NY Times: On the West Bank, a Hint of Resistance Without Blood

[La_Serpiente]

On the West Bank, a Hint of Resistance Without Blood

BUDROS, West Bank — The barrier Israel is building against West Bank Palestinians has had a striking, if unintended, effect: It has stirred a sustained, bloodless protest movement among Palestinians for the first time in more than three years of conflict.

As the bulldozers have swept south toward Jerusalem and cut deeper into West Bank land, villagers who have mostly stayed on the sidelines of the uprising have joined with Israeli leftists to demonstrate. In places, as in this hamlet, they have blocked the machines with their bodies.

"I am totally against touching civilians," said Naim Morar, 50, a leader of the movement here, as he walked hand in hand on Friday with his 5-year-old son, Mashal, for another demonstration along the 50-yard-wide gash the construction has opened through the village fields.

To that statement of principle, he added a more pragmatic consideration: "If there was shooting at the wall, it would have been finished the next day. But our peaceful resistance forced them to stop." Often, teenagers throw stones at the end of the demonstrations, but the organizers say they discourage that.

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On the West Bank, a Hint of Resistance Without Blood

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[aquart]

1. Finally!

The option that was always open is being explored.

Pity it wasn't the first choice.