The wall

I was quite young when the barrier was built. As a 10-year old (or so), I remember being torn…

Recent months had brought traumatizing news of the deaths of two of my cousins, one a smart, driven 17-year old and the other a father of 2, in separate terrorist attacks. Inbal was going home on a public bus on Friday afternoon to spend Shabbat with her family and Yanai was playing music with his band in a popular Tel Aviv nightclub. Both attacks were broadcast on American news outlets and were mourned by myself, my parents and sister, and our Israeli family over the phone. It was horrific.

Then I watched as the fence--the immensely tall, thick, concrete fence--was erected, and despite all that I kept hearing about how it would "keep the terrorists from attacking", I wondered about the other people behind the wall. I was missing something, I couldn't see the whole picture, and I wondered if anyone else felt the same way.

Subsequent months and years showed that, yes, terrorism had been drastically reduced, but so had the quality of life of those who lived in the shadow of the wall. It's so confusing, so deeply emotional that word--the "wall". The Wall (I'm referring to the Kotel, the Western Wall) is what I envision as the symbolic cornerstone of the religion with which I identify. It's where Jews go to have their prayers heard. It's the anchor of my people, a dependent and tangible testament to our survival and our unity and our refusal to submit to the forces that have sought to destroy us over the years. The wall (and now I'm referring to the separation barrier) is a symbolic cornerstone of war and a tangible testament to the fractured population and the violence that has decimated relations between two populations that used to live so peacefully not side by side, but integrated within each other.

The passing of time also showed the agenda of the wall. It was not entirely about saving lives from the scourge of terrorism, but it was about fragmenting the Palestinian population to a point where cohesion between those citizens/people would be nearly impossible.

1. Do you think that terrorism would increase if the wall were torn down?
2. What positives and negatives are there to destroying the wall or to leaving it standing?
3. I don't think that community understanding and Palestinian-Israeli grassroots peace movements have much say in this matter--do you think that high-level governmental negotiations are the only truly important factors in this instance?

Bibliography

Behind israel's curtain wall. (2008, Summer). Kurdish Life, , 17-19. Retrieved from
     http://search.proquest.com/docview/216335701?accountid=9783

EGYPT-HAMAS-ISRAEL: Gaza Wall. (April 01, 2008). Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural Series, 45, 3.)

E. Cohen, S. (2006). ISRAEL'S WEST BANK BARRIER: AN IMPEDIMENT TO PEACE?. Geographical Review, 96(4), 
     682-695.