News » January 14, 2005 » Web Only

The Writing on the Wall

By Toine van Teeffelen

In September 2002, Israel began constructing a “security fence,” claiming it was a preventative measure to forestall Palestinian attacks. The fence made up of concrete and barbed wire, when finished, will be three times as long and twice as high as the Berlin Wall. Its construction will also result in an unofficial expansion of the Israeli borders by annexing dozens of Jewish settlements and tens of thousands of Jewish settlers living in Palestinian occupied territories.

Palestinians have dubbed it “The Apartheid Wall,” claiming its construction violates multiple international human rights laws. Last July, International Court of Justice in the Hague agreed and ruled that the construction of The Wall was illegal and that it must be dismantled.

Israel has since modified some of its original plans, but continues construction.

Toine van Teeffelen of United Civilians for Peace, a coalition of Dutch development and peace organization movements, talked to Maha Abu Dayyeh, director of the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC) in Jerusalem about The Wall.

Toine van Teeffelen: How is your daily life influenced by the Wall and the checkpoints?

Maha Abu Dayyeh: Currently I walk across the street from my home to my office. The Wall ends just before the intersection where I cross. When its construction is completed, I will have to drive all the way through the Qalandia checkpoint, turn around, cross the checkpoint again and go to Dahiet Al-Barid, before I can get to my office.

All the services for my daily existence will be on the side that will be blocked off, including purchasing vegetables and food or getting maintenance and household support. Life is going to become much more expensive and not only monetarily. We also will pay heavy social and emotional costs.

We will become disconnected—literally and figuratively—from family and friends. Visiting them Ramallah or Beit Jala, places actually not very far from here, will be difficult. A special permit will need to purchased from Israel just to travel. The Wall is imprisoning us.

Due to digging in the streets, dust, fuel, and fumes are destroying the areas surrounding the Wall. Any travel means jumping over rubble, concrete and building refuse. Clothes and shoes are destroyed.

And every morning, you wake up and face the massive, ugly, grey cement blocks. We are living in chaos.

What does freedom mean to you?

Freedom is the ability to walk endlessly without being stopped. For me this ability is physical and mental. I find that my ability as a thinking and moving human being is handicapped because my physical movements are continually hindered and restricted.

The Wall is one of the most violent forms of psychological and physical aggression directed against the Palestinian collective and against the Palestinian individual. This is especially true for those whose daily existence requires them to cross or go around the Wall.

The majority of people have to cross the Wall all the time. But it cannot be crossed without a permit issued by the Israeli government, so the Israelis control their movements. They decide who is able to move or not.

In so doing, they control the lives of the Palestinians. They decide who is important or not; what is valuable or not; who can go to work or not. On a day-to-day basis, these decisions are up to soldiers who guard the gates. These soldiers on the ground make a lot of their own independent decisions. They can sexually harass the women if they want. They can choose to be easy, hostile, or violent. And when they have violated the rights and dignity of Palestinian people, they can always find an excuse and the government will cover up the violations.

What are your sources of energy?

There is an English expression, “the sky is the limit,” that means one’s imagination and ability to be an actor in the world should be far-reaching, limitless, unrestricted. But in the Palestinian context, the Wall is the limit.

As an individual, I cannot complain. If I compare myself to other people, I am a lucky person. I am able to travel abroad and meet interesting and creative people who I can think with and learn from. I regain my sense of balance when I experience other realities. Traveling shows me how this situation is abnormal and to not accept this way of life. My anger energizes me and allows me to help my colleagues and my children cope with our living situation. I think people need to be angry all the time about this situation. It’s a sign of living, a refusal to die. Through anger, you say no to a brutal situation.

One should resist by showing anger to the soldier and by breaking the rules. Refusing to respond to instructions given in the Hebrew language is a form of resistance. Everybody has a chance to resist by any small way or means. It builds one’s strength.

Resistance is not the same as survival. Survival is barely making it. Resistance is acting consciously, purposefully on your situation. Some people choose to survive because they are tired of resisting and fighting and I can’t blame them. I constantly hope that not all people in our society fall into that mode. And so far it looks like they are resisting.

I personally refuse to be killed emotionally or psychologically. I will not give up. I am a resister. I see people resisting as a profound, courageous expression of choosing life. I see it all around me. It may not be immediately tangible, but when people choose life, there is hope.

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• Reader Comments

  The comparison to the Berlin wall is one analogy. Another is to the Concentration Camp walls that went up around Jews in the Second World War.

  Certainly Palestinian communities will be isolated and sealed in at the whim of Ariel Sharon. As he has once again sealed the Gaza Strip today, and once again maintained that he has no “partner for peace” on the Palestinian side.

  Ariel Sharon has not only shown no reluctance to rocket and strafe civilians within the Camps, he provokes incidents that “allow” him to do so if the resistance seems to be flagging.

  It is beyond time for all the people of conscience of the United States of America, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, whatever, to insist that US funds no longer be used to further the truly monstrous acts of the right-wing in Israel.

