I know, and maybe many readers have heard of it as well, Jewish-Palestinian couples usually always have a hard time, and few succeed to stay together. Pressure from our social environment and from our families are too often too big. Right a few days ago I spoke with a young man in Jerusalem about his story with a Jewish girl – that lasted a year until she gave in to her family pressuring her. There are studies made about the matter.

Yet, what I’m going through is surely one of the toughest stories. I don’t know yet how long our love-story will be allowed to last, but both of know that we have no future – absolutely none. We could (theoretically) stay together – but ONLY theoretically. The pressures we would have to resist would be much too big. Especially for him.

As it often happens, we met by accident and didn’t expect to fall in love at all – as we both know that the differences in our cultures, our background and our surroundings are way too big. But it happened nevertheless.

I’m Israeli having immigrated a long time ago from somewhere in Europe. He – I won’t say much about him, for obvious reasons – was born and grew up in the West Bank. I met him at the house of a common friend, in a place where I wasn’t supposed to be at all – according to the restrictions I am supposed to follow. But as I said before, I don’t care much about these inhuman and senseless restrictions of Area A, B, C. In fact, I don’t think they have any real legal basis – they are based on a military order and, what does it mean to divide a country into areas where one is allowed or not allowed to go? Basically I think that “legally” speaking all this is not more than a joke.

The Wall is a bit less “a joke”. To cross it without a permit when you’re Palestinian can be very costly. It can be a death sentence, if you’re caught on the fact and the Border Policeman is in a mood to shoot at you. It can simply cost you some kicks from some BP’s who catch you (and are in “good mood”) and a lift back to the other side of the Wall – to “your” side = to the West Bank. Or it can cost you month or years of prison, depending if you have been caught before and in which situation you are caught again.

Nevertheless, hundreds of Palestinians (maybe thousands, I don’t know the statistics about this) cross the Wall/Fence all the time to come to work in Israel. There is little work in Palestine, and even if the “illegal workers” will work here (= in Israel) in conditions that equal slavery and for a salary that seems unbelievably low to any Israeli – it’s still worth the risk for many.

So I had met him in forbidden territory for me. We had merely exchanged a few words about a common interest. That had been IT. But a few month later I suddenly got a phone call from him telling me that he was here in Jerusalem, working – illegally – and that he would like to meet me, simply because he didn’t know anyone else in Jerusalem, and then there was our common interest, about which it was worth to speak.

I took me a while to find the right time to meet him, also because he was very limited in his movements… He works 12 hours a day for a salary that was 4 times lower than the minimum salary legal for Israelis, without even counting the fact that 12 hours/day 7 days a week isn’t legal for Israelis either. And, most of all, he wasn’t supposed to leave his place of work AT ALL, the risk of being controlled routinely for “the color” of his ID (a blue ID being an Israeli ID, a green ID being a Palestinian ID and the holder needs to have a permit for being on Israeli territory) card being very high.

Border Police routinely controls ID’s in East Jerusalem’s public transport, in the streets of East Jerusalem, and in some places in West Jerusalem known for being frequented by “Arabs”, like Jaffa Rd. and it’s surroundings. Anyway – “Arabs” = Palestinians with Israeli citizenship or, in Jerusalem, with the “blue” ID and the special status of residents of Jerusalem are routinely stopped and controlled. Something that NEVER happens to Jewish Israelis.

Nevertheless, he is young and unable to stay for weeks and month confined in a house. So he took the risk to meet me in a place that we thought of as relatively safe. We met several times, our common interest guiding us to deep discussions until… well, one day, we discovered that we were attracted to each other and in love…

It would be a wonderful love-story which has been ongoing now for more than half a year – if he wasn’t here without a permit. We are bold, courageous – or one could say: “crazy” – once a week (in general) he comes to my flat where he stays for 24 hours, having succeed to get “one day off per week” from his employer (e.g. slavemaster).

Risk is everywhere. His employer risks a large fine for employing Palestinians without permit. I already spoke about the risks he exposes himself to. And I too, I risk a huge fine, maybe jail, if he was caught in my house. I’m sure that not many do what we are doing. The risks are just too high – normally. But unfortunately we really love each other and can’t just “forget” and stay away from each other.

