Bethelem & the Conflict

Crossing into Bethlehem today we entered the West Bank an area of particular violence in the past. In order to get there we had to cross into Palestinian territory which means that we had to pass through the wall that the Israeli government has built as a border between them and the Palestinian people. A thirty foot wall with towers, barbed wire, and guards. I had never seen anything like it. It seemed so unreal. On the inside of Palestinian territory the art work (or graffiti) on the wall depicted just how they felt about that wall. A dove being eaten by a lion, a puppet Pinocchio with an enormously long nose, the words “to exist is to resist” and particularly poignant for me: a dove (symbol of peace) in a bullet proof vest with a target on it. I didn’t know that this sort of thing happened today. Didn’t this end with the Berlin wall? Adnan, our Muslim teacher, is from Bethlehem. In order to teach us, he has special permission to pass through this wall but even then, there was a day that he just didn’t show up. They had a lock down of their own. The next day in class he explained what had happened. He pulled out the document that enabled him to leave. He held it up and said, “Is this freedom? I think not” I can’t imagine not being allowed to leave a city. I think also of Sharif our guide in Egypt whose greatest desire was to travel but he couldn’t not because he was Arab. Restrictions, boundaries, permission. On the other hand, since the wall has been placed there the daily terrorism problems in Israel have lessened dramatically. It is the only means that Israel has for their own protection against violent and unhappy neighbors. It is such a complicated situation that I still have yet to understand even the most basic elements.