|
Palestine Trip 4: Pushes
|
Morgan Davie
|
May 24, 2004 15:36 PDT
|
There is a wall in Palestine. It is an absolute barrier, 8 metres high,
solid and grey. It is dividing everything. It sets apart Israel and
Palestine. More precisely, it divides Palestine from Palestine; Palestine
land on the wrong side becomes part of Israel.
Qalqilya is in the northwest part of the West Bank, right at the westernmost
limit of it. It is as close as the West Bank gets to the warm waters of the
med. A large town, 40,000 people or so. In happier times its thriving
markets served the whole region. Many of its residents are farmers, who
leave their homes each morning to go to their plots and fields. Qalqilya is
completely surrounded by the wall. There is one gate giving access. One
gate only. It is a prison camp.
Except it isn't quite that simple. There is another gate, a farmers gate,
giving access to fields. The wall is only 8 metres high on the westernmost
stretch - elsewhere it is razor wire and trenches. The one gate is
unguarded when Issa drives us in. The truth is harder to grasp than the
simple image of giant walls on all sides. And yet, for all that the
residents can see the horizon, it is still a prison.
We are five - Mark of Olive Tours, Sabine and Jean-Guy, Cal and myself. Our
contact is Mahmoud, a Reuters photographer and regular host to visitors such
as us. He later shows us photos of New Zealand minister Phil Goff at the
wallside. Mahmoud is large and taciturn, but his hospitality is unstinting.
We drink sweet tea in his sitting room and look at old photos of his
family members, some of them martyrs in old wars. Then we go down to the
wall, the western section, eight metres tall.
There is a girl's school on the way, and as we walk we pass schoolgirls
clutching workbooks, whispering to each other as they see us. Some of them
fiercely ignore us, while others smile shyly. The school is close to the
wall - fifty metres? I forget the distance exactly. Close enough to have
been tear gassed in the past. Close enough that the children will see the
wall out their classroom windows every single day.
The wall itself is remarkable close up. It is taller than I expect it to
be. Sniper towers sit at regular intervals. Cameras and motion detectors
survey every inch of the wall.
The wall divides farmland. There are a few metres of gravel beside the
wall, and then green crops. As we walk along the gravel, a jeep rushes up.
A teenage girl with a gun argues with Mahmoud from her seat as her fellows
appraise us. The jeep drives off; we walk a few feet further out from the
wall, on the gutter between the gravel and the crops.
On the far side of the wall, we remember, there is a highway. The Israelis
driving on that highway don't have to see Qalqilya. All they see is an 8
metre wall protecting them.
Imagine it as a kneeling giant reaching its arms out, one on each side of
Qalqilya. Imagine the giant's arms casting shadows. Where the shadow
falls, that land is claimed. Where it plants its hands, a settlement is
built.
At the farmer's gate we watch the same soldiers from the jeep inspect men
and children who are crossing to their fields. A Swiss guy we met on our
walk takes photographs incessantly, and the blonde girl who had argued with
Mahmoud scowls at him, tells him to stop. He shifts position and keeps
going. "Don't push me!" she yells at him. The gate is surrounded by barbed
wire. It is only open for an hour at a time, three times a day.
From the gate we can see the town of Habla, Qualqilya's close neighbour.
They are separated by the giant's shadow - the drive there, once ten
minutes, now takes ninety. The state of Israel has taken it upon itself to
build a tunnel that will connect Qalqilya and Habla. Work has begun; land
was confiscated for the project, of course. The residents of Qalqilya found
out what was going on through Israeli TV.
They're building a tunnel to a town you can see from the gate, if you peer
over the wire.
As the sun comes down we walk up the main street. It is busy, but not as
busy as it once would have been. There isn't much money left in Qalqilya.
People call out to us as we walk: "where are you from?" "you are welcome!"
There's also a surprising 'hey dudes' greeting, which belongs to a New
Zealander, a journo named Hayden. He's in town making a short documentary
about the Qalqilya zoo - "cages within cages", as he says. Cal and I seize
on the familiar ground and we have juice together in an outside bar. Hayden
speaks quickly, smiling all the time, and replacing as many words as
possible with sound effects. As always with Kiwis on the road, we establish
people we know in common a few minutes into the conversation (in this case
Cal's infamous Blenheim Boys).
Then Mahmoud takes us to meet the head of the Palestine Authority in town.
I take an instant dislike to him. Everything he says is equivocal, emotive
- he is trying to sell us on his own political vision. I have to remind
myself that his message is worth evaluating on its own merits. Behind his
rhetoric there is a real story of appalling dissolution. Half of the wells
into Qalqilya's water are outside the line of the wall, and now belong to
Israel. 6,000 people have left Qalqilya in the last few years.
"They are pushing us!" he says.
If things continue as they are going, this exodus will continue. Perhaps
then the giant will finally bring his hands together.
_________________________________________________________________
Listen to music online with the Xtra Broadband Channel
http://xtra.co.nz/broadband
|
|
 |
|
