RAMALLAH — Two years after the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada, Israel started the construction of the separation wall in the West Bank, claiming that it wanted to prevent Palestinian militants from carrying out deadly bombing attacks inside its “territory.” The Palestinians realized the Israeli intentions behind the construction of the eight-meter-high cement wall, which snakes deep inside the West Bank annexing tens of thousands of dunams of their agricultural lands, to allow the expansion of Israeli settlements. The residents of the West Bank village of Bil'in, to the west of Ramallah, were the “pioneers” in launching in 2005 the non-violent resistance against the separation wall that left a big swath of their fertile lands on the Israeli side of the wall. Armed with his first camera, Imad Bornat, a farmer and resident of Bil'in, started documenting the daily clashes between the Israeli occupation forces and Palestinian activists, who got support from their Israeli and international counterparts. “I decided to take part in the non-violent resistance against the construction of the wall with my camera. I started shooting the actions, events, and demonstrations every day of every week; the daily life in the village, my home, my life, my boys,” Bornat told Saudi Gazette. “I focused on friends and on Jibreel, my son who was growing up,” he said. Jibreel, now 6, was born when the resistance out broke in the village. Over five years, Bornat had used five cameras, each broken in the course of filming, among other things, by the soldiers' bullets and an angry settler. “Many cameras were hit by tear gas or bullets. One of these cameras saved my life, when a soldier shot it with two bullets. So I keep this camera, to remember,” he said. In September 2007, the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that the Israeli government must remove a 1,700- meter section of the wall that runs next to Bil'in, and to build an alternative route. The Israeli judges stipulated in their ruling that the section of the wall in question had expropriated Palestinian lands for the expansion of the nearby settlement in Modi'in Ilit. Bornat said he almost lost his life in 2008 due to the construction of the wall near his village. “I used to go to olive groves to the west of the village on a tractor,” he recalled. “We used to cross the gate and go to the land with other farmers. Because the farms were near the settlements, I used to film there and help the farmers. “The road used to be straight but the Israeli authorities changed it to make the wall. So we had to go up the hill and then down. On the way back when we passed the gate, the tractor lost control and hit the wall. I was on the tractor with other people and with two of my children.” Bornat said he was badly injured in the accident and was confined in an Israeli hospital for two months, but his son Jibreel was only slightly injured. Three months later he was back filming with little Jibreel trailing behind. He added that “after five years of years of filming and documenting, I decided to make a film, a project aimed at showing to the world the new styles of protests that the Palestinian people can invent to resist the Israeli occupation.” Bornat said he contacted Guy Davidi, an Israeli documentary filmmaker and activist who spent years in Bil'in, to make the film “5 Broken Cameras”. The film won two awards, including the Special Jury Award and the Audience award, in November at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. It was selected at the Sundance Film Festival, where Bornat and Davidi won the directing prize. The film is nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars next month. “Jibreel accompanied me during the last seven years of documenting the events in Bil'in and in editing the film,” Bornat said in response to a question of the role played by his son in the film. “Jibreel was an integral part of the story. It would be weak without him. I tried to tell the story of the (Palestinian) people's suffering through Jibreel.” “I tried to teach him about the real life so he won't get surprised when he gets older. Jibreel is a brave child and thinks like the old ones. I want him to become a distinguished man and to help change the Palestinian situation and to pray to Allah.” Noting that the non-violent resistance documented in his film succeeded in rerouting the separation wall and not in dismantling it, I asked whether it was the aspiration of Jibreel and his generation. “The residents of Bil'in succeeded, through their resistance, to move the separation wall. And some people got their land back but some got nothing. It is a victory in itself, but not a big victory for everyone in the village. This is not the aspiration of Jibreel and his generation. We look forward to see the separation wall completely dismantled from our land,” Bornat said. Another question: You are saying that the rerouting of the separation wall near Bil'in is not sufficient for Jibreel and the village's residents. Will you teach Jibreel to continue with the non-violent resistance as the only means to dismantle the wall? “Jibreel will choose his own path,” Bornat answered. Israel constructed the separation wall to be the border of future Palestinian state. Could a Palestinian state in these boundaries and limited resources meet the needs of Jibreel and his generation? “Israel doesn't want a Palestinian state. It wants to confiscate more Palestinian lands and to impose facts on ground in light of the absence of Arab world's role,” he said. Asked on what benefit can Jibreel and his generation if they continue a non-violent resistance but may not lead to end the occupation, he said: “There will be effect and pressure on Israel if there be a wide scale of non-violent resistance with the participation of all Palestinians.” Bornat said the Oscar would not be the last step in his career path. “I participated in the non-violent resistance in the village and will continue to film because the camera is my weapon. There will be films after the Oscar Insha'Allah,” he concluded.
