Another Divisive Wall

The fall of the Berlin Wall: what a testament to the power of peaceful revolution. Even as a high school student in Kuwait, it was impossible not to be swept up in the emotion, as I watched people clamber to freedom, family and friends for the first time.

And yet, for me, and for so many other people in the Middle East, and around the world, the anniversary is bittersweet. It is a reminder, as if one was necessary, of another divisive wall that we are desperate to tear down and consign to the annals of history: the ugly expanse of concrete and barbed wire that runs through the West Bank, most notably splicing Jerusalem and mutating its cherished and sacred history.

As the people of Germany celebrate a wall coming down, the people of Palestine are overwrought by a wall going up.

According to the Israeli government, their "Separation Barrier" is meant to divide Israel from Palestine, and protect Israelis from attacks. But to 'protect' illegal Israeli settlements, the wall snakes deep into Palestinian land, cleaving families from friends, homes from schools and universities, and workers from their land and their jobs. Innocent Palestinians, suffocated. A nation, imprisoned.

According to B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, the wall cuts off half a million Palestinians from the rest of the West Bank. Communities are being forcibly torn apart. Not 20 years ago, but today.

It has been five years since the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel should cease construction, dismantle the wall, and pay reparations to affected Palestinians. But the "Separation Barrier" is now 400 km, double its length at the time of the court ruling. Israel continues to ignore this legal ruling and construct the barrier which, they claim, is only two-thirds complete.

I know this wall is only the symptom of a greater division - the figurative wall of hate, fear, and mistrust that divides the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. But that does not justify - legally or morally - what is happening in Palestine. It is an affront to human freedom, an assault on human dignity, a scar on our collective well-being. Until the barriers, blockades, and barbed wire are history, Palestine's history will be irreconcilable.

Today, we celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall; next year, we will celebrate the end of Apartheid in South Africa. These two events taught us that when barriers are removed - whether physical barriers, legal barriers, or the walls people build in their hearts - the ground is laid for progress, peace, and development for both sides. The people of my region yearn as well for justice and reconciliation.

What better way to honour these anniversaries than to tear down another wall?

 

Comments

[baffy]

It is disgusting. Hillary Clinton took every opportunity to talk about the fall of the Berlin Wall but never mentioned the even worse wall between Israel and the West Bank (much of it built on Palestinian land).

As Obama travels the world lecturing other states about human rights he is not prepared to step up and tell Israel to stop the occupation and oppression. What is this fear of Israel and the Jewish lobby all about? The US support of Israel has brought nothing but grief. It is time to do the right thing and show the world that America stands up for justice for all.

[ahuffreader]

Your Highness, Queen Rania: We remember what King Hussein did to the Palestinians in Black September, 1970.

[Truthosaurus]

I just want to say that I appreciate these comments coming from the Queen. It’s a good thing to have monarchs in that part of the world who know what is going on. I think they are the best persons for the job of improving the situation in the region and bringing modernization.

[Lucile Smith]

maybe the west bank should strive for protection take a look at india and pakistan no one provoke the other to the extent of popping the other one.

[PresidentRobertBooth]

It needs honesty on both sides.

Moderate voices from Jordan, Egypt, Syria etc....have to appeal to the Palestinians to cease rocket attacks and so forth, but the United States has also got to pressure the Israelis to stop encroaching on territory that simply isn't theirs to settle.

As it happens, Israel has the United States government under its thumb due to American Christian and Jewish lobby groups. Sooner or later, Obama will have to confront them if any real progress is to be made.

[Darwin256]

imho, real progress will not be made here in the US. It will be made first, as it is now, by those boycotting Israel.

The two-state solution is as dead as the Apartheid solution in South Africa was. It is just a matter of time for more people to realize it.

[WBMD]

Wishin' and hopin'

[Lucile Smith]

we have to say everything nice about isreal on this site or it will not see the light of day. isreal has the people in america and congress by the balls and if you say anything that isreal don't like they yank their balls and tell america to go sit in a corner and shut up the president told them to stop building settlement in the west bank they got angry ran to the other people crying so they can get their way . which is what they been doing , getting away with what they want for about 60 years now.

[Sentientbeing09]

I like your style! Refreshing and less pretentious than most on here.

[AkiraBergman]

That is how the smart neo-colonialists want it look like. Israel and its people are just pawns in this game.

