The Wall, Bethlehem University and the Christian Palestinians

Me in solidarity with Handala.

Let me be clear--this trip is an encounter largely with Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Although I've visited West Jerusalem and a number of the Jewish holy sites, the purpose of this trip is to learn more about the life of Palestinians living, working, and teaching under the 62-year old occupation (don't forget there is the 1948 "Nakba" --the catastrophe that diplaced, dispossessed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land, and then the 1967 Israeli occupation that expanded the reach of the Israeli army and has led to even more misery for Palestinians. It is important to say this, as already several people have commented to me that "there are two sides" to this story. I know that. I think the story that has been suppressed and lesser known (both inside Israel and the U.S.) is the daily suffering that the Israeli occupation of Palestine causes the Palestinian people. It is pervasive and enormous and anyone who thinks otherwise, should go there and see for themselves. I'm writing about that reality--the reality that is never narrated in the U.S. media. It is covered up, occulted, hidden, denied by the use of terms like "terrorism," "Israeli security" and "conflict." But  I'm witnessing it, and I'm sharing those observations with you here. And I must not sanitize it. I've met so many incredible human beings who have shared their stories with me and I owe it to them to share their stories with you. Israeli occupation is a nightmare, and the more I see, the more I understand how much denial there is on the part of both Israel and the U.S. about what is going on here. There is no democracy here. This is a brutal occupation that is bent on two things: confiscating land and minimizing and erasing the autonomy of a functional Palestinian state. Many Palestinians have told me that this is a form of "ethnic cleansing" with a minimal amount of visible blood.

Many Americans don't realize what a diverse country Palestine once was before it became Israel. Jews, Christians, and Muslims, lived together in the land of Palestine when it was under the Ottoman empire. Although Jews were a minority, they were not seen as other. They were part of the Palestinian community. In the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine, there is approximately 40% Christian and 60% Muslim--although I confess this figure also depends on which cities, which villages you visit. Christian Palestinians have been leaving in larger numbers since the Oslo accord (1993) largely because they can. They have better resources, and, in general, it seems that they have been less villified under the Israeli occupation. One of the cities we have visited is Bethlehem--the city of Jesus's birth--and one of the most important Christian holy sites. Getting there is a bit of a challenge for most Palestinians--but for us, it was less challenging. Because we were driving with Jerusalem (Israeli) license plates, we could travel on the settler roads (yes, folks, roads, reserved just for Israelis and for settlers; Palestinians found driving on these roads can be arrested and fined). Bethlehem isn't very far, but for those who would wish to go there who are Palestinian, it is both a hassle and a challenge. Once again, I become painfully aware of how much more mobile and free I am as an American, than those Palestinians who live there and must pass through checkpoints, get out of their cars, have their cars inspected, and if riding on a bus, must pass through the humiliation of going through the checkpoint that involves cameras, armed guards behind glass, going through a security gate, putting their hand on an electronic finger-print reader, and passing by Israeli armed guards who are 19 or 20 and refuse eye contact. We had to go through a checkpoint in Bethlehem, like the Palestinians, and let me tell you, it was a humiliating experience for me as a visitor, so I can only imagine how it feels to Palestinians. I'll describe more about the actual experience of going through a checkpoint later.

This is what most Israeli checkpoints look like--at Qalandia
checkpoint outside Jerusalem, thousands of Palestinians have to line up each
morning in order to get to work in Jerusalem. 

Our first stop in Bethlehem was at Bethlehem University--a small, private Catholic University, established in the 1970s by the La Salle Order of Brothers (same guys who established St. Mary's College in Moraga). It's a lovely, small campus, and immediately you know you are in a little haven in the midst of a sea of conflict. The young man who greeted us from the Public Releations office, Dimitri, it turned out, went to high school in Pleasant Hill, California, just next door to my high school in Walnut Creek. He gave us a tour of the campus and showed us the site of an April 2002 Israeli missile attack on the campus. This was a time all over Palestine, when the Israeli Defense Forces made targeted incursions into Palestinian Universities (Bir Zeit, Hebron, and Bethlehem were all attacked, occupied and many students were arrested during this time). We saw the site of the 2002 missile attack (it was aimed at the library). Many believe that the IDF have made a habit of targeting sites of cultural importance--particularly places that house Palestinian archives of history. The librarian told us that like the many attacks on offices, hidden archives within Jerusalem that contain documents, photographs, and important historical information about pre-1948 Palestine, the universities are special targets for two reasons: 1) they are places where students congregate, organize, and resist; and 2) they are places where students collect, amass, and create knowledge about their history and communities. This is one of the reasons that the universities are often under siege by the Israelis. When we met with faculty members at Bethlehem University, they immediately voiced their anger at how the occupation has affected their students. Like other universities we visited, these faculty members spoke about the ways that the checkpoints and the general policies of Israeli occupation had made it harder and harder to educate students. The Dean of the School of Humanities spoke about the particular affect of home demolitions on some of their students. HOme demolition is a regular practice of the Israeli army that involves punishing the family of a suspected "terrorist" or "resistance organizer." In a short film they showed us about Bethlehem University, the faculty members discussed how frequent the problems are among students who have difficulties completing their education because of home demolitions in the surrounding areas. Many of these home demolitions and land confiscations are directly connected to the Israeli separation wall in Bethlehem (which is massive and tall) and surrounds an Israeli settlement that was built in 2007 on Palestinian West Bank land. It's a massive complex of housing that you can see from the university, and it has been one of the disturbing things I have seen thus far---clearly a violation of international law, and because it has been supported by the IDF, a massive complex of settler-only roads, and then surrounded by the wall, you can imagine how troubling it is to Palestinians.

