E1 Eviction: Palestinians keep warm around a fire in the camp in the E1 section of the West Bank. Israel started to remove the protesters Sunday. Image by getty images

The idea of setting up a protest tent village in E-1 gained momentum over the past few weeks among members of the Palestinian Popular Committees – the same committees that for 10 years have been organizing weekly demonstrations in the West Bank against the Israeli occupation in general, and against the separation fence and settlements in particular.

The popular committees realized they were facing an internal contradiction: On the one hand, they had won the admiration and attention of the world, and their protests had contributed to the partial success of the legal battles that were, and still are, being waged by several villages against the route of the separation fence.

But they haven’t succeeded in sparking the establishment of a Palestinian mass movement against the occupation – even though, in terms of the people’s outrage and frustration, the time seemed ripe.

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