[researcher]

how long have people been fighting over that land

we americans will fix it

if we can buy both sides off with our printed and borrowed money

americans can fix anything

we fixed vietnam from communism

we will fix iraq while we take their oil

we will fix afghan so they can grow more poppy

we are the fixers we want every one to be like us

as we self destruct within our own republic

history is full of examples of what happens to countries that try to fix the world

or is it steal their resources: I forget which

[Darwin256]

My Fellow Posters,

You cannot hope to appreciate this conflict until you understand what happened in 1948:

http://www.palestineremembered.com/

imho

[pkafin]

I just looked through that site. It seems to completely ignore the fact that close to 1 million Jews were made refugees from other Arab nations in the few years before and after Israel's founding. If one "hopes to appreciate this conflict" through a thorough "understanding of what happened in 1948", then a web site dedicated entirely to one side of the conflict really doesn't cut it.

I'd look at that site, but also look at http://www.jimena.org/

DArwin256 I'd be interested to know if you've ever read through that site (JIMENA's) and whether you think the information presented there is relevant to this discussion.

[Darwin256]

Try: "Isn't it a fair 'population exchange' between Palestinian refugees and Jewish refugees from many Arab countries?"

http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General/Story2126.html

I've seen JIMENA before. Any attempt at equivalence to the Nakba is disgusting.

[Darwin256]

However, I do think that site is relavant. Take one of their Q and A:


Q. Shouldn't the Jews from Arab states be invited to return to their former homes?

A. Such an invitation exists already, but virtually none of the Jewish refugees or their children, want to return to those lands where they suffered intolerable violence and persecution. They simply want justice. They want the international community to recognize their plight and integrate full compensation of their lost property as part of a final Middle East peace agreement.


I feel for anyone who has suffered injustice; but this is ridiculous. Israel in it's version of "right to return" provides huge incentives for imigration and "settlement" on land where Palestinians have just had their homes bulldozed.

This JIMENA site has the gall to suggest that the international community (translation USA) pay compensation of their lost property as part of a peace agreement. I think the USA has paid quite enough:

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

[Thelonius]

Apples and oranges. Palestinians were expelled in waves: 800,000 in 1948; 25,000 before and during Israel's first invasion of Egypt in 1956 and about 400,000 during and after the war Israel launched in June, 1967. Arab Jews left gradually between 1948 and 1967. Palestinians were expelled through force of arms, terror and intimidation by Jewish milita and the IDF. Palestinians were not involved in departure of Arab Jews, of whom 600,000 went to Israel.

Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, born into an affluent Jewish family in Baghdad: "We are not refugees, nobody expelled us from Iraq, nobody told us that we were unwanted. But we are the victims of the Israeli-Arab conflict." ( Ha'aretz, August 11, 2005)
Knesset speaker Yisrael Yeshayahu: "We are not refugees.... We had messianic aspirations." Shlomo Hillel, a government minister and former active Zionist in Iraq: "I don't regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists." Knesset member Ran Cohen: "I have this to say: I am not a refugee." He added: "I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee."

[Ergon]

We do know from Iraqi Jews who never wanted to emigrate that David Ben Gurion's Mossad set off a few bombs in Baghdad synagogues to encourage them to leave.

[WBMD]

What happened in 1948 is that the U.N.approved partition of the 30% of Palestine that was left after Britain gave Transjordan to the Hashemites into yet another Arab state and a Jewish state.The Arabs refused,at­tacked,and lost,leading to the 1948 armistice lines,which the Arabs refused to accept as borders,which many of the posters today erroneously call "Israel's accepted international borders."

To understand this conflict, you have to understand that the basic disagreement concerns the right of the Jewish people to re-establish a Jewish home land in a small part of their ancestral lands. That is all it is. EVERYTHING else stems from that. EVERYTHING else can be corrected,once that issue is resolved.

[Darwin256]

The significance of 1948 is the expullsion of 800,000 people.

They were not hordes of crazed militantants.

No act of the U.N., the British, or the Arabs justifies this expullsion.

We live with the consequences to this day.

[AkiraBergman]

Israel is a proxy of the west who are the real perpetrators of this wall. The enormous nuclear arsenal of Israel is the proof and oil is the real reason. All the rest is propaganda noise.

[pkafin]

Israel has no oil. US oil interests are often counter to Israeli interests. The Israeli nuclear program was opposed by the West. I'm not sure what you mean by what you've posted.

[AkiraBergman]

Israel has no oil but its oil rich enemies have. Israel's nuclear posture has guaranteed the fundamental objectives of the western oil interests.

As usual a part of the west may have preferred to look like they opposed Israel's so called nuclear program, while the hawkish parts helped the installation. When the west do not want a state to have nukes, we all know how aggressive they can be. So please don't give me that excuse. Like people, nation states like play double and even multiple, specially the western colonialists who are the sponsors of Israel.

