I look up at the massive concrete barrier in front of me; tears fall down my cheeks resting in my beard. I turn to Danna, Cindy, Hinda and Dan the peace walkers, my mouth moves but there are no words. My head crumbles to my chest and I hear my heart crying out, “What have we done?”
It is November 2003 and I am in Israel again, walking for Peace. It’s deja-vu because I was here last June, standing in front of another wall. But that one was deep inside the Gates of old Jerusalem, the Wailing Wall, and a sacred and holy place to pray.
This wall is not sacred, it is not holy, but it is certainly a place to pray.
This monstrous barrier will be 600km-long and it will cut off Israel from the rest of the West Bank. Vast swathes of fertile land and scores of villages will be affected.
As in all conflicts there are many versions of why it is being built. Even its name reflects conflict, with some calling it a “security fence” to prevent suicide bombers from infiltrating, other seeing “The Wall” as another land grab designed to humiliate and destroy the Palestinians.
I call it as a wall of shame, it saddens me that as humans we still cannot find ways to live with our differences. Maybe this comes from my walking for peace in seventeen different countries. Specifically it may come from the fact that I was at the Berlin wall some years ago with a hammer, helping to knock down another wall of shame. Our progress since then is that Israel’s wall will be four times as long and twice as high. This is a state of the art wall, complete with patrol vehicles, electric ground/fence sensors, thermal imaging and video cameras, unmanned aerial vehicles, sniper towers and razor wire.
But there is another story, about a nation of people deep in shock and fear at the prospect of another 63,000 Palestinians being cut off from the land. A farmer, Nimr Ahmed in one day lost access to the lands which he and his forefathers worked for generations. Another example is Naji Yousef a shepherd who was forced to sell his sheep because the fence blocked access to the pasture. The tragic stories of these people are endless and heartbreaking.
In conflict there is never a simple solution, but this wall is not a solution for anyone, as both sides will suffer. I pray that this new wall of Jerusalem, like the ancient walls of Jericho, will eventually fall when another trumpet of Peace will be heard.