Video: Non-violent resistence against Israel in Palestine

“I don’t want my children to live my life. I’m looking for a future for my children and all children that is without occupation and violence. We have to have hope to resist.”

Iyad Burnat, winner of the 2015 James Lawson Award for Achievement in the Practice of Nonviolent Conflict. speaks about the motivating factors behind the anti-occupation movement that his village Bil’in spearheads, key aspects of building and sustaining the movement, strategies and tactics used, the importance of Israeli and international allies, lessons learned, and the way forward.

For Iyad, nonviolent resistance is as central to daily life as the twisted-trunk olive trees that frame his rural village of Bil’in in the occupied West Bank. An enthusiastic father of five with a large smile and deep, piercing eyes, he is recognized not only in Palestine, but also among scholars and opinion-shapers around the world as a courageous leader among leaders in an exemplary movement of nonviolent resistance.

Over the past decade, images and footage of Bil’in’s resistance have spread across the world, in large part due to the movement’s characteristic use of creative actions, which have increasingly captured the attention of international journalists. The movement also gained significant exposure, especially in the United States, when the film Five Broken Cameras (incidentally filmed by Iyad’s brother, Emad Burnat) was nominated for the 2012 Academy Award for Best Documentary. It has helped spread the news of the extraordinary efforts of a small group of Palestinian farmers to end the Israeli occupation through nonviolent action and strategies to halt expropriation of their land to expand illegal settlements and build the separation wall.

Iyad first joined the decades-long nonviolent resistance movement in Palestine as a pupil and member of a school committee in Bil’in. Since then, he and his family have experienced significant repression under occupation. At the age of 17, Iyad himself was arrested by the Israeli military and during interrogation was forced to sign a confession in Hebrew he didn’t understand for crimes he didn’t commit. He was then sentenced as a minor to two years in a desert prison which caused him to graduate late and derailed his planned career as a doctor.

In 2014, Iyad’s son was shot point blank in the leg by a soldier while standing next to his father during a nonviolent demonstration, and he continues to face physical difficulties from this injury today. Yet throughout his years of nonviolent resistance, Iyad’s message has not waivered: “We are not against Jews; we are against the Israeli occupation.”

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To learn more about Iyad Burnat and the non-violent resistence in Palestine, see Open Democracy.