Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/594552
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2015 11 News said, that "to exist is an act of re- sistance because the Israelis want them dead or living on another land." "An Italian man who was with us jokingly said that he would have a talk face to face with Netanyahu, but the answer he got from the leader of the Jordan Valley Soli- darity Movement was that we are more powerful than Israeli pre- mier Benjamin Netanyahu, Pales- tinian president Mahmoud Abbas, German chancellor Angela Merkel and the Italian president." The Bedouin continued by say- ing that the true force is within the people and only the people can liberate themselves through revo- lution, from the bottom. "Change can never come from those at the top because they are comfortable enough. I went out of the Bedouins' place astonished, with tears in my eyes and a re- generated faith in humanity and its revolutionary spirit," Caruana added. Olive picking Olive picking in Palestine is an act of resistance and solidarity and Caruana says it is one of the few effective direct actions in the oc- cupied territories. "Palestinians are constantly har- assed by soldiers and settlers while harvesting their olives. Sometimes they are shot at, beaten or barred from entering their fields." Since 1967, Israeli authorities and settlers have destroyed an es- timated 800,000 Palestinian olive trees. Olives are one of the main sourc- es of income for Palestinians, and a lot of international activists vol- unteer during the olive picking season. "It's a wonderful thing to do. I met a lot of different people in just two days of olive picking. I've met vegan Brazilians, university stu- dents, Muslim British women, old British women, Polish people, and many others. Every grove has its own story. The last place we went to was Al Walaya, a few minutes away from Bethlehem. This village is close to an Israeli settlement and it is surrounded by a fence – in the coming years, this fence will be re- placed by a wall. "The whole village is encircled by a wall, a wall of apartheid. The people in this village will need a special permit to go in and out of the village and those who have their land on the other side of the wall will find it difficult to reach it," she says. While picking olives, Caruana could see the fence just down the road, a road constructed for the exclusive use of the Israeli mili- tary. A few metres away, behind a hill, lay the state of Israel. "I ended up looking at the beau- tiful surroundings, the fence, the Palestinian family and thinking about their future. What will hap- pen to them in a few years? This family is already a refugee family." Palestinian refugees and inter- nally displaced Palestinians repre- sent the largest and longest-stand- ing case of forced displacement in the world today. Two out of every five refugees in the world are Pal- estinian. "Will this family be internally displaced again? The fact that I can't do anything for them and for all the Palestinians except writing about the situation makes me feel angry and powerless. The situa- tion is so bad, discrimination and apartheid are so clear. Then, when Palestinians throw stones at one of the most powerful military in the world, the West comes out con- demning them. It's a shame." The wall of separation Israel's separation barrier, dubbed the "Apartheid Wall" or "Berlin Wall" by Palestinians, has increasingly attracted internation- al media attention, largely due to the scale of the wall. Once completed, the wall will reach some 650km, more than four times the length of the Berlin Wall. Caruana says that the wall is one of the things that stand out upon arriving in Palestine. "The wall gives you a sense of claustrophobia because you know that all around the West Bank, there is a wall and, sometimes, an electric fence, and to go in and out you always need Israeli permis- sion," she says. The wall which had to be built on the so-called Green Line – the line separating the West Bank from Israel – was built much further inside the West Bank and took kilometres of land, including the entirety of East Jerusalem. "This is a wall of separation and a means of oppression and humilia- tion. Palestinians and internation- als drew beautiful graffiti on it to make it somewhat bearable. Artists like Banksy came here and drew on the wall to show their support for the Palestinians. "As one graffiti stated, All Walls Fall. I hope so, all Palestinians hope so. Insha'Allah. Maybe it will not be in our generation but jus- tice will and should be done." Some of the activists from various parts of the world who are in Palestine volunteering and helping people in their daily struggle in what is often dubbed an apartheid state Israel claims the purpose of the wall is to stop terrorists but critics hold that it is only intended to annex Palestinian land Young Palestinian women have increasingly joined males to hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers and chant slogans as unrest has spread in recent weeks