(un)Holy Land, Part 4

CAUTION: political commentary ahead.

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The morning after our adventure in Ramallah found us happily eating yet another fantastic breakfast full of hummus, fresh bread and cheese. We were ready to begin exploring the historic sites of Palestine, and as soon as our two taxi cabs arrived, we were off to Bethlehem.

We alighted in the middle of the town with the Church of the Nativity as our first goal. After a bit of wandering in the wrong direction, we made our way up a long hill and through the narrow streets of Bethlehem towards the church. Bethlehem is a pretty interesting city, as it holds significance for the three major religions of the area: for Christians, it is the place of Jesus's birth; Rachel's Tomb, an important site in Judaism, is on the outskirts of the city; and Muslims have lived in the city since the 7th century BCE.

Governance of Bethlehem has switched hands countless times throughout the years, from a caliph to the Crusaders, from Saladin to the Ottomans, from the United Nations to Jordan. After the Six Day War, Israel controlled the town until the Palestinian National Authority was granted sovereignty of Bethlehem as part of the Oslo Accords. With the escalation of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the city has witnessed its fair share of violence. In 2002, a 5-week standoff between IDF soldiers and locals occurred in the Church of the Nativity. Notably, what was once a Christian majority in the city has dwindled to 12%, owing to emigration of Christians to different cities or the United States, largely due to the significant economic and social decline of the city. And it's no wonder why: the roads are beset with roadblocks, checkpoints, curfews and movement restrictions, and the wall runs straight through the city.

I was suffering from yet another case of mild food poisoning, which really can't be called food poisoning anymore since it has developed into a semi-constant state of digestive unrest. Needless to say I was extremely happy when we reached the plaza of the Church of the Nativity and the recently built Bethlehem Peace Center, and discovered the (amazing, wonderful, clean and free) bathrooms there. The Peace Center was pretty nice. Lots of literature and photographs documenting the long history of Bethlehem.

We opted against entering the church right away, as a large tour group had just gone in. Instead, we walked up a short hill to the Milk Grotto, where it is believed that a drop of Mary's milk hit the ground, giving rise to the chalky consistency of the surrounding terrain. The grotto was clean and cool, and we rested there for a bit before moving on. On the way back to the church, we stopped in several olive wood shops, where I bought some handcrafted carvings.

The entrance to the church was a small door that forced you to stoop to enter; the idea was to humble yourself before God while entering. The main area, the Basilica of the Nativity, was a dark, ornate room lit with hundreds of candles, and is maintained by the Greek Orthodox of Bethlehem. The very stoic man guarding the Basilica had a mild conniption fit because my hands were in my pockets, but considering the recent history of violence there, I can understand their suspicion.

We walked through the adjoining Church of St. Catherine and went down a flight of stairs to the Grotto of the Nativity. There, underneath the Basilica, is the spot where Jesus is believed to have been born, marked on the ground by a silver star.

After leaving the church compound, we found some cheap, fresh hummus and bread--I abstained from eating for the most part, but it looked good--and pushed on. We next went to the Palestinian Heritage Center, a repository of handmade Palestinian artifacts, embroidery and jewelry, where we spoke with its curator for a long time about the current state of affairs in the Arab world. I purchased a beautiful necklace made with replicas of Palestinian currency, Laura got a plate for her mother, and we all got some interesting literature. We left the cultural center, and began what would be, for me at least, the turning point of our trip to Palestine.

We went to see the wall.

Like I wrote earlier, any description I attempt to give of the wall will belie its true nature, but I'll give it my best shot.

The wall--known amongst Israelis as a separation or security fence, and amongst Palestinians as a racial segregation or apartheid wall--is, bluntly, a physical barrier between Israelis and Palestinians. Over 8 meters tall in some places, the idea for the wall was first posited by the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1992, and after escalating violence in Gaza, erected the Israeli Gaza Strip barrier in 1994. Support for the creation of a larger and more extensive barrier between Israel and Palestine grew, with various rationales: Rabin stated it was to protect the people of Israel from terrorism, while subsequent PM Ehud Barak said that a security fence was "essential to the Palestinian nation in order to foster its national identity and independence without being dependent on the State of Israel." The Israeli Supreme Court cited the violence of the al-Aqsa Intifada and loss of Israeli life as the background behind the decision to construct the fence.

