Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Palestinian village turning into ‘ghetto’


By Jonathan Cook
The National, UAE

"NILIN, WEST BANK // The sun is sinking fast behind the trees of an olive grove on the outskirts of the West Bank village of Nilin. After a day of confrontations between the Israeli army and the Palestinian villagers over Israel’s building of its separation wall on Nilin’s land, the soldiers appear finally to have gone.....

Salah Hawaja, who leads the non-violence campaign against the barrier, said the villagers wished to avoid such a fate for Nilin.

The wall is the first stage of turning us into a ghetto,” he said. “The tunnel and the army’s control of it will make the factories on which so many people in Nilin depend for their living unviable. No one can run a business not knowing from day to day whether he will be able to send out trucks or bring in supplies.

We have no choice but to resist because the other option is that we watch our economy being slowly strangled to death. Israel wants us to leave this land for the settlers, but we are not going anywhere. We will continue struggling for our right to stay here.”"

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