And there seems to be no solution for us. God only knows how our love-story will end. Because we both know it is bound to end somehow.

While I am relatively free (except for the very serious legal troubles I risk), he is not. If he returns to the West Bank our relation is finished. He’d automatically return to his family and not only his family (which in Palestinian society comprises not only father, mother and siblings, but tons of cousins, uncles and the like as well) wouldn’t approve of our relation and force him to leave me, it is also illegal in Palestine for unmarried couples to meet. – Palestine is not Israel and is far from being Europe, where I grew up and which constitutes my cultural background – and marriage is excluded in advance by the pressure from his family.

You’re thinking of West Side Story or Romeo and Juliette? – One of my friends made this reference once in hearing our story. To be true, it doesn’t even make me smile – because actually it’s very close to such literature. It doesn’t make me smile because THIS is not literature, but my life.

The only solution would be that he finds work WITH permit – which is next to impossible under the present government and policies.

So no solution?
I don’t know. Truly, sometimes I hope for a miracle.
I often imagine that they (= the police, the Border Police) finds us. I know what will happen to him – 3 month of military jail at the least. And for me? I don’t really know – until now I did not have the courage to try to find out what exactly I risk, I just know that it’s much.

I imagine myself in court. My crime: having given shelter to a Palestinian without permit = automatically a terror-suspect. Having given shelter to an enemy. I have no illusions. The fact that he couldn’t kill a fly wouldn’t count AT ALL, because the role of these laws, as well as the role of the Separation Fence/Wall is not to prevent terror (as it is officially pretended), but to keep Palestinians out of Israel. My crime therefore is treason.

Being in love and wanting to live with a Palestinian is treason to the Jewish Israel.
And there aren’t many more serious crimes in this country – if at all…

First speaker was a ‘Kadima’ MP- he told us that there is a leadership problem, that could be also seen in the recent Kfir unit events (where recently a group of religious soldiers declared they would not evacuate settlements), a problem of authority, he explained that there was a problem with education- that the Zionism and IDF values (this might seem odd to some, but the IDF is regarded as a value by much of Israeli society) must be taught from kindergarten, and that all citizen must serve, either in military or civilian service; Next came the head of the National Student Organization, telling us their of the official position on the subject is that service should be mandatory for all citizen (though, it already is- the army itself is the body that exempts people from service) and that whoever fails to serve “[…]should be dealt with by the state”. My friend spoke last- extremely brave, in front of an extremely aggressive crowd who at times cut the talk off. Even though this talk was clearly the minorities voice (on the subject) it could not be tolerated, people in the crowd felt it as a personal attack, as voices that could not be given a place, a reaction that was a sign to what would come next. I have decided not to write more on New-Profile, or the talk, at this point but more will be available in an interview soon.
I’m writing this not to give some of these ideas more space than they already have, but so as to share what happened during the questions session-
During the questions a Israeli-citizen-Palestinian student was allowed to ask a question- ‘I am scared- I sit here and listen to you and I’m scared. First I hear my baby son will soon have to learn the Zionist and IDF “values” already in kindergarten, then, that he will have to “serve”— or be dealt with by the state. I am a citizen, an equal in a democratic state, and what you say scares me. I want equality’. This seems to me a straight forward question- regarding the right of a minority in a so-called democratic state not to have the majorities values and institutions forced upon them; but the MPs answer was more surprising ‘I will not apologize for my sovereignty. What you say is undermining my sovereignty’. It was surprising to the effect that rarely do Israeli representatives openly react to the demand of Israeli-citizen-Palestinians for equality as contradictory to Jewish sovereignty (as drawn up in the Israeli declaration of independence)- rarely is it openly-acknowledged that sovereignty means, de-facto, structure inequality.

It is so difficult sitting through such an occasion for me- I become immensely tense, like I often do in class when I have time to over-think a reaction and it starts boiling, and I start sweating. Here I can’t even formulate words, it’s a swelling of rage, speechless. Later I go through all the things I should have said. I write ideas, combinations of fragments going through my mind as it becomes responsive again- but this is not the place. What I feel so strongly now is how undisguised it all is, how clear, how open the hostility- the minorities voices cannot be tolerated, and are responded to as a threat, either shouts, jeers, a compulsive noise to blurt it out, or calm and direct re-utterance of the authority, of the position of power- these same reactions to both my friend and the Palestinian student, only in different ways. And at the same time how transparent this reaction is to most of the crowd, how natural, the inability see IT, even while it’s happening before their eyes, and what it means.