The barrier itself runs roughly along the Green Line, which marks the 1949 Jordanian-Israeli armistice border. However, it deviates from the Green Line in many places to include Israeli settlements in the West Bank, extending past its stated path as much as 20 kilometers. 20% of the wall is on the actual Green Line. In some places it splits roads or almost entirely encircles towns.

While the Israeli Supreme Court has twice ruled that the route of the barrier should be altered due to negative impacts on Palestinians, the International Court of Justice has argued that this is not enough, stating that the wall is "contrary to international law." For their part, Israel does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ. The UN has passed several resolutions about the wall, notably stating that "it is difficult to overstate the humanitarian impact of the Barrier. The route inside the West Bank severs communities, people's access to services, livelihoods and religious and cultural amenities."

While Palestinian public opinion is almost unanimously opposed to the wall, Israeli favor is mixed. Most feel that it will improve security and define the borders of Israeli vis-a-vis Palestine. Many Israeli West Bank settlers now support the wall, as it has become clear that it will be diverted to include their settlements as part of Israel. In March 2004, a study conducted by Tel Aviv University found that 84% of the Jewish population of Israel was in support of the wall.

Not all Israelis favor it, however. Colonel Shaul Arieli of the IDF has famously stated of the barrier that "in its current format it creates the future terror infrastructure because this terror infrastructure is precisely those people living in enclaves who will support acts of terror as the only possible tool that they perceive as being able to restore them the land, production services and water wells taken from them." In other words, the resentment and anger generated by the construction of the wall and the resulting daily conditions may foster and augment the very terrorism it was made to prevent.

Physically, 95% of the total length of the barrier is comprised of a multi-layered fence system with staggered walls demarcating approximately 50 m of width, with stacks of barbed wire, anti-vehicle ditches and patrol roads in the "no man's land" in between the fences. The sections we saw, however, were constructed as a simple wall made out of interlocking concrete slabs 3 m wide and 8 m tall, a large span of empty land and sniper towers, and another similarly constructed wall. In Bethlehem, the gray, anonymous concrete is covered with Palestinian graffiti: quotes, pictures and words.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.



As we followed the wall in its snake-like slice through the middle of Bethlehem, we came upon a house at the dead end of a small street enclosed on three sides by the wall. We were walking down the road as the couple who lived in the house pulled up in their car. The conversation we held with them will be forever etched in my memory.

Very much as a matter of fact, she told us her story. The abandoned, empty street on which we were now standing used to be the main street of Bethlehem, and down the road, where a sniper tower now sat, her husband had maintained an auto parts store. The closed garage adjacent to their home used to be her thriving interior decorating shop. When the wall was built through the middle of the town, not only did it affect the economy and force the eventual closure of many Palestinian businesses, but it separated families. Her brother and his children lived literally across the street; she could now only see him by driving twenty minutes around the border of the city. When the Israelis had started building the wall through Bethlehem six years ago, they had been under a 24-hour curfew. Now, while she can leave her home during the day, the town is virtually dead. Restricted in movement and commerce, they cannot rebuild their businesses in another section in town; they're struggling to make ends meet.

For six years, she has written letters to anyone she can think of: Israeli leaders, Palestinian groups, US Congressmen. No one has returned her emails.

Now, something that might surprise you: this woman and her family are Christians. Being Palestinian is immediately connected with being Muslim, but the Palestinian Christian community does exist and is marginalized along with the rest. Those kept out by the wall are not just Islamic fundamentalists, radical Muslims just waiting to blow themselves up. They are Muslim and Christian families living in provincial cities that rarely witness violence.

She asked us where we were from, and when we answered, she began to implore: the United States, she said, was the only country in the world that could help her, could change things for her and her family. As Israel is the largest recipient of US direct foreign assistance--that's $9 billion a year, but who's counting--the United States holds the greatest sway over Israeli domestic policy. We remained quiet, because, really, what could we say? She told us all of this with a tone of resignation. Not complacency, but resignation. After six years surrounded by a wall that has erased your culture and livelihood, I don't know where your hope would be.

"We pray to God," she said. "We pray to God every day. This is our strength."

Later, back in Jerusalem, I discussed what we saw with my friend. For me, experiencing the totality of the wall and hearing the woman's story had been a defining moment in the crystallization of my opinion on the conflict in Israel and Palestine. Before this trip, my view on the issue was rather ambivalent. I support--and still do--the right of Israel to defend itself and its citizens from violence and terrorism, and the fence was described to me as a way to keep suicide bombers and terrorists out of the heart of Israeli cities.

