GASSED
Today Khaled, Radi, and I drive to Bilin, a village in the West Bank about 20 km northwest of Jerusalem. The town is cut in two by the Separation Fence (which is a 30 foot high concrete wall in other places). Palestinian farmers can no longer get to their fields, their land is suddenly no longer theirs, but Israel claims it prevents potential terrorists from slipping into Israel.
We join the weekly march/demonstration, which ends up at the Fence – Khaled and Radi holding high large b&w photos of the Holocaust. Finally, we’re 100 feet from the soldiers, several layers of fence and barbed wire between us. Khaled and Radi are armed with the photos, held up against the fence like protective crosses. (Khaled convinced a young Palestinian guy, who usually throws stones at the soldiers, to hold a photo too.)
A few moments of silence. The soldiers seem confused, one looks away, maybe in response to the photos. Then – a shot, followed by the characteristic hiss coming at us across the No Man’s Land – a tear gas grenade spirals across the ground near us. My first experience of this wonderful “crowd dispersal” invention, my eyes immediately burn, tears fall, and I can’t stop coughing.
The idea of a Palestinian protest in which Palestinians hold up pictures rather than throw stones and make political statements rather than inflict mortal wounds targeted against civilian women children and men, is encouraging. On the other hand, the claim that it is impossible to understand how Israelis who are conscience of the holocaust could build a separation barrier requires a shallow understanding of the Holocaust and Israeli Palestinian relations. I don’t know who claims to be the great arbiter of the lessons gleaned from the Holocaust. But it’s clear that while some people might have learned empathy, others learned that as Jews, we have to protect ourselves. And while the separation barrier is ugly, awful, perhaps even infringing on certain rights, it ultimately saves lives. It is clear that the bombings from Palestinian terrorists have decreased to almost nothing since the barrier’s construction, and conversely, has decreased Israel’s response to these attacks. So the barrier saves Israeli lives directly, and in a strange way, saves Palestinian lives as well. Perhaps through a deep understanding of both sides of this issue, we will be able to break down the walls and build bridges instead. Until then, the barrier stands as a lesser evil.
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