*After the first two speakers came someone from ‘Yesh Gvul’ who talked about the limits of obedience, and Israeli war crimes; then came someone from “Im Tirtsu” (‘If you want’- reference to Hertzel’s known words) who explained how during the attack on Gaza (now a year ago) while leftists were marching against the army, ‘Im Tirtsu’ was marching for the operation, sending soldiers gift-boxes, how they arrive at Bilin and Ni’ilin regularly to support soldiers “attacked” by leftist anarchists, and how Israeli authorities should start using administrative detention against leftists; next was a from an organization calling for ‘equal share of the burden’, started by saying her son (in reference to the comments by the speaker from Yesh Gvul) ‘[…] is a soldier, I have a war criminal, I’m proud of being the mother to a war criminal— because, of course, he isn’t a war criminal’ (not surprisingly, the female speaker assumes the role, not of the “expert” [or activist], but of the mother).

Last week I took part in the march in Tel-Aviv against the siege on Gaza, remembering, one year after, Israel’s brutal attack on it. On the way to Rabin square, on the bus, we could only recognize one other marcher on her way. There, my mother was surprised at how little people had arrived (a few hundred), only 3-weeks after the human rights march from the same point A to the same point B (but, in different courses). Later I would call the IPS [Israeli Prison Service] minibus, already there ready for coming arrests (that never came), ‘the IPS taxi’ accidentally- marches always turn my head to muck, to ooze, I think it’s the combination of rhythms- the rhythmic shouting, stepping, greeting. Its Saturday evening and we are walking through deserted streets- deserted because of us, only some ghosts watching from windows and balconies, some clerks in open shops, devoid of customers.
We arrive at the area in front of the Tel-Aviv museum. I am one of the first to enter the big square, I walked up ahead, and the acoustic system put there already begins chanting, and it echoes from the close buildings. I realize how odd a spot this is- on the one side the museum, on another a big library—on the other twoTel-Aviv court and a major army base, in it most evidently the impressive new building built for the Chief of General Staff (the highest ranking Israeli general).

During the demonstration an Israeli-citizen-Palestinian speaker talked, arguing a point that could be understood in two ways- either as saying that Israeli [Jewish] left MUST, if its support for Palestine is sincere, support Hamas as the elected leadership of the people and support its path of action vis-a-vi Israeli oppression; or as saying the same left must support Hamas as the chosen leadership against Israeli undermining of Palestinian popular chose and right to elect its officials.

Even these two interpretations of what said can be understood in different ways (for instance- the first could mean that Israeli Jewish activists and supporters of the opposition cannot, morally, assume a position wherein they take claim on the shape of Palestinian resistance). I am interested in hearing your opinions regarding these subjects, and would be happy to hear them in your comments.

A day in my life – thoughts on non-violent Jewish resistance

A day in my life – thoughts on non-violent Jewish resistance I take the Egged bus to my university. The only bus line which connects my city and Tel-Aviv. Egged runs bus lines in settlements in the West Bank and is thereby profiting from the military occupation of Palestinian territories. When I hand the bus driver the 10 shekel fee to Tel-Aviv I think of the ways in which I am forced to cooperate with this occupation even in such a tiny and daily transaction. I enter the halls of the Humanities Faculty in which an artifact that was uncovered in the Gaza strip after ’67 is displayed. The expeditions in which such artifacts as this one were excavated honor a university benefiting from what its archeologists have stolen. Shouldn’t these be in a free Palestinian university?

