A group of 22 Israeli and Palestinian demonstrators lit Hanukka candles Sunday night at an illegal caravan they set up for a second time near the West Bank village of Bili'in.
The lighting of the first candle at this spot said Yossi Bartal an activist from Anarchists against the Wall represented "the fight for freedom from occupation."
The group's choice in symbolism was a provocative one given that the Maccabean revolt against Greek rule which Hanukka commemorates broke out in the ancient Judean town of Modi'in. Likewise the caravan is located adjacent to the new neighborhood of East Matityahu named after the rebellion's famed patriarch priest.
The protesters contended that those today suffering from foreign rule were the Palestinian residents of the village of Bili'in a half a kilometer away.
The route of the security fence blocks villagers from their farmland and protects ever-expanding settlements they said.
"The barrier cuts off Bili'in from one-half to two- thirds of its agricultural land and is meant to protect the settlements of Kiryat Sefer and Modi'in Illit said Rabbi Arik Ascherman, who heads Rabbis for Human Rights, a left- wing association that has also trumpeted the cause of Bili'in. Ascherman said that, while the caravan was illegal, so were the new settlement neighborhoods. Both were set up without government permits, he said.
Last Thursday, about 50 activists barricaded themselves in a similar outpost at the same location, but soldiers removed the caravan and police briefly detained seven demonstrators. The expansion in the East Matityahu neighborhood, meanwhile, went unhindered.
The quick evacuation of the first outpost within 24 hours of it being set up exposes the blatant policies of apartheid and selective enforcement going on in the occupied territories said Yonatan Pollack, another anarchist, who promised that Sunday's caravan will become the foundation stone for a West Bili'in."
At the last outpost demonstration soldiers fired tear gas to keep additional protesters from reaching the caravan but this time around a police jeep and an IDF jeep passed by without responding.
Military sources said the outpost like the last one would be removed by the police and the IDF Civil Administration.