Of course all this is a remnant of the cold war era, during which anything went. New realities will push the west and its proxies to change tact, which are already in play.

[Niet]

Seems more the other way around to me with AIPAC calling so many shots and having so many supporters in Washington. America is Israels battering ram for causing division, chaos and destruction among Israels Arab enemies.

[AkiraBergman]

That is the first impression that the world community are supposed to get. That USA and its allies have their hands tied up by a minority interest group. Germans and many others use the holocaust for their almost unconditional support of Israel. What an incredible change that went right through the Christian churches as well.

This could also be a colonialist strategy that helps them to save face in an increasingly interconnected world. That they can not really do anything unilaterally, that things are very complicated. AIPAC seems to play a small part of a much larger colonialist game. We have all seen how cunning the colonialists can be in the invasion of Iraq.

[Doug Kaplan]

I remember hearing about bombings in Israel all of the time, discos, pizza parlors, all civilian targets. It amazes me that Queen compares this wall the Jewish states uses to protect itself from suicide bombers, to the Berlin Wall. Israel is protecting themselves and they have that right. I can't remember the last time I heard of an attack there. I would love to hear the Queen talk about woman rights and gay rights in her own back yard. What exactly does the King and Queen think of gays and woman?

[Hoelder]

And like so often there is a voice out there, dodging the question by asking a totally unrelated question. We were talking about Palestinians and their daily plight. But it looks like you don't want to change anything. Like the international report condemning the actions by the IDF in their Gaza "excursion". Israel has broken so many UN resolutions and violated so many international laws. The current government does not even listen to President Obama in spite of their dependencies on monetary and military support. The reasons for Israel not collapsing are the existing and mystical nuclear bomb and the impact a collapse of Israel would have on the overall stability of the region.

[Oleg1]

"The reasons for Israel not collapsing are the existing and mystical nuclear bomb and the impact a collapse of Israel would have on the overall stability of the region."

Not to mention overwhelming technological, scientific and educational superiority of a free society.

[Oleg1]

"Palestinians and their daily plight."
NY Times quote.

"Ahmed Ayed, 22, manages a women’s clothing store there{Nablus} Sporting long hair and a goatee, he said the outlet, the sixth in Nablus of a chain owned by his father, opened half a year ago; a seventh has since opened nearby. "

[mommamia526]

Simple psychology from education 101. If you raise a child to go out to throw stones, to hate, to blame others, tell them they are deprived and depressed and occupied, you will take away from it hope, a desire to learn, time to develop and play, and instill hopelessness. It is NOT Israel that is doing that. It is the defunct *leaderships* of the Palestinians who are doing that. Were Palestinians earning a living, learning, acquiring skills, creating stores and other businesses? I assume they were. Could they do that again right where they are? Could they get microloans, and pay those off on time, to start a venture? Queen Rania speaks, she is not out throwing stones, although she is Palestinian, the Palestinians *leaderships* speak, they are not going out to do the actual kidnappings or bomb belt blow-ups. Arabs here in the U.S. speak OUT, about the Israelis, but they are not in their native countries in the trenches teaching Palestinians skills. Migrations are taking place all over the world. People seek out a better life and work hard at it. They do not retire @ age 40!, women work, people limit their offspring, and they do so without blaming others for their plight. There is a way out, it is called incentive and hard work.

[WBMD]

The Palestinians alone are responsible for their "daily plight". Even now, they can reverse it by accepting the offer on the table for a Palestinian state that does not threaten Israel.

[Guylephat]

build it on your own land and no one will complain...the world court told israel it had permission to do so...ON ITS OWN LAND.....so stealing arable land, and water sources and choking and starving a mostly civillian population...what a great way to instill terrorism not stop it....i would love it if there was an open and honest conversation on the topic not some propaganda campaign

[WBMD]

The Israelis were "on their own land" and the Arabs complained...they complained in 1948,and they complained in 1967...and they attacked....and they lost. And now they are complaining louder, asking the world to get back for them that which they lost through their own greed.

[Intelligentia]

I was just thinking about the history of Palestanians and Israelis the other day, and whether there can ever be peace between them. I realized that if there was going to be peace, they would have had it by now. What reminded me of the long history of war between these nations was the biblical story of Samson and Delilah (Sp?). If they have not been able to resolve their disputes by now, it will never happen. So, what is the solution? Let them enjoy their miserable and war-mongering existence. If they do not want peace and tranquility, why should the rest of the world waste time, energy and resources trying to beg them not to kill each other. The seem to enjoy killing each other. They have become serious distractions on the world stage. It's time that the rest of the world communities refocuse their energy and attention to countries where peace is possible. A leopard can never change its spot. From Samson and Delilah to the present day is a very, very, long time for these brothers not to make peace among themselves, for their own good.

