©Skip Schiel, 2004
schiel@ccae.org
617-441-7756
9 Sacramento St, Cambridge MA 02138-1843

Separation Wall, Jayyous, West Bank

The Security Fence, Separation Wall, Separation Barrier, Apartheid Wall, or Peace Barrier. What should it be called? What is it? What is it not?

Not a bridge. Not an act of trust between different peoples. Not negotiated with all those affected by it.

Said by Israel to be a protection against terrorism from the Palestinians, said by the majority of Israelis to be necessary and a just response to the terrorism. End the terror, end the wall, say many Israelis.

Said by the Palestinians to be an instrument of land and water confiscation, ultimately a goad to removal. Said by Palestinians to be a device ultimately increasing terrorism.

And me, what do I believe? A chilling and ironical incarnation of history, the history of the Jewish ghetto, caging the "other" in preparation for disposing of the other. Not that this is the intention by all or many or any Israeli Jews, but this, in my view, is the subtext, the deep meaning. Make life so miserable for those behind the wall, that eventually they will remove themselves. The right of return claimed by the Palestinians for generations—return to their lands—now cleverly actualized as the right of return to Jordan or Lebanon or Syria or any of the other Arab nations.

And another irony: walling out is walling in. Israeli Jews create a wall around themselves in two forms, the physical wall and the wall rising slowly, globally—the rise of anti-Semitism. Here we find, as often happens, an unintended consequence. Build the wall, risk destroying yourself. This is what the wall means to me.

For other views:

Israeli (Israel Diplomatic Network)

Palestinian (PENGON = Palestinian Environmental Non Governmental Organizations Network)