I walk up the steps and pass by the “Middle Eastern and African Studies” department, whose chair, considered all knowledgeable about “our neighbors,” still counsels the Israeli military intelligence as an ex-officer. I once made the mistake of going to one of
his lectures in which he informed us gravely that there was no Palestinian nation when the Zionists came here. Was there a Jewish nation when the Zionists came here? I left before I could ask. I continue to the Sourasky library where students still discover challenging writings on Jewish identity and politics or are moved reading accounts of Holocaust survivors reminding them of people, similar to you and I, who have been forgotten even by those who assume to follow them. The same library where they will find Palestinian novels and learn of other kinds of destruction and expulsion or enter, hesitantly, Arabic spaces and cultures, worlds so close to where they have been born though they are forced to remain distant from them in the name of their “security.” I look at the books wondering all the while if my university purchased them or other research materials through its connections with or donations from the members of the Tel-Aviv University Business–Academic Club. One such member of the 2009 Club is EDS (Electronic Data Systems) Israel. I think of Palestinian workers who have to undergo fingerprint recognition and are controlled by this company’s biometric “inventions” or stopped at a checkpoint to be looked down on by an Israeli reserve soldier who was yesterday sitting beside me in class and tomorrow will ask for my notes. Should I give them to this soldier? Knowing he will find the little comments on the margins written in haste in moments of inspiration when learning about colonialism and orientalism? Yes, we have such classes as well. Tel-Aviv University is home to many critical thinkers and writers who are increasingly being censored.

I walk past the faculty members’ club, aware that this beautiful house once belonged to a family, Abu Kheel. There was once a Palestinian village here, north of Yaffa city. Contrary to the myth of the barren land to which a people without a home came, Yaffa
was once a vibrant place and indeed still is but one has to know where to look. Yet the people who live here are constantly being harassed by the Tel Aviv-Yaffo Municipality officials causing them to move inwards to Ramle and Lyd, so that richer and whiter people may renovate the Palestinian local houses, raise the prices and gentrify the area. This usually happens following the so-called “illegal extensions” that growing families add to their houses which are subsequently demolished even though permits for building in Yaffa are scarce unless you are Jewish or well-off. We are all witnesses to the creation and re-creation of (internal) refugees. Indeed the occupation is always and constantly here and not, as some would like to think, over and beyond the by now meaningless Green Line. The Separation Wall and the unyielding siege on Gaza have made it all the more and painfully clear that the occupation has come to define the existence of all who live here but my Jewish hands are covered with its blood. How to resist when everything I touch is stained? I first must recognize where I am a participant, even if involuntary profiteer, as I sit on the green lawns of my campus grounds and know that in the Middle East someone could have put this water to better use and then ask myself – who does this water belong to in the first place? As I go to work and receive payment from a company which has offices in a settlement where it was cheaper to set them up and where Palestinian workers no doubt are being exploited, unprotected by the laws of minimum wage which our government bestows only upon the privileged citizens. As I decide where to go for holiday and am told by my friends how nice and inexpensive it is now to rent a place for the weekend on the Golan Heights. As I drink freshly squeezed orange juice, exported to the world without mention of where the fruit comes from – occupied land. As I drive on apartheid roads built on more stolen land because it will shorten the way and I am in a hurry to a meeting in Jerusalem.

And once I realize that even as I try to resist the occupation has engulfed everything, I understand that I am faced with a choice. Should I use my privileges as a Jewish citizen of Israel? As a Jewish anti-apartheid and a peace activist in this country, I can say and do certain things -necessary things – which would place me in danger, in prison, in the graveyard if I were Palestinian. Yet, I worry – if I do this for long, will I discover that the methods are stronger than the aims? Will I not actually deepen the divide between myself and fellow Palestinians based on the very privileges I still enjoy? I may try to ignore or disregard or justify my use of them but do they not grow in the faces of those I work with? Unlike international activists I cannot be IN solidarity with Palestinians for I myself am the perpetrator of the crimes committed against them. Or am I?

I too was born into and am a product of a Zionist-separationist system and so I too am part of the struggle. Indeed it is also MY struggle, to be liberated from the horrifying task of oppressing others and so I should not wait to be asked to join. Yet when I join, how do I do so not from an imposing position? How do I shed away that which I have that others do not, that which they are deprived of so that I may continue to prosper on their backs? As a Jewish person living here should I “give up” and speak out against the quotidian “normalities” which help fuel the occupation by my very collaboration and tacit cooperation? Sometimes I cannot because it would mean practically ceasing to live/function. Other times I am trapped as the occupation has entered even the most
private and intimate of spaces, as when my beloved brother came home in his uniform and my mother asked me to help her wash it and hang it out to dry. Nonetheless, I simply CANNOT divest from the occupation as long as I help to maintain it and as long as I benefit from the power it has given me individually as well as collectively, even as I am critical of it. By attempting to do this I contribute to breaking away with static binaries which have placed me on a certain side of the walls the Israeli government builds even when I oppose the building of these walls. By exposing and refusing to go along with the binary and aggressive “normalities” that allow the occupation to continue I can take part in the struggle in a political, non-violent form of Jewish resistance.

