Let the Walls Fall

This can only be described as a twisted joke...
A horrific physical manifestation of the power of the destructive walls we build in our minds and hearts.
The ideological, mental, physical walls of apartheid, of separation between them and us must be broken down...

A Shameful Land

-       by Mahmoud Darwish (one of my favourite poets and a Palestinian icon)

“This is a confined land that we inhabit and that inhabits us.  A confined land, not big enough for a short meeting between a prophet and a general. If two cocks fight over a hen and their pride, their feathers fly off the walls.  A confined land with no intimacy for a male and female dove to mate.  A shameful land.  A land yellow in summer, where the thorns carve notches in the surface of the rocks to pass the time, even if our poetry says the opposite, and supplies it with anthologies of descriptions of paradise to satisfy the hunger for beautiful things felt by those seeking to preserve their identity.  We, narrators of the documents, official and poetic, required to be produced spontaneously, know that the sky will never abandon its many works to give evidence.  A confined land, and we love it and believe it loves us, living or dead.  We love it and know it is not big enough for brazen laughter, or a nun’s prayer, or to hang washing out of reach of the neighbours’ prying eyes, not big enough for the fourteenth line of a translated sonnet.  A confined land with no area big enough for a proper battle with an external enemy, and no hall large enough for people to meet in to construct an external enemy, and no hall large enough for people to meet in to construct an extensive preamble to a spurious peace.  In spite of this, or because of it, people say that a discontented god chose it as a cave to retreat to, a place to hide from the uninvited guests, who immediately stole our rams’ horns and used them as weapons to keep us away from the door of the holy cave.”

Tragedy is not just something to blame on the past.


Apartheid Undenied

Aerial view of the 4km concrete Apartheid wall,
 which doesn't include the double fences with
senses, cameras and barbed wire that also
borders the city.

The city of Qalqiliya is situated right on the 1967 border between Palestine and Israel. Israel constructed an apartheid wall within the borders of the green line, with a fence existing previously, but an official wall constructed in 2002, with the city being fully locked and closed for two years till 2004. A literal outdoor prison.

Satellite view and outline of the Apartheid wall 
around the  city of Qalqiliya

Qalqiliya's wall...
On the other side of this wall, the ocean is just 12km away, and Tel Aviv is just 30km away.
Most children have never seen the ocean, or are possibly allowed once a year out of the West Bank if they apply for a special permit, that can take any number of weeks, and is often denied.  S, the amazing woman who works for Medical Relief in Palestine is applying to take her daughter, who is 18 years old and has never been allowed to go the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, one of the most important Holy sites for Muslims, let alone the fact that the city is just kilometres away.

Qalqiliya's wall...standing in the 30m next to the wall, that is illegal to stand on - considered "no man's land." People's houses and businesses that were already standing when the wall was constructed in 2002 were either demolished, have demo orders against them, or have lost their functionality as businesses.

Watch tower at Qalqiliya Green line
Check Point that goes into Israel.
Only workers are allowed to go through
here if they have a permit to work, which
they get from employers outside, with
no guarantee that they'll be allowed out.

I'm watching you...

Qalqiliya Wall...

Left: Qalqiliya
Right: Israeli colony with freedom to move on their Israeli-
only apartheid road.
Israel has stolen the water from the Qalqiliya Aquifer and
sells it back to Palestinians at more than double the cost
of their Israeli colonizing neighbours, who use 5x as much
water.

Qalqiliya Wall...

Soldier's waving at me taking pictures as they chill at one of the worker's
checkpoints, where they check every "lucky" person coming in and out,
who are trying to access their land, where they get a permit for a few
weeks at a time to harvest portions of their land.  There is no guarantee
that they will have a renewal of a permit to get to their land, so they could
toil for one month, making no money in hopes of harvesting their land,
and not be allowed to return back after a month, having wasted not only
their precious working time (only one person from each family is permitted
to work in Israel) for money to feed families, but also wasted land that is
getting more wasted each year that passes unharvested.
 

Worker's line up like cattle at this gate at 3 and 4 in the morning to try to make it out on time (roughly 2-4 hours to get through) to get to work once they reach the other side, if they reach the other side. Often the thousands of workers that pass through this gate each day begin their journey from within Palestine at 12/1am/2am to make it to the line up for 3am.  After 5 or 6 hours of travel and check-points, they work a full day and return home, as they are not allowed to stay the night in Israel.  Although, some do stay illegally for a week at a time, but this is a huge risk considering the consequences if they are caught.

Not impressed with my camera!

Where the thousands of workers line up. I don't have any pictures here because this was Saturday, the Jewish day of rest. So because soldiers and border control don''t work on this day, Palestinians are not allowed to work their own land, even though for them it is a work day (Friday is their day off). 

The soldiers have to check each person
and their stock thoroughly before letting
them through to their own farm land.
One can only imagine that let alone
the day in day out dehumanizing process
that this involves for these workers,
the hours spent in checkpoints and lines
significantly hinders production, let alone
the fact that as aforementioned, permits
are hard to renew and are never even
half the time span of a full harvesting season.
The agricultural situation of Palestine is
severely affected as it is now much more
difficult for people to provide food for their
own family on their own land, let alone have
enough harvested to sell, let alone the fact
that they cannot export it outside of the
West Bank, and often are forced to choose
Israeli products over their own.

Whoops! ;)

More wall... camera's up ahead

Wall art by Mexican workers who came to show solidarity...

Looking into Israel, where S is not allowed to go... hasn't been in decades.
From 2002-2004, while visiting her father Qalqiliya after the death of her mother,
S was locked inside for the 2 years, away from her family and job, which she lost, back in the city of Nablus. She eventually was lucky enough to find work within the closed city (prison city), and has remained at this NGO since, having established her new life within the two years that she was locked in.

Where Apartheid wall turns into Apartheid fence barrier...

Ephesians 2:12-22

- C