Jerusalem and Environs
[Pictures will be added later - see our Twitter account in the meanwhile at https://www.twitter.com/uujme.]
May 6th was the first full day of the interfaith delegation of the Apartheid-Free Communities initiativs to Palestine and Israel, sponsored by the American from Service Committee. We did some bonding over dinner the night before after the entire group had finally arrived through the Tel Aviv airport.
In the morning we boarded a small-ish tour bus with a total of 19 people and our local tour guide staff person. Sahar talked us through an understanding of the demarcation lines around Jerusalem. She provided some very detailed maps. The driver took us to a high vantage point called big mountain, from which you can see the south side of the old city walls, the Dome of the Rock rising above that along with a few church towers and many buildings. The valley below us was pointed out, highlighting much empty space where you would imagine building should be going on with an expanding population of Palestinians; however, building is almost impossible for Palestinians to get approved through the Israel permit system. We could also see part of the separation wall in the distance and the Mount of Olives. Part of what we could see is an area called Silwan where 87 homes are under threat of eventual demolition to make room for a biblical theme park that the Israeli government wants to see happen to make the Christian tourists happy. Sahar returned our attention to the maps to show us that the Jerusalem municipality, which is controlled by the Israeli government is intent upon building more and more settlements so that the old city is pretty much surrounded by Jewish only settlements and to displace as many Palestinians as possible.
Next the driver took us around to the separation wall that we could see from a distance. We brainstormed different names for the wall with one of my favorites being architectural oppression. This wall was built to supposedly go along the green line, which was the division between Israel and the occupied territories in East Jerusalem in 1967. It actually does not stay true to that line, encroaching upon Palestinian territory. Many times the reason that the Israeli government gave for building the wall was to stop terrorist attacks by Palestinians in the occupied territories, coming into Israel, and doing suicide bombing. And while it’s true that after the wall was constructed the suicide attacks ceased, it’s also a fact that the political leadership of Hamas took a decision to discourage suicide bombing as a strategy. In any case, for an occupying power to build a wall that cuts communities in half in some cases is against international law, and just wrong. In the location that we visited, the wall does cut a neighborhood in half and what that means is for Palestinians living on the other side of the wall, they have to go through a checkpoint to get to the other side of the wall and repeat that to go back, so this has been very disruptive to livelihood and education.
We also learned that the Israelis control the Jerusalem municipality and will not build schools for the population of Palestinians, which is illegal under international law for an occupying power. So what Palestinians have to do is have the kids attend in two shifts with half attending in the morning and a half attending in the afternoon.
There is also not reliable trash pickup for the Palestinian areas of Jerusalem, and this makes areas very messy and causes people to resort to burning their garbage.
Our next stop was the neighborhood of Silwan itself where we looked at artivism. On our way to this neighborhood we took a detour to see the spring of Silwan, which flows from the Biblical pool of Silwan, where Jesus took the water and healed a blind man.
The project we visited was called iwitness Silwan, and our guide for the first part of the tour was a Jewish American activist named Lou. She showed us many bright, cheerful and beautiful murals that she helps to design and paint with children and adults in the community to give them some hope and control over their environment despite the fact that slowly Israeli settlers take over homes from time to time and that there’s constant video surveillance in the area from the Israeli buildings. There are a number of eyes that are painted on buildings, looking back at the surveillance cameras, and serving as symbolic witness to the ethnic cleansing, displacement, violence, and unequal treatment that the Palestinians experience.
Then we had the tour next phase, led by a man who is a leader in this community, who took us past some more murals, including on the side of his house that were just gorgeous. Then he took us up to the creative center in the community were they provided a amazing lunch for us, and we sat and discuss the importance of supporting arts as a form of giving hope ans constructive outlet for the children, and a message of resistance to what is happening.
We thanked him and Lou and the lunch providers deeply and walked our way back down to where the bus picked us up again. After this, we had some time in our rooms to put our feet up and then met at a restaurant in the Sahara hotel for some dinner and bonding time with the amazing people on this trip, following this, we walked down the street to the Jerusalem Legal Aid Center and saw a presentation about the ongoing displacement of Palestinians and demolition of their homes in Jerusalem. Since the beginning of the occupation. It is quite telling.
Tomorrow’s post will be about our trip to Bethlehem at our meeting with referred Rifaat Kassis of Kairos Palestine and our discussion with Sabeel, an organization based on Palestinian Christian liberation theology.
