Demonstrations throughout the West Bank are increasing as Palestinians – with Israeli and international help – are trying to prevent construction of the so-called ‘security wall’. Erection of the wall is not only illegal by international law, and not only destroys access to farmland, schools, hospitals and jobs, but it also ultimately damages Israeli security by intensifying the bitterness and hatred against Israel. The wall is not only bad for Palestine, it is bad for Israel, too.
Yesterday saw several major demonstrations against the wall. I attended the women’s event at A-ram, organized by Palestinian Women Against the Wall, Bat Shalom, and international women. We marched the 3 km (almost 2 miles) from the A-ram to the Qalandia checkpoints, as we banged pots, pans, drums, blew whistles, and chanted slogans against the wall and for peace.
The army intelligently (and unusually) decided not to clash with the demonstrators, though four of us had an unpleasant run-in with soldiers who tried to prevent us from reaching A-Ram, and the busloads of participants had to use alternative routes and transport to get in.
Real violence was directed at demonstrators who tried to prevent the wall from going up near Ariel, and the Israeli media covered this.
If you could come here and see the wall transform villages and towns into ghettoes – civilian populations entirely surrounded by 30-foot high gray concrete slabs, watchtowers set into it every few yards in which soldiers train automatic rifles through narrow slits, you would be horrified. How can we Jews create ghettoes for another people? Our security is not served by ghettos, just as forcing Jews into ghettos never served any security needs. The people inside are not violent animals that must be penned.
Last night, I watched an old Palestinian woman surveying with horror her family’s olive trees that the army had cut down, shaving a swath on which the wall will rise. “Those stupid people,” she said, careful not to name them, “If not for their stupidity, we could have lived in peace with each other.”
Who is not a partner for peace?