Seperation Wall

Hello again!

On Friday morning, we were able to have a special "field trip" (it was more like an outing) with Danny Seidemann, who is originally from New York, but moved to the State of Israel in the 70s or 80s I believe and is now an attorney and is very well-versed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has briefed American Presidents and other foreign dignitaries on the conflict when they come to help with peace talks, and he was commissioned by the CIA to make maps of the current borders of Jerusalem. So he is very knowledgeable and we were lucky to hear his thoughts on the conflict. He spoke to us for about an hour at the JC and then we all got on busses and went to three different locations to keep talking about the conflict.

This is Danny teaching us

At the Jerusalem overlook--we discussed the boundaries of Jerusalem and the current political standing of this city, which is an exception to the rule when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to the Israeli government, the whole city is part of the State of Israel. According to Palestinians, West Jerusalem is part of Israel but East Jerusalem is occupied territory. Internationally, the status of Jerusalem is "to be determined"

Next, we went to a part of the Separation Wall. The wall was built beginning in 2002, and is still not completed (although in most places it is). The wall was put up as a barrier between the West Bank and the State of Israel by Israel to protect against suicide bombers and other violent acts that were becoming a serious problem. The wall is highly controversial, obviously. It does "protect" against violence, but it is by no means a cure to the conflict. 

Also, the wall cuts off the West Bank from Israel pretty completely. In places like this one, the wall divides a community in half. The wall goes across a main road, cutting the town in half. The children on the West Bank side of the road would have to drive over 2 or 3 hours to get to a school on the Israel side, whereas before the wall was built it was a 5 minute walk. In many places, farmers homes are on one side of the wall and their farmland is on the other. Hospitals that were once a few minutes away are now several hours drive away. There are checkpoints, but they are scattered so that anywhere you want to go is going to be a long drive, and it is difficult to get through the checkpoints (especially if you are a Palestinian who lives in the West Bank). 

This gives you an idea of how high the wall is--it has barbed wire at the top, and many places on the wall have graffiti (I have some pictures of the graffiti below on this post). The wall is pretty heavily protected. 

Sidenote: When we were in Bethlehem last week, we saw some really cool graffiti. I got several postcards that showcase graffiti on the wall from the British street artist Banksy. You may have heard of him--he is one of my favorite artists, his work is really incredible. You should probably google image search him. If you are interested, this is the link to his Wikipedia page.

I pulled this image off the internet, but this is one of the pieces we saw in Bethlehem (is it sad that seeing this in person was one of my highlights of that field trip? haha, our bus drove past it and my friend Sawyer and I were so pumped!) [end sidenote]

another sidenote:

when we were coming home from our field trip to Neot Kedumim, we were driving past a part of the wall and we saw three boys climbing over the wall. We saw them on top (coming from the West Bank side), they dropped a rope through a hole in the barbed wire. Two of them dropped down with a duffel bag. Then we heard lights from the cops, so the third quickly brought the rope up and went back down the West Bank side. The two guys (teenager to early 20s) just walked down the street like nothing happened and the cops went right past them and didn't stop them. It was crazy!!! We asked our professors about it later, and apparently because it is so difficult to get work in the West Bank, people will sneak over the wall all the time (unless you have proper paperwork you can't get out of the West Bank) to get work in Israel for as long as possible. [end other sidenote]

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so complicated on both sides. I am thankful that I have a much better understanding of it from a semester worth of classes discussing these issues. I don't know how it would be possible for someone to "choose" a side. 

The final stop was a lookout near the JC. Behind Danny Seidemann and my classmates you can see the town of Maale Adumim and some empty land (Iwan). One of the biggest issues in coming up with a solution is the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Much of the West Bank is occupied by Israeli troops, and if you look at a map of the West Bank, it looks like swiss cheese. There are Israeli settlements all over--they are kindof like suburbs of the state of Israel, and the civilian occupants typically live there for economic reasons rather than ideological reasons. Arguably the most plausible way that this conflict could be resolved is with a two state solution, which would mean basically dividing the land and creating two separate countries of Israel and Palestine. One of the current problems with this is swapping land to ensure both entities get land that they are happy with, and that the land is connected enough that the two could function independently. However, the Israeli settlements in the West Bank make that difficult because they are little pockets of Israeli land in Palestine. Maale Adumim (which is in the picture) is an issue because it is one of these settlements. Netanyahu is currently in favor of developing the land between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim (its called Iwan) to make that whole area Israel. If that happens, it is likely that land swaps with Palestine to create a two-state solution would be nearly impossible. This area of land is a very sensitive issue. The Palestinians don't want to negotiate until the Israelis stop settlement development. According to Danny, the window of time for a two-state solution (which he believes to be the only peaceful solution possible) is only 1-3 years. He believes that if settlements continue to develop and peace talks are not initiated in the next few years, there will be a period of bloodshed and there won't be another opportunity for peace for 10 or so years...

I simplified that as much as possible--it is definitely more complex, and I am the first to admit that I am not an expert on this subject, but I definitely have learned way more this semester than I have ever known before. 

This was a really interesting outing, probably one of my favorites this semester.

-E