[leduck]

We have an industrialised world that runs on cheap energy
even though world oil production is flat, it will take a long times for oil to be uneconomic to recover.

stability in the middle east has always been in our best interest.

[GrownupStewie]

there is no oil in isreal...

[leduck]

I can see there aren't any diplomats on this thread
nor are their any good ideas for ending this conflict

[WBMD]

What is wrong with my idea? Accept Israel's historic rights to exist as a Jewish majority state in a small part of its ancestral homeland; end violence and incitement; recognize the Palestinian trauma; compensate Palestinians for lost land; compensate Jewish refugees from Arab lands; get busy building two peaceful states for the betterment of the whole world.

[Sentientbeing09]

If Israelis cant seize Palestinian land by military force and attrition what makes you think they can buy it?

[William50]

To the Queen, your comments seem to disallow the very facts that Israel after being attacked by Arab nations with the idea of destroying them down to the last person has, instead of taking the very Arab view, moved many of the boarders it conquered back to the attacking countries. Israel also did not demand huge amounts of tribute or wealth from the attackers, instead it set boarders that were at very best better for the attackers then Israel.
Today, the problem is not with the area that Israel is holding but the number of children the Arab nations are producing and the limited economies to furnish the basic support of each person. Today the problem is how do the over extended Arab nations and their self serving rulers channel the youth so the ruling families do not fear civil war in their country or worse a great single Arab leader that over throws all the Arab states.
Israel is used to refocus the children of the Arabs away from the real problems in the Arab world. Palestinian people have done one thing better then most. They have with little area for food and no economy been able to produce huge families for three, four generations...my question is where did this wealth come from to feed the children, make the power and support the economy? Israel!
middleamerican2010
Casey

[MrBadger]

Hey, it worked for the East German / Solviets for decades - why would it not work for the Israelis?

Anyway, good article.

[wired]

Then who is trying to escape from where into what place? And what will who be carrying from there to where?

[leduck]

honestly..., If I were Isreali, I'd be angry.
If I were Palestinian, I'd be angry

Isreal needs to control their radical settlers
and
Palestine needs to control their radical suicide bombers

Choosing one side or the other is not fair and will not lead to a decent outcome.

[WBMD]

Honest, it is not the settlers. And it is not even the suicide bombers, that the separation wall is keeping out.

It is the basic core of the conflict since ever - the absolute refusal of the Palestinians and their supporters to accept the historic right of a Jewish state to exist in a part of their ancestral homeland.

Solve that, and everything else will be solved as well.

[leduck]

You will never solve any problems can you can't put yourself in the shoes of both sides

[evekendall]

Or, put in a different light...

It is the basic core of the conflict - the absolute refusal of Isra el and its supporters to accept the historic right of a Palestinian state to exist in a part of their ancestral homeland.

Solve that, and everything else will be solved as well.

[leduck]

The PAlesinians need to accept Isreal
some don't

by the same token
Isrealis need to accept Palestine
some don't

why is it, people in this country feel it necessary to choose one side over the other
why can't peope recognize the fact, that this issue is not black and white???

[Thelonius]

In 1993, the Palestinians accepted the right of Israel to exist as a sovereign state within its internationally accepted borders. In 2002, the Arab League unanimously passed the Beirut Summit Initiative declaring its willingness to recognize Israel as a sovereign state, exchange ambassadors, trade etc. if Israel complied with international law and previous commitments by withdrawing to its borders of 4 June 1967 and to assist in finding a "just" solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. Unfortunately, for the region, the world and the US, Israel dismissed the offer twice.
As summarized by Ha'aretz, in his book The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, the eminent Israeli historian Avi Shlaim blames Israel for the ongoing conflict: "[I]n very readable prose, based on facts, he surveys the history of Israel's contacts with the Arab world from 1948 to 2000, and states decisively ('The job of the historian is to judge,' he says) that the Israeli story that Israel has always stretched out its hand to peace, but there was nobody to talk to - is groundless. The Arabs have repeatedly outstretched a hand to peace - says Shlaim - and Israel has always rejected it. Each time with a different excuse." (Ha'aretz, August 11, 2005)

[Guylephat]

Bingo !!