This is a picture of the before and after of the Har Homa settlement which was built on a hill outside Bethlehem that was a former Palestinian forest:

The occupation of the university is directly the result of this settlement, and attempts on the part of the Palestinians to resist further occupation and confiscation of Palestinian land in the town of Bethlehem. The wall surrounds the entire Israeli settlement and breaks up Bethlehem in many places.

Here are some of my own photos that show where the Israeli rocket enter the library building and destroyed many Palestinian artifacts and documents housed in the library:

This is the point of entry of the Israeli missile. 

This is a photo of the damage done when the Israeli rocket entered the university campus. 

a view of the wall in the central part of Bethlehem (in red) 

The view of the illegal Israeli settlement Har Homa as seen from Bethlehem University. 

The majority of the inhabitants of Bethlehem are Christian Palestinians. They worship at a multitude of churches including the Church of the Nativity (which is the site commemorating Jesus's birth) but if they want to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, they must seek a permit to go there. I met numerous Palestinians who had applied to get a permit to go to Jerusalem for Easter services but were denied. Some choose not to go because just leaving Bethlehem is just such a hassle. And this is part of the design of the occupation--to make movement and life so difficult. The physical space of Bethlehem is crisss-crossed in many parts by the Israeli Separation Wall, and you can see checkpoints at many of the intersections between roads, settler roads, and the Wall. It's a disaster. Not to mention the fact that they deforested one of the last significant natural forests in the West Bank to build this Israeli settlement. Here is a view of the Separation Wall in Bethlehem, that literally cuts into Palestinian land and cuts off some Palestinians from their own land, farms, shops. The wall (the red line above) cuts into the town (and encloses Rachel's tomb). It's a massive structure and when you're up close to it, as we were, you realize just what it's done to the city both in terms of destruction, land confiscation, dividing the city to privelege the settlers, and to isolate holy sites that are sacred to Muslims, Christians and Jews. It is also meant to cut off and cut into the Palestinian community in a way that makes it difficult for people to get around. They often have to go way out of their way to get to a place that would normally take them five minutes. They are not allowed to use settler roads, and Palestinians must go through checkpoints. The night we ate at a Bethlehem restaurant in close proximity to Rachel's tomb, we saw the wall up close and it's massive. We also went through a very distressing checkpoint, where you are required to go through a cattle gate turnstyle (with lights that turn green when you can go) and you have to show ID. The guards (IDF soldiers of about 19 years old don't even look at you). They're loud and abusive toward the Palestinians--often yelling in Hebrew. We were allowed to go through without incident, but it was still a humiliating experience and even more so, when you come out the other side of the wall and find a poster in the entry point that says, "Welcome to Israel."
Here are pictures of portions of the wall:

A portion of the Israeli Separation Wall in Bethlehem (the Statute of Liberty is holding Handala, the figure created by cartoonist Naj Al-Ali that has come to symbolize the 1948 Palestinian Refugees; a  figure which is banned in Israel. 

Part of the wall in Bethlehem. 

Mo

This portion of the Israeli Apartheid wall is painted by many internationals who pass through here. It's a massive structure and this is one of the tallest points where it exceeds 

some interesting graffiti; the longest portion says "you stole our land, yet you make us into criminals." 

The most obvious historical parallel to the barrier is the Berlin Wall, which was 96 miles long (155 kilometers). Israel's barrier, still under construction, is expected to reach at least 403 miles in length (650 kilometers). The average height of the Berlin Wall was 11.8 feet (3.6 metres), compared with the maximum* current height of Israel's Wall -- 25 feet (8 metres). [*it is not clear whether the shorter fence sections, about 6 meters in height, are first or final stages in Israel's construction of the barrier.]

Israel's barrier is therefore planned to be four times as long and in places twice as high as the Berlin Wall.