No writing on the wall

By Danny Rubinstein

Israel Antiquities Authority supervisor Yonatan Mizrahi recounts how one day he arrived in the Abu Dis area, where the separation fence blocks the old Jerusalem-Jericho road. Mizrahi found the Palestinian construction workers who are building the fence spraying a white liquid on it. After inquiring, he learned it was a graffiti repellent spray apparently developed in satellite labs in the United States. Mizrahi was shocked: is the State of Israel going to spend money spraying graffiti repellent for use in outer space on the giant concrete wall? Is the graffiti a security threat? One of the guards there explained the operation to him: "We won't let them write incendiary remarks against us on the walls. The foreign press, after all, will have a field day with the graffiti, and you should know that Jews will probably also come to write on it, just to add fuel to the fire. These leftists will give the terrorists some ideas yet."

This episode is included in a collection of stories gathered by Mizrahi into the book, "People of the Wall" (Pardes Publishing). The book describes the two-years from 2003-2005, when Mizrahi was the Antiquities Authority supervisor of the route of the separation fence around eastern Jerusalem. During this period, it was his job to ascertain that the infrastructure work for the fence did not damage antiquities sites.

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There is also a special arrangement, incidentally, for the owner of the small hotel in Abu Dis whose courtyard is bisected by the fence. Because there is no other alternative, he has apparently rented out the hotel to the local headquarters of the Border Police. On the east side of the hotel is the large, unfinished structure that was to have been the Palestinian parliament as well as buildings that are part of Al-Quds University.

From the Abu Dis road south, a security road of around 10 kilometers is under construction and it will lead to the Arab neighborhood of Sawahra and the Jewish neighborhood of Har Homa, on the way to Beit Sahur. However, a Border Police roadblock permits passage on this road only to people from the Ateret Kohanim organization, who have settled in one house on the slope of the hill. Once, it was an Arab house that stood on the edge of a plot of land purchased years ago by Jews and an eight-meter high fence was supposed to pass through the courtyard. The Arab owner of the house, so it is told, faced a choice: Raze the house or sell it to Jews who would somehow manage to deal with the fence. And indeed, after the house was sold to Jews, the route of the fence was moved to the east and did not pass through it. This is not an unusual occurrence in the stories revolving around the separation fence. A thick pamphlet published by B'Tselem depicts cases where the route of the fence was drawn not based on security needs, but to cater to the expansion of settlements.

Along the dozens of kilometers of the fence's winding route around Jerusalem, you can hear different stories and complications. The fence passes through yards and houses, blocks access roads, creates fortified enclaves, damages vital services, separates families and destroys economic and social infrastructure. Construction of two terminals - at Qalandiyah in the north and next to Rachel's Tomb in the south - has been completed. The Palestinians pass through electronic gates and do not come into direct contact with a single Israeli soldier. They are subject to full supervision from concealed and open cameras and hear instructions issued through powerful loudspeakers. Another 12 terminals, from Betar in the south to Bitunia in the north operate as regular checkpoints and construction work is underway at some of them. Along some sections of the fence route, work has been delayed due to some 50 petitions against the fence submitted to the High Court of Justice or due to other diplomatic reasons. For example, construction of the eastern section of the wall has been delayed because of a disagreement over the inclusion of Ma'aleh Adumim inside the route.

But even when the work is completed, it is not clear how this system will be able to function and separate Palestinians in Jerusalem from Palestinians in the West Bank. None of them are Israeli citizens and it is unclear what means there are to separate them. There is hardly a visitor to the fence around Jerusalem who is not amazed by one of the biggest projects ever undertaken by the State of Israel, and which seems like madness. Archaeologist Mizrahi claims in the book that, indeed, the Palestinians are physically affected by the fence, but Israel, which is closing itself off from the area in a Crusader-type ghetto, is even more affected.

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