Extreme Rambling: Walking Israel's Separation Barrier. For Fun.

by Mark Thomas

  Smiling warmly, he says, ‘Are you aware of the Balfour Declaration …’

  ‘I’m Scottish! I’m Scottish!’ I cry, but it is too late.

  Waiting for us on the other side of the checkpoint are Fred and Itamar, who we walked with earlier in Ariel. They are nice folk, but frankly neither of them look good on paper. Itamar is ex-army and an obsessive Monty Python fan and I can see why, for some, the only thing worse than an ex-Israeli soldier is an ex-Israeli soldier who constantly says, ‘He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.’ Fred runs an alternative tour guide company, a good one too, but before that he was a street act, a juggler. Let me tell you, people: juggling is the hobby of the friendless. It is watched by the dull and performed by the more dull; the only form of entertainment where the performer has less creative imagination than the audience. There is no oxymoron quite like ‘circus skills’; none comes close, not ‘civil war’, ‘progressive cuts’ or even ‘supermodel’.

  Fortunately, Fred and Itamar are better in the flesh and it is a good two hours into the walk before anyone says, ‘“We are the knights who say ‘Ni’.”’

  The journey today will go from the Palestinian side of the Barrier, to the Israeli side, and then back again. Leaving Qalandiya, we come into East Jerusalem and skirt the Palestinian area of Ar Ram, the homes of which are all painted white with black water tanks on them. The road follows the Barrier here, and cuts left and right in short, sharp bursts. The demarcation lines, too, are close here and, at a set of crossroads, the area changes from a Palestinian neighbourhood into an Israeli settlement. In a matter of metres, houses turn from white to brick brown; hijabs give way to wigs; and graffiti turns from Arabic to Hebrew.

  One good thing about illegal Israeli settlements is that the bigger ones normally have decent bakeries, and we wander into the nearest shopping precinct in search of one. The settlement of Newe Ya’akov was until recently known as an area where new immigrants came to settle, though there is an increasing ultra-orthodox presence. These are not rich folk so we don’t expect a lavish affair in the precinct; nor do we get it. We find a grocer: a purveyor of unmemorable croissants and fine scowls. As we leave the shop he says loudly, ‘After we kick out the Arabs, we should throw out the rubbish.’

  ‘I think they mean us,’ I say to Phil. ‘I think we’re the rubbish.’

  ‘Maybe. Or he could just be an eco-racist.’

  ‘Green racists? “Recycle Prejudice, Fuck the Arabs”?’

  ‘Bigotry recycling!’

  ‘That’s the only kind there is, Phil.’

  ‘You would need to have different bins, though; one where you put your homophobia, one for misogyny and one for racism …’

  ‘Those could be different colours.’

  ‘They would have to be.’

  ‘But there’ll always someone who’ll put their misogyny and homophobia in the racism bin.’

  ‘That’ll be the orthodox.’

  ‘Or the fundamentalists.’

  Leaving the precinct, we skirt the settlement along clean kerbs, passing apartment blocks and peering drivers, along kindergarten playgrounds wrapped in barbed wire and on, to parkland. A track veers from the road onto a strip of woodland where a group of hyrax sit on some rubble, looking at us. These are odd rodents: bigger than a guinea pig and smaller than a hare, they look like a rat got lucky with a rabbit. We take a moment to return their stare before we move on through the footpaths along the edge of pine glades. A few folk are out tramping the path, too. In tracksuits and trainers, they look like they have been told to walk by their doctor, and move with a begrudging stride.

  The paths soon give way to hills and after a gentle hike to the top of the hill, Itamar unpacks his coffee pot and gas stove to make proper Arabic coffee, while we look over the Barrier, now concrete, in the near distance. While he boils the water, he tells us about the first time he killed a man, which is not something you normally hear from a Caffé Nero barista. In the army, Itamar had shot a Palestinian in a fire fight. Crawling past the body, he had said to himself: ‘I should look at his face; I should at least remember the face of the man I killed.’

  ‘What did he look like?’ I ask him.

  ‘Oh, I don’t remember – some guy with a moustache. But I remember thinking I should remember.’

  ‘Is that what you envisaged when you were conscripted?’

  ‘Yes, pretty much. I envisaged not only killing but being distraught as a consequence, being emotionally damaged by my actions. We would watch Platoon and Fourth of July all the time.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. That’s the Zionist left for you; always fighting and crying.’

  ‘You really envisaged all of this before you joined?’

  ‘Yes. I also thought it would help get me girls, too.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes, it is true. I thought they would be attracted to the masculinity and the emotional damage. And it works sometimes, too; mainly with international girls,’ says Itamar, in a matter-off-act way. Then, pondering, he adds, ‘But I’m working on that.’

  *

  Much has changed in our surroundings over the past two days and it’s not just the cessation of the rain: we have moved from rural fields to urban alleyways, and the Barrier has changed from barbed wire and electric fences to the grey concrete slabs familiar to the world’s collective imagination. However, in Jerusalem’s municipal sprawl you can move through communities and changes in the space of a corner or a matter of steps. Today has seen us move through Palestinian areas in East Jerusalem into illegal Israeli settlements, back across the Barrier at Hizma and finally following the concrete line of the Barrier into the Palestinian town of Anata. This is where we meet Wael, a Palestinian friend of Itamar’s.

