One of many stolen rights that Palestinians are struggling to reclaim is freedom of movement, which most of us take for granted.  An intriguing new example of creative non-violent protest follows below.  First, a little context:

Israel’s growing system of apartheid roads severely limits the free movement of people and goods into, out of, and even within occupied Palestine.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that as of September 2011:

• there were 522 roadblocks and checkpoints throughout the West Bank
• four of the five roads that lead into the Jordan Valley are not accessible to Palestinian vehicles
• an additional 495 ad-hoc ‘flying’ checkpoints obstruct movement around the West Bank each month (on average), compared to 351 in the past two years
• at least 200,000 people from 70 villages are forced to use detours which take two to five times longer than the direct route to their closest city
• in ten of the eleven major West Bank cities, one or more of the main entrances are blocked to Palestinian traffic.

Not surprisingly, in the same spirit as the recent Freedom Rides in Palestine:  Palestinian ‘car protest’ in West Bank challenges road segregation.

The news of this protest arrived today from Israeli-American journalist Mairav Zonszein, via +972 Magazine and Mondoweiss:

“Palestinians attempted to set out in a motorcade of about 50 cars from Jericho en route to Ramallah this morning, to protest and challenge the system of Israeli-only roads throughout the West Bank….”

Follow the story here.  The article includes photos, video, and links to Twitter updates, with the hashtag #carprotest.

Souad Amiri has, and needs, a sublime sense of humour.

A Palestinian architect and internationally acclaimed writer, she lives in Ramallah.

In humour Souad Amiri has found the basis for survival and sanity under Israeli military occupation.

Last year she gave the closing talk at a conference live-streamed from Ramallah.  Two options:

The final giddy 12 minutes of her talk are here.

The whole inspiring talk, about 22 minutes, is here.

Enjoy.

The Israeli human rights organization B’tselem provides video cameras to young people in “high-conflict areas” of occupied Palestine.

The goal is to bring “the reality of their lives under occupation to the attention of the Israeli and international public.”

Given the shameful silence and/or misinformation on Palestine from governments and the mainstream media in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe, how else would we ever know?  And the less we know, the easier it is for the Israeli regime to do as it wishes, and get away with it.

Recording the dirty work of the soldiers is dangerous work.  Not surprisingly, they are inclined to target those who would expose their crimes.

Still, for young Palestinians, this is one of very few opportunities they have to let us know what it’s really like on the ever-shrinking ground where they live.

From more than 500 hours of video recorded in 2011, B’tselem assembled this 3-minute video.  Please give it a look.  It’s the least we can do.

For Palestinians there is nothing unusual about these images.  They see and experience worse.  What these brave young videographers share with us are the routines of day-to-day survival under an illegal military occupation.

Can you imagine?

Just posted online, a new review of Our Way to Fight, in Illume magazine, published in California.

On December 27, Israeli authorities closed Al-Ain Mosque, the oldest mosque in Silwan, as well as a nearby kindergarten and several shops on the main street of Wadi Helwa, in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.

(Photo: Activestills.org)

A correspondent with WAFA Palestine New Agency reports that the closure orders were issued on the pretext of “ensuring public safety, due to fears of further collapses after the Monday collapse near the mosque.”   (Short video on the latest collapse here, from the Silwan Information Centre.)

Fakhri Abu Diab of the Committee for the Defense of Silwan expressed grave concern over the closures, especially as the cause of these collapses, both Monday’s and the previous ones, is Israel’s ongoing excavation of tunnels under the neighborhood, part of a scheme to connect it to the old city.

[MR: This bizarre project is driven by the powerful Israeli settlers’ organization ELAD, and executed by the Israeli Antiquities Authority, an arm of the national government.  For a more detailed look at the Israeli archeological invasion of Silwan, and resistance to it, see chapter 8, ‘Facts under the ground,’ in Our Way to Fight.]

Abu Diab warned that the Israeli authorities intend to close more shops and homes in the area in order to displace its residents and seize the area.

Fakhri Abu Diab appealed to local and international communities to protect the people of Silwan from these dangerous plans.