Editor’s note: On June 8, 2015, prominent nonviolent resistance leader Iyad Burnat of Palestine received the James Lawson Award for Achievement in the Practice of Nonviolent Conflict. The award, founded in 2011, is given during an annual educational institute on nonviolent conflict, jointly organized by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, USA. During Iyad’s acceptance speech, as well as during an exclusive follow-up video interview with Amber French and Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh of ICNC, Iyad spoke about the motivating factors behind the movement that Bil’in spearheads, key aspects of building and sustaining the movement, strategies and tactics used, the importance of Israeli and international allies, lessons learned, and the way forward.
For Iyad Burnat, nonviolent resistance is as central to daily life as the twisted-trunk olive trees that frame his rural village of Bil’in in the occupied West Bank. An enthusiastic father of five with a large smile and deep, piercing eyes, he is recognized not only in Palestine, but also among scholars and opinion-shapers around the world as a courageous leader among leaders in an exemplary movement of nonviolent resistance.
Over the past decade, images and footage of Bil’in’s resistance have spread across the world, in large part due to the movement’s characteristic use of creative actions, which have increasingly captured the attention of international journalists. The movement also gained significant exposure, especially in the United States, when the film Five Broken Cameras (incidentally filmed by Iyad’s brother, Emad Burnat) was nominated for the 2012 Academy Award for Best Documentary. It has helped spread the news of the extraordinary efforts of a small group of Palestinian farmers to end the Israeli occupation through nonviolent action and strategies to halt expropriation of their land to expand illegal settlements and build the separation wall.