  “Our” war in Iraq is essentially an Eastern Front of the now Middle East wide war of expropriation undertaken by the Likudniks in Israel and America.

  It is no more anti-Israeli, certainly no more anti-Semitic, to oppose the far-right wing and their shameful plans in Israel than it is anti-American to oppose the far-right wing and their shameful plans in America.

  In fact it is incumbent upon all of us who would not be remembered as “good Germans” to stand up and to do so.

  Not a dime more in support of the two fronted war in the Middle East! Not a dime more in support of the Likud in Israel until there is a Palestinian State in Palestine!

  Posted by John Francis Lee on Jan 15, 2005 at 2:41 AM

  “The fence made up of concrete and barbed wire, when finished, will be three times as long and twice as high as the Berlin Wall.”

  I’m disappointed.  The wall should be 10 times longer and 5 times higher than the Great Wall of China.  The the Philistines will have no one but themselves to blow up.

  Posted by Lefty on Jan 15, 2005 at 6:33 AM

  hmm..now I see that hitler was right in some strange ways..you are on the same level of thinking ,this is why you hated each other ..but the nazi idea lost and jewish is still terrorising ,not just palestine, rest of the world with masonery-banking-gold-money terror ...just rot on some other planet ..this one can be so nice

  Posted by mirkec on Jan 15, 2005 at 9:32 AM

  I don’t see a solution to the Middle East conflict. There isn’t enough love. There aren’t enough principles. That, incidentally, is where the fight should take place. Throwing stones at dog soldiers who we all know will often respond with deadly force isn’t resistance to evil. It’s more evil. And it’s stupid. While I’m on the subject of stupidity, Palestinians demonstrate that they have little respect for life when they fire off guns into the air, which they do all the time for all kinds of reasons, as far as I can tell. A scripture in the Christian Bible states that ‘He who is faithful in what is least, is faithful also in what is much. And he who is unfaithful in what is least, is unfaithful also in what is much’. Common sense agrees.

  I believe that my behavior is more important than my situation, even though, in all honesty, I don’t always behave in accordance with that belief. That’s because I’m weak. But if I don’t bother to know that, then I’m really weak. Anyway, If the principle is good enough for me, then I suppose it’s good enough for others - from my standpoint, which others don’t have to adopt. But What does it mean? For the person who believes that his or her own behavior - Others’ behavior is for others to concern themselves with - is more important than his or her situation, there is a recognition of a higher source, wise and perfectly just and almighty, who will take note of those who are deserving of the precious gift of life and those who aren’t. In time, That higher source, Jehovah, will ensure that only the peaceable remain. There will be no sharing of the land between sheep and goats. Ultimately, The land belongs (relatively speaking) to those who God gives it to. No more and no less.

  As for Israel, No human or group of humans need to support or object to Israel’s existence. All the nations of the earth have failed to acknowledge Jehovah’s Kingdom. Their leases on this planet were up some time ago. When it has become more important than ever for people everywhere to be on their best behavior, nations, and so many within those nations, have been doing their utmost to ensure that they will leave, forever. No, There’s no hell. As for suffering, I suppose those who are wicked and who bother to know, might not be comforted terribly by the fact that they have crossed the line and when they die physically, they will also die completely, body and soul. But that’s another subject.

  Regarding nations, No nation right now has God’s blessing. God may or may not control nature. But he will always protect his people, although at this time, individual servants of God might be tested to the limit. But the nations of the earth are God-rejecting, expressions of religiosity by some leaders and some peoples notwithstanding.

  There are no doubt good people in Israel. But there are clearly a lot of bad people. How Israel could do to the Palestinians what Hitler did to them is beyond me, sort of. (Which isn’t to say that I’m unaware of the evil role that the U.S. plays in funding the state terrorism in the Middle East, and elsewhere.) Then again, When you factor in the power of the Devil and his demons, perhaps it’s not so suprising. And we need to know, unfortuately, who will remain and who won’t remain. Therefore, Folks need to be free to believe as they wish, and to a great extent, you need to be free to behave as you wish in order to believe as you wish, before God can examine your behavior and check you off or not.

  The clock is ticking, and that’s a good thing. Folks don’t have to believe as I do. But I think it’s madness to believe that the chaos, destruction and suffering out there will go on forever. If I didn’t believe in God and if I thought the bloodletting out there was going to go on forever, I would have only enough energy and motivation to off myself.

  Posted by Arby on Jan 16, 2005 at 3:19 AM

  Leaving aside the issue of whether or not there are normative justifications for the erection of the fence or wall or whatever one would like to call it, any article that omits discussion of the types of Palestinian offenses that influenced the Israelis to build the barrier, particularly suicide bombings, contributes not even a scintilla of value to educated and intellectual discourse.  Unfortunately, as long as commentators remain tendentious in presenting the issues of the conflict, the conflict will likely continue to be intractable. However, once those that inform the public are willing to engage in a more dialectical presentation of issues, the central figures of the conflict may become increasingly inclined to pursue compromise and rapprochement.

  Posted by Daniel Hartstein on Jan 17, 2005 at 7:51 AM

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