The Writing on the Wall

[Violet_Crumble]

The bright red letters stand out starkly against the ugly grey cement. The wall that is slicing through East Jerusalem is some thirty feet high, but casts its shadow for miles. There is little the Palestinians hemmed in on both sides of the wall can do to oppose it. So, the wall is dotted with marks where rocks have been thrown at it in anger, and covered with graffiti.

Some graffiti writers ask if the builder of this wall can be a "man of peace". Some ask how a people whose history is full of ghettos can now be building one. And someone decided to remind us all, in those blood-red letters, that it was "Paid by USA".

You can feel the wall when you're near it, a pressure bearing down on you, gradually pressing you down farther and farther. Walking beside it, on either side, you can see Palestinians trying to live their lives under this weight. It isn't easy. The construction of the wall has separated many people from their families, from their places of work, from fields and grazing areas and from medical services. In Qalqilya, the town has been surrounded by the wall, the route of the barrier looping to encircle it. Many people, those who can, have fled Qalqilya. This is only the beginning. The longer the wall stands, the more pronounced the damage to Palestinian lives will become.

There has been a marked reduction in attacks on Israeli civilians in recent months, and it would be foolish and disingenuous to suggest that the wall doesn't play a part in that. It is equally disingenuous to suggest, as Israel does, that the route of the wall was determined by its security needs. Israel's High Court itself recognized that portions of the wall did more damage to the Palestinian population than could be justified by security needs. But the court, always reluctant to interfere in security matters, affirmed Israel's right to build its wall in Palestinian territory.

The International Court of Justice at The Hague begged to differ. Their view, upheld even by the lone dissenting judge (the American judge, not surprisingly) was that the wall was a violation of Israel's responsibilities as an occupying power (Justice Buergenthal, who dissented, questioned whether the court had sufficient evidence to measure Israel's security needs against this violation). The Court's full ruling, invoking as it did the Fourth Geneva Convention, also reminded the world that Israel's project of settlement in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is also illegal, stripping away Israel's characterizations of the territories as "disputed", rather than "occupied".

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=6044

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Don't the Israelis realize

that this wall walls them IN as much as walling out the terrorists? And the innocent Palestinians who aren't terrorists are the ones to suffer.

[Gimel]

2. Honestly

And someone decided to remind us all, in those blood-red letters, that it was "Paid by USA".

Would the Intifada be different if it was the USA taking over Israel?

This source has biased opinions, and in fact tends to blame the US for the Intifada.

[Violet_Crumble]

3. Yes, let's have some unbiased opinions!

And in the interests of being totally unbiased, let's only post articles from the highly unbiased Arutz Sheva in future? Doesn't everyone know that the only opinions that are unbiased are those that blame everything on the Palestinians? *snort*


Just an idea, but it would appear to me that 'paid by USA' is referring to the obscene amounts of $$$ the US sends to Israel so that it can indulge in little high-expense and illegal territorial expansion adventures...

Violet...

[Gimel]

4. let's only post articles from the highly unbiased Arutz Sheva in future?

Do as you wish..

I have no objection to it.

[Violet_Crumble]

6. Damn. I must have gone too light on the sarcasm there!

n/t

[Classical_Liberal]

5. And jpost doesn't have biased opinions.

Also the US is partially to blame because we continue to aid Israeli settlers. Without our money the Israelis would be more serious about a two state solution.

[Gimel]

7. Maybe

fewer cell-phone companies.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

8. what is the writing on the wall for the fence...

that the EU is planning to build between it's new Eastern European members and their non-EU member neighbors, for reasons that, unlike the Israeli fence, are not life and death...

[Matilda]

9. I relate to what Mitchell Plitnick says about the effect of the wall

in a psychological sense. I spent only about a week in Berlin when
the wall there was still standing, and everywhere you went, east or
west, you came up against it physically and it did have a
psychologically depressing effect that you were always aware of.
I've mentioned it in a few posts regarding the building, but most
people are only concerned with where it should physically be built
(or not be built). But the psychological effect is as powerful
a reminder of oppression as the physical effect. In this regard,
I find it strange that the Israelis, who know as much about this
sort of oppression as anybody, can bear it.

[meti57b]

10. A lot of Fox News language in your article ... "some people say ....."

"Some graffiti writers ask if the builder of this wall can be a "man of peace". Some ask how a people whose history is full of ghettos can now be building one. And someone decided to remind us all, in those blood-red letters, that it was "Paid by USA"."

The old Fox News style of innuendo for when the alleged facts do not exist, as pointed out in the terrific documentary, "Outfoxed".

[idontwantaname]

11. a bit of creative writing.

while the USA may not have directly paid for the wall up front... its aprox $3BILLION of aid is not to be forgotten.