Resistance in the West Bank

In November 2012, VICE were invited to attend the first Palestinian National Youth Week – an elaborate PR event put on by the Palestinian Authorities (PA) to celebrate the fighting spirit of the Palestinian Youth and bolster their case for sovereignty, the event supposedly culminating in large non-violent demonstrations across the West Bank. We quickly discovered that it was going to be a week of conferences in a language that we didn’t understand, so we hit the road to meet the youth of Palestine ourselves, and find out if the PA’s commitment to non-violent struggle against the occupying Israelis was a national consensus.

Our journey across the length of the territory takes us to the largest refugee camp in the West Bank, and introduces us to the extremes of violent and non-violent protests, from hunger strikers to jihadists. We meet a man who’s life is dominated by the Israeli soldiers next door who could shoot him at any time, and get freaked out by the Palestinian Authorities’ scary ex-con Youth minister. We spend a day on the road with a revolutionary convoy, and meet a man who wants to see his country burn.

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