Press Releases

March 30, 2012. In commemoration of Land Day and as an expression of Palestinians’ determination to defend our land and human dignity, the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, in partnership with a number of civil society organizations in the Bethlehem area, organized a mass rally on Friday, March 30, 2012. During the rally, participants planted olive trees on lands the Israeli apartheid regime has threatened to confiscate in the areas of the Cremisan monastery and the village of al-Walaja near Jerusalem.

A large number of children, women, youth and students from the Bethlehem district participated in the march which set off towards the threatened lands in the Cremisan monastery area under the slogan “Stop the Jewish National Fund ... Stop the green-washing of Israeli apartheid,” as well as other slogans calling for the defence of the lands and confrontation of the vicious Israeli campaign of land confiscation taking place for the expansion of Israel’s illegal apartheid wall and network of exclusively Jewish settler-colonies. The protestors chanted slogans calling for the defence of Palestinians’ lands, asserting that land is at the core of the struggle against Israeli colonialism. The participants also chanted against the Israeli apartheid regime, the division of the Palestinian people that has been imposed by this regime, condemning the ferocious campaign led by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. The protestors also demanded that the role of the Jewish National Fund (known in Hebrew as the Keren Kayemeth Le Yisrael) be exposed for its centrality in the process of expropriation of lands belonging to refugees and displaced Palestinians in the part of Palestine occupied in 1948. The Fund has taken control over much of these displaced Palestinians’ lands under the pretext that it plants trees upon them, a process that it has also begun to carry out in territories occupied in 1967 with the planting of cypress trees in the occupied West Bank. The Cremisan monastery and the village of al-Walaja are among the areas where this illegal Jewish National Fund activity is taking place. The march also included slogans that called for Palestinian unity and the adherence to the core principles of the Palestinian struggle, particularly the displaced Palestinians’ right to return to the lands and homes from which they were displaced in 1948.

After the end of march, participants and activists planted olive trees on lands around Cremisan and al-Walaja which have been continuously targeted for confiscation by the Israeli occupation forces, and the trees upon which have been uprooted and damaged by Israeli settlers in preparation to expand the apartheid wall in the area. The protestors expressed confirmed their solidarity with the owners and residents of the land, which is one of the most beautiful areas in the Bethlehem district, and which the Israeli occupation authorities intend to annex as part of the "Greater Jerusalem project." Participants also stressed that these lands are adjacent to those of several villages from which Palestinian refugees were expelled in 1948, including Walaja, Malha and Jura, and that the planting of olive trees in this area is directly connected to the ongoing struggle to return to these villages.

It is important to note that the Israeli planning committee has recently publicized a new zoning plan that calls for the confiscation of a further 1235 dunums of Walaja lands to be zoned as national parks. This plan comes as part of the broader framework of the “Emek Refa’im” parks project, one of the largest Israeli forestation projects, and one in which the Jewish National Fund plays a central role in funding.

The march and tree planting activity was organized in partnership with a number of civil society organizations in the Bethlehem area, including the Joint Advocacy Initiative of the YMCA-YWCA, Lajee Center of Aida refugee camp, al-Finiq Center of Dheisheh refugee camp, Injaz youth development association of Dheisheh refugee camp, Ruwad Center of Aida refugee camp and a number of organizations and initiatives from Beit Jala.