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Flickers of light: first impressions of Israel and Palestine |
 In the neutral, common ground - a place where both Palestinians and Israelis are welcome and can co-operate as genuine equals - hope for the future can be found, argues Chris Wake (23, UK)
By Christopher Wake
First published by SOAS Spirit
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Date published: 31/05/05
Section: Themes / Israel-Palestine
2,012 words
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The quiet of the streets is unsettling. Driving along I scour the shops and houses, anticipating the hustle and bustle of a lively town. But the road leading into Bethlehem, the most celebrated of all Palestinian towns, is lifeless. Shops and businesses are boarded up and pedestrians going about their everyday lives are few. The only other vehicles joining us on the road are bright yellow taxis that crawl uncomfortably along in search of the day's first customer. All around me the West Bank is screaming that something is not right here.
The sheer otherness of modern day Palestine is first announced by a military checkpoint, an austere declaration of imminent passage to a forbidden land. In my case, the checkpoint stands between the municipality of Jerusalem - Israel - and the outskirts of Bethlehem - Palestine. In the distance on the left, well into Palestinian territory, stands an Israeli settlement, a massive housing estate populated by several thousand Israelis. It stands formidably on the top of a hill, reminiscent of a medieval fortress. Straight ahead is the checkpoint itself: roadblocks, army barracks, watchtower. A soldier in khaki periodically ushers cars forward. To the right, several hundred metres away, stands the now ominous security wall designed to keep Israelis and Palestinians as strictly non-interacting neighbours. From a distance it looks charcoal black; its dark frame dominates the horizon.
As I spend time in the West Bank over the next few days, my impressions of life under a foreign power slowly begin to gain cohesion. The disconcerting quiet of many streets in Bethlehem I soon learn to be a fall-out of those Israeli military checkpoints which are positioned at every entrance point to the West Bank, scrutinising all those who cross the boundary. The impact of the checkpoints, implemented as a security measure in the wake of the second Intifada ('uprising') of 2000, has been profound. For potential sightseers and pilgrims, the show of force on Palestine's doorstep has made a visit to Bethlehem and other holy sites a rather uninviting prospect. The consequence has been the virtual collapse of the tourist industry - hotels, restaurants and shops have been shut down with alarming speed - and with it the loss of thousands of people's livelihoods.
For the Palestinians themselves, the checkpoint system has made travel from the West Bank largely impossible, since inhabitants have been prohibited from entering Israel since 2000. Economically, the effects of this ban have been disastrous. Not only has the disappearance of workers' jobs in Israel left a massive pool of Palestinian labour without employment, the closures have also made it impossible for Palestinian business to export goods to Western markets. As a result, unemployment now ravages around three quarters of the population.
Military checkpoints penetrate the lives of Palestinians on a deeply personal level as well. Unable to enter Jerusalem, many West Bankers I meet are unable to visit close friends and relatives. Bishara, a gentle and intelligent man in his sixties, yearns to be able to join his cherished church each Sunday but doesn't have the required papers to permit him to make the short trip from Bethlehem to East Jerusalem. As he tells me about his childhood - his upbringing in Jerusalem, stories of cycling to Bethlehem to buy bread for his family - I feel suddenly embarrassed. As a British national I am free to move between Bethlehem and Jerusalem as I please, just as Bishara dreams of doing. Should he not have more right than me to visit the town of his birth and infancy, I wonder?
Even more extraordinary to me, and incredibly obtrusive to Palestinian life, are the checkpoints within the West Bank itself, making movement from one town to the next a laborious task. For businesses dependent on transporting goods across the country, such conditions could not be less amenable to sustainability. And again, the personal implications are heart-rendering. Nassim, a Palestinian currently working for the British government, is unable to visit his family in Nablus without successfully securing a permit - something neither straightforward nor always achievable. At home in Bethlehem, Nassim's wife finds herself trapped, not even permitted to travel into Jerusalem with her husband to meet his work colleagues and friends.
For Nassim, even employment by Britain gives him no immunity from the discrimination waged on account of his nationality. When travelling from Jerusalem to London for conferences, for example, the restrictions on Palestinians using Israeli airports mean that he is not permitted to travel from Tel Aviv with his colleagues, forced instead to travel through Jordan alone.
In Ramallah I meet Islah, a former SOAS PhD student. Our conversation gives me insight into other everyday consequences of the lack of Palestinian autonomy. Water, electricity and phone connection, for example, can currently only be bought from Israeli companies at Israeli prices. With so many Palestinians unemployed, it is not easy for the majority to afford these basic functions to which they are so accustomed. As Islah speaks of her life in the West Bank I am stunned to learn that Israel does not permit inhabitants of the West Bank to use broadband technology to access the internet, making even checking emails a laborious and expensive task. This is in stark contrast to a developing country like Rwanda, where broadband and even wireless technology is becoming common in urban centres.
