Bilin Protest Leader Seized In Late Night Raid

Khatib is the 35th resident of Bi’lin to be arrested in the past seven months on charges relating to the popular protests held there each Friday. Another prominent committee member, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, has been detained since December 10th 2009 . It continues a pattern of new hard-line tactics employed by the military against protestors, with 94 arrested in the neighbouring village of Nilin over the past 18 months and 17 Israelis taken in a Sheikh Jarrah demonstration last week. The charge of incitement, defined under Israeli military law as "an attempt, whether verbally or otherwise, to influence public opinion in the Area in a way that may disturb the public peace or public order," is being increasingly used to intimidate activists.

ISM activist being suppressed at the scene.

As a founding member of the campaign against the wall and secretary of the Bi’lin village council, Khatib has been a high profile target of military harassment. He was previously arrested on August 3rd 2009, again on charges of incitement, but the case was thrown out when the court discovered he was abroad at the time of the alleged incident. In the past he has suffered beatings and harassment at the hands of Israeli soldiers. His efforts in Bi’lin have led to a court order for the army to stop building in the area, to move the wall and return around 300 acres of olive groves to dispossessed farmers.

Salah Al Khawaja, spokesman of Nilin’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and friend of Khatib, believes these arrests show the non-violent movement is succeeding. “It wont affect us badly, all the time they arrest our leaders but we continue. Two months ago we only had three or four bases for Stop the Wall activities and now we have almost 20. Hopefully we will have 50 next year. We will work harder with our activities, not just in one town but all over the West Bank.”

Khatib at a speaking engagement in Canada last year.

“After five years of protest in Bi’lin we have great support from international activists and lawyers. Israel want us to be violent to break the international solidarity against them. Through non-violence we have the boycott campaign, with academic institutions and against settlement goods. We have friends in trade unions and political parties across Europe.”

“When we see our people being arrested just for taking part in a peaceful protest it gives us power. We become like a big family, it makes us determined to continue as it shows what we are doing is right and is working.”