‘Non-violent protests in Palestine have become testing ground for experimental weapons’
Independent Media Centre :: 08 Sep 2006 17:01 GMT
Every Friday for the past two years, the people in a number of Palestinian villages have engaged in weekly non-violent protests against the Israeli Wall being built on their land. The Israeli military response has always been disproportionate, but in recent weeks has taken on a frightening new aspect: each week, the protesters gather at the site of Wall construction chanting slogans and holding Palestinian flags, wondering what new experimental ‘non-lethal’ weaponry or brutal new tactic will be tried on them this week.
From a strange blue dye that has been shot at protesters the last three weeks, to a type of rubber-coated bullets that produce electric shocks, it appears that Israel considers these non-violent Palestinian, Israeli and international protesters to be its guinea pigs….and no one in the ‘international community’ has acted to stop them. The U.S. government, instead of pressuring the Israelis to stop attacking U.S. citizens with experimental weapons, has instead responded with a directive for U.S. citizens to stay out of Palestinian areas – aware of what is happening, they simply choose not to act.
Israel, for its part, has banned internationals from entering the West Bank and Gaza, and has, in the last three months, implemented a policy of denial of entry of nearly all foreign nationals into Palestine – a territory made up of two separate, Israeli-occupied sections whose borders are controlled by Israel. See: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
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