The Wall

I'm taking a little turn from my stories from Egypt and returning to the land where I developed an interest in the Arabic culture: Palestine. Typically I veer from discussing the political situation in Palestine/Israel simply because my opinion has no weight in the matter; I have no interest in argument or government 'bashing' for the sake of it. The story that follows is not meant to hold any implications of my opinion of the political situation in this region of the world. This is a story of my experience.

Over four years ago I concluded a one and a half year period of my life that I spent as a teacher in East Jerusalem. Most of my interaction was with people of Palestinian origin, and I lived close to the region of the city which experienced a lot of conflict. I knew first hand what it was like to cross checkpoints, jump road blocks on foot, and be rerouted kilometers out of my way to travel what would have been a short distance. Just before I left, Israel started to build concrete borders around Palestinian neighborhoods in this region. I remember them being very large and very long, and the site of them made me think of the Berlin Wall. I saw several more pictures and heard many more stories, but they never quite effected my core; these borders were on the other side of town. Just after I left, I read in an American newspaper that they were beginning to build concrete borders in my former neighborhood. Could I have really felt the impact of this from so far away?

I returned to Jerusalem for the first time since I left, and stayed in the same neighborhood on the opposite side of the checkpoint. Immediately I noticed the change. Small barriers with barbed wire (similar to the ones we used to jump over in the past) were placed right down the middle of the road where the checkpoint is separating one side of the road from the other. Perplexed, I never really found out how one could actually get to the other side of the road. These barriers extended a hundred meters or so, and then...there it was. I saw it for the first time. It was large and gray and wound up into the hills of the region dividing it into sections like the materialized lines on a map which separate countries, states, counties, or villages. The first glance was almost surreal. All I wanted at that time was my camera. Still, this did not completely settle in my mind the reality of the situation.

The other evening the bus I was riding drove past my street, and I had to disembark slightly further up the road from where I was used to getting off. As I got down I looked right in front of me to see that huge, gray structure. I looked to my left and watched the bus depart through what seemed to be a large door in the road with barbed wire above it. This was the only entrance into the adjacent neighborhood and could obviously be opened or closed shut. I walked a bit farther up the street toward the place where I was staying, and after making a turn I had to walk right next to it. This is when the reality of the situation hit me. There it stood, four times my size in height, as permanent as one's bone structure, with an intricately, intertwined nest of barbed wire and fence at the top...the Wall.

One rhetorical question with a sarcastic overtone came to mind as I gazed up at this massive structure which looked as if it would never end: are the people on the other side of this Wall animals? I was reminded of the movie Jurassic Park where they had to put a large wall around the area where the dinosaurs lived. As I continued to walk by it, I remembered the words of a random man who had just prior to this given me directions. He said gidar. That's the Arabic word for it...Wall. I continued to repeat this word to myself. I will never again forget it. For a moment, fear flooded into my heart as I looked upon the Wall. I can only image how fearful the people were when it was being built and how fearful they are now as they must look on it every day. I continued to walk beside the Wall and remembered that one of my students lives in region on the other side of it. I looked in the direction of where his house should be, and I almost started to cry. He is over there on the other side. I turned to corner but continued to look back on it. It closed me off so completely from what was on the other side that it seemed almost like it was the end of the universe. But I know it wasn't. It was a Wall.