Hundreds of activists of Gush Shalom, Taayush, The Committee Against House Demolitionand others demonstrated on the last day of 2004 against the uprooting of the olive trees ofJayush village and the building of a large new settlement there. This is being done under theguise of enlarging an existing settlement (Tsufin).
The land is situated between the Green Line and the fence, and the Sharon government isengaged now in a frantic effort to fill this territory with new settlements, in order to annexit de facto to Israel. This exposes the lie that the fence is being built for security reasonsonly. It must by now be clear to everybody that the wall/fence has only one real purpose: toannex more territory.
In fact, Sharon’s “disengagement plan” is but a diversion, designed to draw theattention of the Israeli public and the world away from this big operation.
The army and police tried to stop the demonstrators when they crossed the Green Line, butthey left their buses and covered on foot the distance to the affected area, crossing the muddyfields. Once there, a senior police officer warned them by megaphon that the planting ofsaplings at this place is a violation of the law. However, the police did not interfere when thedemonstrators planted dozens of saplings in the holes left open after the uprooting of the bigtrees – which, by the way, are being sold to rich yuppie house-owners in Israel.
From there, the activists continued their march to the fence. A hundred yards from it,they were stopped by a chain of soldiers and policemen. A stormy demonstration took place,with the activists shouting “No fence, no transfer – we don’t want to rule over anotherpeople!” After negotiations, a delegation of four demonstrators was allowed to approach thegate in the fence, were they met the villagers of Jayuss who came from the other side of the wall.