I am one among many American tourists who have recently visited Jerusalem, but I made some stops not included on most itineraries and discovered a vast structure hidden in plain sight.
Incoming caravans of tourists disembark from hulking, climate-controlled dromedaries as they visit venerated, sacred shrines but most pilgrims bypass one of several peace-group led tours of The Wall, the “security barrier” erected by the Israeli government in response to the second intifada, and according to a recently issued human rights report, “now recognized by Israel as an instrument of annexation.” (Prof. John Dugard, UN Special Rapporteer on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, March 2007).
The raised scar of interlocking, nearly 30-foot high concrete slabs that make up much of the 70 percent completed Wall winds across the landscape with the seeming haphazard randomness of a cat unraveling a ball of twine, separating, in many instances, Palestinians from family members, from access to their agricultural land, from livelihoods and from timely access to their healthcare needs.
The four-hour, bus tour around the outskirts of Greater Jerusalem, sponsored by the Israeli NGO, Ir Amim, took our group of 20 to Palestinian areas inside the municipal border of Jerusalem, which our guide called “urbanized villages of the third world” (the inhabitants paying Israeli taxes but having little to no municipal services) with stops in bordering Jewish settlements of vast pyramidal constructions housing 30,000-plus units. These state-subsidized, suburbanized enclaves – referred to by our Israeli guide as examples of “political urban planning” – rise up and multiply outside of the “Green Line,” the 1949 armistice line established between Israel and its neighbors at the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and now rendered invisible.
Military checkpoints in the West Bank now number over 500. After an afternoon visit to Bethlehem, three of us decided to walk through the local checkpoint for foot traffic. Leaving our driver and car behind in the slow-moving, drive-through lane, we made our way down an unlit and unmarked, rocky pathway, asking directions to the entrance from some children.
An outside approach through a fence tunnel topped with coiled, barbed wire led into a partitioned, warehouse-like building with staggered turn-styles allowing only one person at a time to proceed after a green light flashed. The interior walkthrough coiled around the sterile, fluorescent light-saturated space with blue handrails designating line formations. Wall notices throughout insistently repeated the instruction “Keep this terminal clean.”
A young woman guard, all of 18 years old, was on duty in the first bullet-proof glass booth. We showed our American passports and predictably proceeded with no problems. The second booth was manned by a youth of 19, an M-16 resting on each guard’s lap. A Palestinian couple with a young child was ahead of us in line. For whatever reason, they faced permit-clearance problems but after some involved back and forth and a phone call, they were allowed to pass. Our Palestinian guide in Bethlehem had told us earlier in the day that when being processed through the checkpoints, “The rule is that there are no rules,” the rules being subject to the whim of the guard, like insisting that in individual take off all his rings in what he referred to as “the daily humiliations.” “A person is not born violent,” he said, “he is made violent by intolerable circumstances.”
Upon waiting for our driver to clear the checkpoint, we discovered the printed notice which greets those reentering Bethlehem from the Jerusalem side which reads as follows:
Welcome to Inspection Point
You are entering a military area. To make your transit easy and to avoid unnecessary delay, first read these instructions and then obey them. Please prepare your documents for inspection and approach an inspection point when it becomes free.
Follow the instructions of the inspectors. Pass through one by one. Please keep the terminal clean. Have a good day!
While taking photos of a section of The Wall at the Palestinian town of Abu Dis, I focused on some of the words written on the mural of graffiti which variously read: Build bridges not walls, The DUMB WALL IS SCREAMing, THIS WALL WILL SOON FALL, and ISRAEL LIFE.
Our intense and unsmiling Israeli guide, who conducted our Wall tour, stated at emotionally charged moments, “The discrimination (against Palestinians) stinks to high heaven. Behind the rationale of security, anything is permissible (as with proceeding to unilaterally annex Palestinian lands while insisting that The Wall is a temporary security measure). We want our cake and eat it too.” I asked him if he will stay in Jerusalem. First he replied, “No comment,” but then he continued with sober resignation, “Living in Jerusalem is a fulltime job. My family has been here for three generations, and I never thought I would leave but now, for the first time, I am thinking about it.”
A few days before our Wall tour, my husband and I had visited the Holocaust History Museum – Yad Vashem where we saw and heard the unfolding narrative of he systematic, state-sponsored subjugation of an entire people that step-by-totalitarian-step led to the ultimate atrocity of the death camps – all having begun with the occupation and expulsions.
The perpetuation of this unholy impasse is a scourge upon both societies – one need only look into the faces of those who live on both sides of the embattled divide, though the suffering inflicted upon the Palestinian people – some of which is self-inflicted due to counterproductive, extremist tactics – is disproportionately higher by any calculation.
Amidst the bitter harvest of cyclic violence and cruel injustice, the lush freshness of the local fruits bestows a balm of sweetness upon the tongue. The olive tree is held in particular reference. Our Palestinian guide in Bethlehem told us that in order to survive being uprooted, an olive tree must be transplanted at the same angle to the sun at which it had lived before being moved to new ground, where, there too, it might come to thrive.
History teaches that new groundbreaking societies rise above the rubble of the old. Jerusalem – a divided city marked by walls within walls, both visible and invisible – rests uneasily upon the ruins of the past. But this 3,000 year old holy city is uniquely positioned as a shared spiritual center for Muslims, Jews and Christians to lead the way to a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace. Still today, the life-affirming message of all great spiritual teachers bids us to build bridges not walls.
A US citizen living in Atlanta, GA. She can be reached at: bakenney2@earthlink.net