Yet as I reach the conclusion of these thoughts I find I have fallen trap into the very dichotomies which I claim separate us from each other by imposing an oppressive order of different yet connected occupations. Dichotomies that coerce us into being only Jewish as opposed to Palestinian, or Palestinian of ’48 as opposed to Palestinian of ’67 and these as opposed to Refugees and then Jerusalemite as opposed to West Banker as opposed to Gazan etc. It is not “simply” the occupation which we must resist but rather a whole regime of divisions set in place treating the people of one land differently based on their ethnicity or race. I end with the understanding that I am looking to re-define my place here. Although I take responsibility for my role in maintaining oppression, I am more than “the occupier” and even more than someone resisting being one. As a person struggling for justice and for the end of (the) occupation(s) I too can hope for liberation by re-thinking and re-imagining myself and my place here. I join the struggle then, also because of the personal silencing I experience on account of my beliefs and because of the shared pain born out of friendships with people I hold dear who pay heavy prices for their actions and stands; although not considered “the chosen people” they are my people nonetheless.

R. B. Green
May 2009

I thought that it was quite similar, once back in Germany, when we had nowhere to go, when we did not even want to leave, because this was our country after all… The place we had always been, at least since generations. Why should we go? And to where? Nobody would take us in. And who would take the Palestinians in if they suddenly had enough and wanted to leave? But no, why should they? They have always lived here, since generations and generations, this was their land, and they loved it – not “we,” the Jews.

Now that I know a little more about Palestine and Palestinians, their history, their culture, their music, art and poetry I realized that what Israelis call “attachment to the land” is very superficial. I don’t think that many Israelis really “love” this country with its history, with its colors, its vegetation, and its way of life. Some surely do. But most of them try to “import” European or American culture to the Middle East, in order to feel that they belong. Belong, not to this land and its native culture, but to a society and way of life from far away, that has no roots in this land, imported, made in America, cheap, loud, floating without attachment to anything from here.

But in fact, I want to tell about something else, something completely different. There I was in Bus #18 from Jerusalem to Ramallah and, as it often happens, something (who knows what, and by the way: who cares?) has once again disturbed the trip. We had to leave the busses regular route to finally be stopped some 150/200 meters away from Qalandia – the Israeli checkpoint (literally “barrier”) right in the middle of Palestinian neighborhoods and villages… without the Wall, Jerusalem and Ramallah would soon be linked in a continuous urban territory… It’s almost like this already now, but the Wall, like in Berlin, separates Palestinians from other Palestinians, just like the Berlin Wall separated Germans of the West from Germans of the East.

So, here we are. No choice. I have to take my bags, climb out of the bus, and walk. The checkpoint seems to be open, people can walk through, just not drive through. Why? No idea. No reason anywhere to see. Nothing visible. The road from where the police officer stopped the bus to the checkpoint is completely empty, except for people walking on it, people who were in previous busses and had to walk as well.

Photo of the middle of the road we had to walk, looking back to where the busses had to stop and the cars were turned away... to where?

I looked at the police officer. Just one guy. Stops the traffic of hundreds of returning cars. Cars and busses full of people returning home from work, tired, fed up, once again.. just something to annoy everyone, daily routine… The policeman shouts (in Hebrew) at the Palestinian bus driver that he couldn’t stop where he had stopped, that he should drive further away, not to block the traffic. I think: What? We should walk even further? Why at all do we have to walk? Why do you (pretentious guy, superior ‘race’) have to shout in Hebrew; are Palestinians supposed to understand you?!

