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Young Palestinian Activists Seize Initiative at Bab Al-Shams

The grassroots Palestinian move to erect an outpost in an area wanted by Israel for illegal settlements could be the start of a new tactic, Daoud Kuttab writes.
Palestinians, together with Israeli and foreign activists, demonstrate as they walk around newly-erected tents in an area known as E1, near Jerusalem  January 12, 2013. Palestinians from villages in the occupied West Bank near Jerusalem pitched tents on Friday on the land Israel has earmarked for a new urban settlement, looking to preserve the area for an independent Palestinian state.  REUTER/ Baz Ratner (WEST BANK - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST BUSINESS CONSTRUCTION TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

While so-called leaders of the Palestinian resistance from Fatah and Hamas were traveling to Egypt to hold talks in five star hotels, another group of Palestinians were actually doing work worthy of the words "liberation and resistance."

In an organized and disciplined manner, nearly 150 Palestinian youths along with some international solidarity supporters set up a Palestinian tent village and gave it the name Bab al-Shams — the Gate of the Sun.  Cooperating with owners of Palestinian lands in areas south of Ramallah and East of Jerusalem, these new young revolutionaries did more to push the Palestinian political agenda than the well-paid fat cats that were loitering in Cairo hotels.

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