Walls: Part Two

A blog post by Adam. Warning: This post is long and rambling without pictures.

"If you come here for four days you write a book. If you come here for four months you write an article. If you come here for four years you don't know what to write." I had heard similar quotes several times during grad school, but today was the first time I had heard a Palestinian share these words. Since we have been here just over three weeks I think I'm fully entitled to write a long and rambling article based on limited information and lots of assumptions. Welcome to our blog.

For the first time on our trip we saw the separation wall between Israel and the Palestinian Territories up close. We crossed the border into Bethlehem to meet with Zoughbi Zoughbi, director of Wi'am. Wi'am (www.alaslah.org) is a Palestinian conflict resolution center with a number of programs ranging from a women's empowerment program to a restorative justice project.  While we learned about the organization's activities and visited its offices, we spent most of our time talking about the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

Zoughbi talked about how the occupation had strangled the community, and how life had become increasingly difficult since the wall's construction.  He pointed out two different refugee camps within Bethlehem, which from the outside simply appeared to be part of the city.  He discussed the extreme unemployment, particularly among youth. Ultimately, the occupation was the root cause of all of Bethlehem's problems. Life was better when they had been part of Jordan, which made sense as we looked out the window of Wi'am where the wall and an Israeli guard tower stood just 100 feet away.

Then the conversation shifted to the "Arab Spring".  Zoughbi felt the "Arab Spring" had been a disaster for Arabs because Islamic groups had taken control in Libya, Egypt, and now in Syria.  He didn't trust Morsi, and seemed to think that Syria's Assad was better than the al Queda supported rebels now fighting for freedom in Syria.  A supporter of Fatah, he didn't feel Palestine had a future with Hamas. Suddenly Israel wasn't the only challenge facing Palestinians and the Arab world. Things were getting more complicated.

Zoughbi mentioned the various exchanges between Wi'am participants and people from other countries, but acknowledged that they had not recently come together with Israelis.  He said that given the unequal power dynamic of Israelis over Palestinians, meetings between the two groups only made sense in a neutral place, and he had no interest in taking Wi'am participants into Israel. Was everything Israel's fault if he wasn't willing to go into Israel? Then again, even if he did want travel to Israel, it was very difficult for him to get a permit. Another layer of complication. 

As things percolated in my head, I found myself still overwhelmed by the presence of the wall. The wall had certainly limited Palestinian mobility and cut off Palestinian's access to much of their land, but it was hard to deny the tremendous reduction in suicide bombings since the completion of the wall. I could feel the difference in Jerusalem from my last trip to Israel seven years ago - the presence of security guards at every coffee shop and store had disappeared; people now filled the streets, moving freely with little concern for safety. Zoughbi claimed the suicide bombings had decreased because of a change in tactics, not because of the wall. Was that really possible? What was the truth? Knowing we wanted to see and hear more, Zoughbi encouraged us to return to meet others in his community. We agreed to come back in two days.

In order to be able to return, however, we first needed to leave by crossing over the wall. Whereas the bus ride into Palestine had taken 45 minutes, the return trip was closer to an hour and half, as we waited in line with Palestinians at the border. We crossed the border and then boarded a bus in Israel only to find the entire bus stopped and searched once more 15 minutes later. With a bus full of Palestinians (who had already made it through the official border crossing) it was a long stop, as the young Israeli police officers meticulously examined everyone's documents. It's good we were on vacation and not in a rush. I can only imagine what it must be like to endure this on a daily basis in order to get to work, or possibly visit family members on opposite sides of the wall.  That is if you're even allowed to cross the wall...