Around 400 Palestinians and Israelis marched to an Israeli checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Friday, December 16, to protest the occupation and mark a year of such joint monthly demonstrations. The march was organized by Combatants for Peace and Standing Together. Among the demonstrators were two MKs from the Joint List, Dov Khenin (Hadash) and Ahmed Tibi (Ta’al). The march was held along a section of Route 60, the main north-south highway in the southern West Bank, which links Jerusalem, Beit Jala, the Gush Etzion settlements and Hebron.
Israeli and Palestinian activists from Combatants for Peace gave speeches at the end of the march, as did MK Tibi. He told the marchers: “You are the response to hatred, colonialism, repression, exclusion and aggression,” and said they were a message of “peace and hope and a different future for our sons and daughters.” Tibi also criticized a proposed law that is currently working its way through the Knesset, which would retroactively legalize West Bank outposts, currently considered illegal even by the Israeli government. The law, he said, would legalize “the biggest land grab in modern history — the 1967 occupation.”
After the speeches, a group of young Palestinian rappers from Qalqiliya performed. They were followed by rap artists from Israel: Tamer Nafar and Yossi Tzabari, for the song “Ana Mish Politi” (“I Am Not Political” in Arabic).