Well, in fact, very often they have no choice. Understand or not, they are told in Hebrew what to do or not to do. Then they try to guess, just to be shouted at a little more in Hebrew. (Arabs! Idiots! I tell him to step back and he doesn’t understand…) usually these so-called soldiers at the checkpoint are some 17-18 year old brats, never heard of manners or politeness. And who needs to be polite when you have a gun?

Well, to their credit must be said that most of the time they know some basic Arabic, just for the job… like to shout: Wakhad, Wakhad (one, one) to signify the people waiting in the endless queue that they shouldn’t push and try to go 2 by 2 through the turning door of iron bars that is barely big enough for one person with a normal bag. Some women have kids. How to get them through? Wakhad, Wakhad…

Yeah, tell that to your 4 year old who doesn’t want to leave mom when she has to squeeze through with the baby and a bag… But who cares? Surely not the Israeli brat in uniform who sits comfortably and courageously behind bullet proof widows, in a kind of cell that looks like a highly isolated room in a laboratory where they deal with hazardous biological material. Viruses, Microbes, bugs – whatever… disgusting stuff for sure. The cell is really air and bullet proof, no danger that the brats inside get contaminated from outside. Outside are we, Palestinians and crazy Israelis like me, some Internationals. Disgusting, dangerous bugs, microbes… who knows what? Better be safe in the isolated box and shout at these bugs not to push… Wakhad, wakhad… Don’t think you would be allowed to come 2 by 2. WE have the guns – WE decide what YOU do! You just shut up and don’t reply!

From the middle of the road looking towards the checkpoint

So I walk. Tired, angry, frustrated. I cannot do anything. Any complaint will lead to some annoyance or worse, to punishment, if the complainant should be Palestinian. But Palestinians know better than to complain. To them what happens here is nothing special, just every day routine, this way or another. Why get angry? Useless! Nobody will care. Your bags are heavy; you’re a bit sick and can’t walk so well. Well, who cares? Walk or stay here – just choose! As usual I have three bags, heavy this time, but guess what? If I want to cross and go to Ramallah as I had planned… just shut up and walk. Don’t complain. Useless. Don’t get angry. Useless as well. And besides – really, this is NOTHING, compared to when you have to get home through teargas canisters shot around you, when you have to wait 3 hours because the checkpoint is completely closed, or even be sent back because for some reasons the checkpoint won’t open so soon, so better go and find some place to stay overnight.

Useless. I just walk. Follow the others. My bus ticket is lost, like those of all the other passengers of all the busses that are stopped, for no apparent reason, 200 meters away from the checkpoint.

We walk through the checkpoint. On the Israeli side the cars on the regular road are stopped at a little distance, on the Palestinian side the cars stand at the checkpoint and behind… An endless queue. In the middle of all, an ambulance. Just one car behind the empty space where it could drive and bring the patient to the hospital. But no. Some soldier shouts (in Hebrew) at the ambulance that they had better leave, there is no way through, maybe another way (at least 10 km away), but they are stuck between the cars and cannot go anyway. A Palestinian nurse shouts back at the soldier that there is someone sick in the ambulance and that they must get through. But the soldier doesn’t care. No way through. Either you turn back or you wait. The ambulance waits. I take a picture. I’m not sure, but I feel that the shouting of the soldier now is turned to me. This time he shouts in Arabic, but I don’t understand, and I don’t care. I know that (as an Israeli) I’m allowed to take pictures there, I know that the soldiers think I’m not, but I just don’t care. If they stop me, we’ll see. For now I just continue my way.

The ambulance attempting to reach a hospital in Jerusalem.

Now I need to take a taxi to continue my trip from Qalandia to Ramallah. If everything had been normal, I would already be there, sitting in front of a cup of coffee, talking with my friend. Now I’m late, we won’t be able to do what we planned to do. Well, this is only the first meeting of many planned. We’ll just talk. Next week I’ll try to come earlier, before everyone comes home from work. Maybe next time things go smoothly and I will not be late.

