On King David street there is a tattoo shop, and next to it a place where you can get a ham sandwich. Here in Jerusalem’s Old City I can stop for a 10 shekel iced coffee while making my way to the Western Wall. Jewish school children play basketball just below the wall on which hundreds of tourists explore the perimeter of the Old City daily. Jerusalem is a city of pairs (as in Hebrew it ends with the sound for things that come in pairs), this concept being visible in a number of ways: the new and the old, the religious and the secular, heaven and earth, etc. After spending a day in the Old City (and hanging out in the modern areas of West Jerusalem) and spending a day touring East Jerusalem with Rabbis for Human Rights, the contrasts and divisions in the communities of Jerusalem are hard to ignore.
A separation wall has been constructed between East and West Jerusalem. This wall is 8 meters of concrete with barbed wire at the top – nothing beautiful about it. We spent time discussing the purpose of walls in human life. Not only are they meant for protection, and to keep outsiders out, but they serve a more mental purpose as well. Some walls, such as the wall around the Old City, are constructed to be walked on so you can see what is happening on both sides; this is not the case for the separation wall. The barrier between East and West Jerusalem is meant to keep the populations apart. We use walls to define us, and this wall has defined much of Israel as ignorant when it comes to human rights – our guide suggested that almost 80 percent of Israelis today have not been across the wall, or have not bothered to learn about the struggles and human rights violations that it has created. However, the more “concrete” definition created by this wall is the physical boundaries of Israeli West Jerusalem.
The borders to Jerusalem are much in dispute, as they have always been. The “Green Line” is what was supposedly agreed upon in 1949 as Israel’s territory in Jerusalem, however from the time the line was drawn it has continued to build settlements outside of the Green Line to extend Israel’s control of the area. There is another line from 1967 which separates Israeli West Jerusalem from Palestinian East Jerusalem, and then there is the route of the Separation Wall. The wall was constructed disregarding this boundary thus stealing land against international law. Checkpoints, limited access and transportation flow, and other issues create many violations of human rights for the people who are now living outside of the wall. Many cannot come to Jerusalem to work, or even access hospitals without hassle of driving around the city or going through sometimes several checkpoints.
We visited a small town where several neighborhoods were very close together, some Palestinian some Israeli. The Arab/Palestinian side of town was clearly neglected; although its residents were tax-paying citizens within the Jerusalem border, the roads were not taken care of, trash was not collected and taken away, and there was overall mess. Yet, just around the corner where the Israeli neighborhood sat there was clearly new infrastructure, and it looked pleasant and well-treated. It is crazy that the Palestinians are paying taxes (so that they can keep their blue cards and access Jerusalem) but they are not seeing ANY of this money come back in the form of government services. The worst part, however, was that one Palestinian neighborhood in the area is now on the other side of the Separation Wall, which was arbitrarily built in a way that completely isolates these people. They now have no road on which they can drive in and out of their neighborhood, and they must pass through a checkpoint by foot in order to get to their cars and buy groceries. Now that they are no longer considered a part of Jerusalem they receive no government services – they must throw their trash in a pile on the side of the road. They have been separated from their families, who live in the same town just on the other side of the wall, and their standard of living has been completely disregarded.
There are many issues about human rights violations in this city – people being displaced from their homes, inequalities for women, a horribly imbalanced education system, just to name a few categories. I am so thankful to have the opportunity to start volunteering with several human rights organizations in the upcoming weeks. I feel a connection to this country, warts and all, so I feel excited to be a part of working towards solutions.
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