But tell me how the security of Israeli citizens is augmented by the construction of a wall through the middle of a city that contains no Israeli citizens? Does building a wall in Bethlehem keep bombers out of Tel Aviv? Does isolating and economically ruining Palestinian towns encourage peace and security, or does the oppression of the peaceful citizen engender resentment and anger? The planned route of the wall will take it through Hammad's home town of Deir Debwan to include the hill-top settlements, making it even harder to reach things like grocery stores and hospitals.

During my stay here in Egypt, I've witnessed some things that make me think, "Would this fly in the United States?" If the Smithsonian had a separate, $1 line for Americans while foreigners were forced to pay $50 for admission like at the Egyptian Museum, would this be acceptable? Absolutely not. You could count on various civil rights groups and national leaders to stand up and say something. So look at it this way: if the city of Los Angeles decided to build a 25 foot wall around Compton under the auspices of protecting Hollywood, do you think we would remain silent? No.

I'm coming away from my semester in Egypt with a greater appreciation of the tradition of American dissension, our frequent use of our right to free speech, and the virtual guarantee that somewhere someone exists to fight any injustice that arises. This courtesy, however, has not been extended to the people of Palestine. And it is our problem: with every billion the United States grants in aid to Israel, we are not simply condoning this; we are facilitating it. This puts us in an unique position to apply pressure to Israel, but that power goes largely unused.

The significance of the Palestinian issue goes largely unknown within the United States, but has widespread repercussions. Namely, many in the Arab world view as hypocritical America's espousal of democratic ideals paired with its continued unconditional support of Israel. I fervently believe in the values of democracy, and have supported the United States' democratizing missions throughout the world; it has made me disillusioned and ashamed to see that in some parts of the world we are supporting the very ideas we purport to stand against. And, more importantly, this issue at the root of a predominance of the hostility witnessed against the US within the Arab world, even in seemingly unrelated conflicts such as the insurgency in Iraq. It is seen as part of a greater malaise: the imperialism of the United States imposed under a facade of democracy.

I can't take it that far; I don't believe that the United States has colonialist designs on the Middle East. I don't think our promulgation of democracy is a farce. I do acknowledge the strategic benefits of democratization for the US, but choose to view it as part of a greater mission to foster freedom and liberty throughout the world. Additionally, I do acknowledge Israel as our ally and recognize the strategic reality of its existence. It has a right to defend itself. But it behooves us to think about whether the current state of affairs in Palestine and Israel is ethical, legal, democratic or even pragmatic. My personal answer to all of these questions is no; you must find your own.

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After seeing the wall, we were all a bit exhausted. We went to the Dheishe Refugee Camp, where we visited the Ibda’a Cultural Center. Unfortunately, it was too late to tour the camp, but we did listen to a speaker who was informative but not as compelling as the wall itself had been.

We went back to Deir Debwan, collapsed, and woke up to spend our last day touring Jericho. The lowest place on earth, it's renowned for being oppresively hot in the summer. Luckily, it had cooled off this day to about 80 degrees from the previous day's 103. We took a gondola up to the Monastery of Temptation, where Jesus is believed to have spent 40 days and 40 nights fasting in the wilderness. We ate lunch and ended our trip exploring the ruins of King Hirsham's Palace.

Our trip back was long, and a blur: a taxi from the palace to the Jericho bus station, a bus from Jericho to Jerusalem, a long bus from Jerusalem to Eilat, a taxi from Eilat to Taba, and a sketchy minibus at 4am from Taba to Cairo. 19 hours of straight travel later, I entered the dorms, vowing never to travel by bus again. It was back to the land of hassle and harangue.

Palestine was an incredible experience, one I can't really summarize to satisfaction.

But I tried, here and elsewhere. I wrote the following poem for my creative writing class, and I guess this is as good a way as any to end my post. Thanks for reading.

The House of the Butcher

Tell me where your bullet goes
When you shoot into the sky.
Does it disappear in clouds,
Or land between my thighs?
Does it hang like stuck in honey,
Like hollow-pointed flies?
And do you keep on walking
To let your revolution die?

Tell me where your people go
When you shoot into the sky.

Do they rise?

And tell me whose humanity
You hold up with this wall.
Are you building it towards heaven,
For freedom, after all?
Or do you stretch it on the plane of men,
Were only men so tall?
And what is in the concrete
You're so ready to install?

Tell me where your people go
Held up by this wall.

Or do they fall?

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See my all of my pictures in the photo albums on Facebook: Good Fences and Good Neighbors.