All around the West Bank I learn how the bleak security wall presently under construction is cruelly curtailing the lives of everyday Palestinians. Thousands of inhabitants of the West Bank have lost their lands and olive tree orchards in recent years; many others have been deprived of their homes and forced to move. Yacoub, an elderly Palestinian I meet who lives and works in East Jerusalem, tells me of his horror when he learnt that his house was going to fall behind the wall on the West Bank side, making it part of Palestine as opposed to Israel virtually overnight. 'I had to move out from the house where I had lived for 41 years to be on the Jerusalem side of the wall' he says, 'or else face going through the checkpoints twice each day'.
In certain areas of the West Bank/Israel border the presence of the wall is particularly odious. North of Jerusalem I witness a street where the wall is being built in the very middle of a large road, forcing cars to squeeze past one another down just one side. When completed, the wall will sever the community from itself, physically dividing families and friends from one another, as well as separating local people from their businesses and shops. Elsewhere many Palestinians talk to me of the situation in Qalqiliya, north of Jerusalem, where the wall surrounds the town in a peninsular formation. Cut off from their land just a few metres away, many hundreds of farmers now have to travel for several hours to reach their plots which just a few months ago they could see from their bedroom windows.
On the other side of the wall and out of the West Bank, I have dinner with two Israelis currently living in West Jerusalem. Both men were brought up in England - one in Coventry and the other in South London - but moved to Israel in the 1970s and 1980s respectively as part of their right of return as Jews. Over the course of the evening it becomes clear to me how far Israelis too regard themselves as an oppressed people - encapsulated by both the memory of suicide bombers and by the potential for future harm. 'Many Israelis are too scared to come to Jerusalem' Ian tells me, for its position right next to the West Bank makes it too close to the heart of the lion's den for comfort.
Elsewhere in Jerusalem I met Petra, injured a few years ago in a suicide bombing attack in which several people were killed. She speaks to me movingly about the trauma of witnessing someone 'coming apart before your very eyes'. I pinch myself to realise that she means this in a quite literal sense.
Spending time in Israel I am shocked to realise just how quickly I start subscribing to the culture of fear pervading Israeli society. Stepping onto an Israeli bus to travel from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv I find myself quickly scanning the faces of the other passengers to ascertain their nationalities. Orthodox Jews and other Israelis I decide, looks like I'll be OK. Is this what it is like to live in Israel today? To determine who is harmless and who a terrorist by quick and arbitrary categorisation? Entering briefly into such a mindset I begin to understand the position of Israelis who, whether or not they support the occupation, regard the security of their country as paramount and the barrier as a necessary evil.
Helpfully, a meeting with the Rabbi David Rosen, founder of Rabbis for Human Rights, places the anxiety of Israeli society in a wider context. 'What you've got to understand is that round here', he says emphatically, 'everybody regards themselves as the victim.' As I ponder on this statement I am inclined to agree, for the language of the Palestinians and Israelis alike is so often framed from the perspective of victimhood. I wonder, however, how far it can be legitimate for both parties to claim equal victim status under the present circumstances. To my untrained eye at least, the predicament of the Palestinians is so dire that it is difficult not to take something of a partisan position.
The enduring plight of the Palestinian and the inherent suspicion of the Israeli are such that it would be easy to feel despairing about the present situation on both sides of the wall. Moreover, I am aware as I travel through Palestine and Israel that I am meeting only a minute cross-section of each society whose hardships are certainly not the most extreme in relative terms. Were I to step into a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, I would be shocked by a new set of cruel injustices. Were I to meet the parents who have lost their child in a targeted suicide bombing, I would be struck by yet more resentment and grievance.
Miraculously, however, it's not all doom and gloom - in the darkness, I do come across flickers of light. One of these is Musalaha, a Christian organisation founded by Palestinians and Israelis to promote reconciliation between the two societies. Their method is to take groups of Palestinian and Israeli young adults on 'desert encounters', trips into the desert where participants live for several days together in the wilderness. In the neutrality of their new surroundings and away from an atmosphere of fear and stereotyping, participants learn to work together, getting to know one other as people rather than as adversaries. As stories of violence and intimidation are relayed, eyes are opened and barriers are broken down. For many, friendships built are longstanding. One Palestinian I meet invited an Israeli friend he made on a desert encounter to be best man at his wedding, much to the shock of many friends and relatives.
Injustice, pain and loss cut deep in Palestine and Israel today, but I don't come away regarding the present situation as insurmountable. Certainly the immense lack of understanding and mistrust of the other side is a formidable obstacle to future peace, for there can be no compromise on either side without faith in one another's assurances and promises. But the testimonies of Palestinians and Israelis who have undergone a Musalaha desert encounter are a powerful reminder that differences between the two peoples are more externally imposed than they are intrinsic and organic. In the neutral, common ground - a place where both Palestinians and Israelis are welcome and can co-operate as genuine equals - hope for the future can be found. And it is in that common ground that those who care about the future of Palestine and Israel need to make their stand.
The author: Christopher Wake is studying for a postgraduate degree in Violence, Conflict and Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
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