jeeps that guard it.
The peopleâs resistance against the Apartheid Wall and their determination to tear it down, piece by piece, time after time, has already met with collective punishment for the whole village. The Occupation regularly invades Budrus, hounds the people with tear gas, attacks the homes of the villagers and beats and arrests them at will. No one is beyond the target of the Occupation. The latest arrestee is Sudqi Khalaf Ismail (44 years old), who was taken away by Occupation forces two weeks ago, under the pretext that he had incited the village and participated in resistance against the Apartheid Wall.
The threats that the Occupation forces have now distributed in the village are reminders of both the brutality of the Occupation and the invincibility of popular resistance. The people of the village are warned not to come close to the Wall and not to destroy it or else the Occupation will retaliate severely against the entire village. Yet for the people of Budrus, the Apartheid Wall is the clearest and most devastating expression of the Occupation and its racist project of expulsion. It is through resistance and the destruction of the Wall that the people of Budrus will regain their land, rights and freedom. Thus the village has vowed to continue its united struggle against the Occupation.
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