In the small village of Bil'in in the West Bank, a demonstration against the barrier separating the West Bank from Israel occurs every Friday. The head of Bil'in's Popular Committee and one of the leaders of the village's nonviolent resistance movement, Iyad Burnat, spoke on Wednesday at an event sponsored by Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine.

"When we go on our demonstrations, we hope to end the occupation by the next Friday," Burnat said of the weekly protests. The students in attendance, approximately 30, applauded his hopes of easing the tensions in the West Bank.

He explained, "In 2004, the Israelis started to build the wall in the Bil'in area. ... They destroyed much of our land to build this wall, and the land of villages all around." Because of this, Burnat and other members of the village started their weekly nonviolent demonstrations. "We do other demonstrations on other days too, always nonviolent," Burnat said.

To illustrate what goes on at these demonstrations, he played clips from a film Bil'in Against the Wall for his audience. The film showed scenes of Palestinians gathering near the barrier, holding signs and chanting "No, no to the wall" in Arabic, among other similar things. In most of these scenes, the Israeli Defense Forces stand on the other side of the barrier, telling the Palestinians to disperse. In some instances, the film showed the IDF throwing tear gas canisters into the crowd to scatter the protestors or threatening the Palestinians with batons and guns.

Other scenes from the film showed what Burnat meant by "other demonstrations," which include creative protests. Among the examples shown in Bil'in Against the Wall were protestors who locked themselves in a metal cage, others who were placed inside metal canisters and chained together to blockade a road, and others who break the curfew in Bil'in by playing with chimes and drumming on metal lids.

The idea behind the first two examples, according to Burnat, is to slow down the IDF's progress for the day because the soldiers must first free the protestors from their cage or canister and disperse the crowds and then continue, taking up their working time for the day.

While Bil'in was the first village to start these organized nonviolent demonstrations, Burnat says that the idea has spread to about 20 other villages near Bil'in. "Since 2005, we have had 1,300 injured and 39 killed," Burnat said. "The Israelis wanted to break [Bil'in residents] in any way they could because they didn't want us to spread this way, this nonviolence, to other places in Palestine, but after two years, we started in a new village."

He continued, "From the beginning in the new village, they tried to break the people there. They killed five in one year; the first was an 11-year-old child. He was a nonviolent demonstrator like the others. He got a bullet in his head."

"But we continue our struggle despite this violence from Israeli soldiers. We continue because we have our right to have our land and to have our freedom to demolish this apartheid wall."

Burnat said that, while it is difficult to continue nonviolently in the face of violence, "We have our friends. Every week Israeli activists and new people join us, and now in 20 places we have people." The group Anarchists Against the Wall, an Israeli group that supports the popular Palestinian resistance to the wall, is one that regularly joins the Bil'in villagers.

A member of Brandeis SJP and one of the coordinators for the event, Noam Lekach '14, said in an interview with the Justice that he is a part of AATW and has taken part in the protests. "I believe a joint struggle of Palestinians and Israelis is the only way to fight against occupation," he said. "I, as an Israeli, should be in solidarity with the struggle. We're trying to be allies and support people who fight for their freedom in whatever they need."

Lekach continued, "We invited Burnat to Brandeis because I think it's important for people at Brandeis to see and hear what's happening in Palestine because they either just don't care or just want to ignore it.

Echoing Lekach's sentiments was Morgan Conley '13, a member of Brandeis SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace. "I think the importance of bringing these events to campus is to educate the student body because, for the most part, there's a big part of our campus that's connected to Israel but unfortunately most of them are uneducated about the reality on the ground," she said.

Master's student Tareq Jawabri '12, who is Palestinian, came to campus last fall. "I came to the United States to do my studies because I wanted to find a solution, which is why I'm doing my master's in conflict resolution," he said. "A lot of what I find here is that a lot of people at Brandeis might just know one side of the story and not the other side, and that's why it's good for such events about Palestine and Israeli to go on, so everyone can hear both sides and make their own judgments."