I will be the first to confess that I lived a pretty sheltered live. I am the only daughter of a upper middle class academic family, and despite living in a conflict area- I’ve been lucky then the majority of the people that live here. I guess because of that I always had problems to step out of my comfort zone, I am not a naturally brave or spontaneous person- that’s way my visit to Bethlehem a week ago was such a surprise.
About a month ago Mazin Qumsiyeh (http://qumsiyeh.org) left a massage on Mepeace, inviting people to visit him in Bethlehem , I decided to jump on the opportunity- and try and see the situation in the ‘other‘ side. Of course it took me about a month to have the courage to finally call a friend from Me peace , and go on a daily visit to Bethlehem.
Now I can’t say it was an easy step to make- there is a lot of fear when it comes to a visit like that. Both sides has been separated for so long- that most of us only get the bad picture when it comes to the other side- our leaders have been so busy demonizing the other side, that most Israeli and Palestinians only met each other on bad circumstances. My automatic reaction to the West Bank cities is a negative one- mainly of fear. I still have memories of the 2nd intefada, and they are not very pleasant.
But I decided to go for it, and tighter with my friend Eva- we ventured forward 10 minutes from my house into unknown territory.
I won’t write everything we saw, some stuff affected me more some stuff less.
But I must say that the most important thing for me- and what influenced me the most (and helped changed my prospective on the conflict) is seeing the Wall. How it cuts people live, how it prevented people from living in their houses (cause they are behind the wall)… but what struck me the most is the graffiti written all over the wall- how the wall became a a place to vent your fastrations , and your artistic ambitions… how the wall became one big peace of art- and a beautiful one… very similar to the Berlin wall…
Thankfully all walls must fall- and I hope this one will as well… and soon!!!

The demonstration starts in the very center of West Jerusalem, goes trough the most important shopping roads, then turns (near the Old City) onto “Road Number 1″ which is in fact the Green Line inside of Jerusalem… While we go we can see West Jerusalem on the left and East Jerusalem on the right of the big road…

Signs:
“Enough with settlements in East Jerusalem” = the first, big one held by 2 people
“Enough with settlements in Sheikh Jarrakh”
“Nir Barakat (the mayor of Jerusalem): How many children have you made homeless?”

The slogans we shouted were:
“End the Occupation” (Dai la-kibboush)
“Sheikh Jarrakh is Falasteen, evacuate the settlers” (Sheikh Jarrakh hee falasteen, lefanot et hamitnachl’im)
“Occupation is terror, denial doesn’t help”
“Jews and Arabs against house demolitions”

Some times walking the Jerusalem malcha shopping mall, you sort of feel like you live in Isaiah vision of the “end of days”. Ultra orthodox Jew, sitting on a bench next to a scholar Jewish girl, Hyjab covered Arab woman shopping for clothes in Israeli clothing chains while Christian Priests are escorting disabled children around the mall. Children of every color and nationality playing in the children designated area- while their parents watch them. Where workers in the stores are Arab and Jews- and they get along with each others.

It almost seems like the conflict and the hate is forgotten- here is a place where everyone lives in peace, where everyone can get along… all wrapped up in a neat little capitalist package.

But it is all deception…

We start with the most simple fact, the mall itself is a symbol of the conflict. A fancy big mall built on lands that was once Arab- Malcha was an Arab village that was attacked by the Irgun in the 1948 war. After a terrible battle with casualties from both sides, the village was conquered- the original villagers flew and their houses, and new Jewish residents moved in. In the 1990’s a new upscale neighborhood was built next to the old Arab village. But unlike other cases, the resident (which I am one of them) cannot fully ignore the history of the place- the village is still there, including the mosque, and still inhabited (by Jewish resident).

You also can’t really ignore that fact that a 10 minutes ride from there, there is a wall and beyond that you have Bethlehem, Bet Jalla and similar West Bank cities. The residents of those cities cannot go shopping in this mall- the Arabs who shop there come from inside Jerusalem, and amazingly enough also from Jordan… but someone from the West Bank cannot go there.

You cannot ignore the fact that signs of racism are always there (and I go there a lot- I should know). From the guard that makes racist comments to Arab woman when they enter the mall… to the occasional violent fights between teenage Jews and Arabs. And the one simple fact- now it relatively quite in Jerusalem, once things will no longer be quite, the this capitalist Utopia won’t be the same anymore.

But for now, when I go to the mall, I try to ignore all of those issue and for a short time fell a bit like I’m in the end of days utopia- granted not the one envisioned by the prophets- but one more fitting to this day and age.

Cross-posted from my personal blog.