Gandhi in Palestine

IssueApril 2010
News by David Polden

On 5 March, to mark the International Week Against Racism, the weekly Friday march from the Palestinian village of Bil’in to Israel’s apartheid wall was led by demonstrators dressed as Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela.

Israeli troops fired tear gas, rubber bullets and sound bombs.

The next day, in East Jerusalem, in another regular protest, 5,000 Israelis and Palestinians protested at the eviction of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood to make way for Jewish settlers and “the Jewish settlement of East Jerusalem”.

The demonstrators were confined to a soccer field by court order but 300 were allowed to march towards the “stolen” houses.