  Wael is a rounding man; he’s short, too, and has cropped black hair cut close to his skull, with a pair of killer ’77 sunglasses perched on it. Wael has bright, white, clean trainers and a smile as wry as it is warm. Above all else, he has presence, in spades; it is entirely complimentary when I say he’s a little bit punk rock.

  ‘Come, I will walk with you round the Wall,’ he says, as if it is his (Wael tells me his family lost some 101 dunams of land when it was confiscated by the Israeli authorities, so he does have a claim to some of it).

  The Barrier is close by here, built right next to the town’s homes. Anata spills from the top of a hill but never gets far down the slopes before the Barrier catches it, constricting it in a concrete grip that seems to almost physically force the apartment buildings up into the air. On the rise above the Barrier, there is a clear view of the concrete structure curving along the valley ridge, tilting and twisting along the roll of the hills, but always running tight to Anata’s homes, hemming them in. Just over the other side is a valley, an empty expanse stretching down the hill from the concrete, all the way across to the illegal settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev.

  ‘I have asked Israeli officials, “Why does the Barrier come so close to the houses of Anata; why is it not in the valley?”’

  ‘What did they say?’ asks Wael.

  ‘They said this route was for security.’

  Wael snorts, ‘Huh! If I had my machine gun I could shoot any settler in Pisgat Ze’ev from here. It is absolutely not for security; it is to steal the land.’

  Wael’s use of the word ‘my’ in reference to the words ‘machine gun’ is curious. But I am nearly certain he doesn’t actually have one. Very nearly.

  We walk into the gully, the slim space between the back end of Anata’s outlying homes and the Barrier. To our right are the concrete slabs of the Barrier itself, about eight metres tall, each with a round hole at the top where the crane hooks lowered each section into place. The ground next to the Barrier is just rough concrete poured for the foundations – rather than having any thoughts for a pedestrian thoroughfare in mind – but it creates a passageway with room to walk two abreast, rarely more. The town’s steep slopes are immediately to our left. W
e have entered a ravine, caught between the hillside and the Barrier, and it’s soon apparent that the only way out is to walk the entire length of it.

  The slopes of Anata are steep, sometimes sheer, cliffs, covered in tall weeds, shrubs and debris. Rocks scatter the sides, sewage pipes appear from nowhere to run down the length of the hill, and half-finished apartments top the hill’s horizon in complementary concrete grey. Rubbish is everywhere.

  ‘This is like a no-man’s land,’ I say.

  ‘It is,’ laughs Wael. ‘This is the first time I have been to the Wall in Anata. People do not come here. It is ugly and miserable.’

  Mere metres later the gully fills with the stench of sewage and the rocks give way to a blanket of mud and shit, which lies pristine, smooth and shiny; an uncracked bed of crap drying in the sun. The mud is more firm directly against the Barrier and Fred, clutching his rolled umbrella, tiptoes on the compact shit, his circus skills coming into their own. Wael and I are caught on the other side of the gully, but find a sea of plastic bottles in the ocean of crap to use as stepping stones. Coke bottles, turps bottles, green ones, clear ones, one litre, two litres, ones with handles on the side, bleach bottles, water bottles, bottle tops and bottle caps all crunch and fold as we scurry and lollop over them.

  ‘Wael,’ I start, when we are safely on concrete again, ‘you are involved in Combatants for Peace …’

  ‘I am a founder!’

  ‘So you were a combatant, a fighter?’

  ‘Yes,’ he explains. ‘First, we as a people have a right to fight the occupation: this is under international law; the right to defend yourself, and to fight to liberate your land and people.’

  It comes as little surprise that Wael treads lightly on the theory and, it transpires, did actually have a machine gun, or at least trained with one. In 1990, he was arrested attempting to blow up an Israeli police station with a car bomb.

  ‘There was a massacre. An Israeli soldier, he lined up seven Palestinians and killed them. It was a massacre. I was so angry. I talked to my commander. I said we have to do something to teach the Israelis our Palestinian blood is not so cheap. We cannot do nothing. I told him, “I can put a car bomb beside the government quarters.”’ He was caught at the Allenby Bridge moving equipment to make the bomb.

  ‘Do you regret trying to plant the car bomb?’

  ‘I would be a liar if I said I was sorry. I chose that target because it was not civilian: all of them are police or security services, no civilians, and if you are going to fight, you have to fight others who are armed.’

  ‘So do you think those people who target children with suicide bombs are terrorists?’

  ‘Absolutely, yes. We are against terrorism: it is not of our religion, it is not our tradition.’

  ‘Does the subject get debated much in Palestinian society?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He sounds mildly surprised that I might think it’s not. ‘If there is bombing in a nightclub, for example, some might say the bomber is shahid, a martyr, but I say, “No, he is a terrorist; he is going to kill civilians!”’ Wael repeats his conviction: ‘If you have an armed struggle, you have to fight people who are armed … Until now. Now we chose a non-violent way to get our freedom.’

  We walk for a moment in silence, both using sticks to press on as the gully moves uphill. An armchair sits in the middle of the concrete path with shards of broken glass scattered around it. A makeshift ladder is leaning against the Barrier. Walking under it, Wael says, ‘For sixty-five years we have been fighting each other, and our blood and Israeli blood is still running, so we have to be a little bit wise to end the conflict.’

  Above us, kids have appeared on the ridges. Standing over us, looking down as we wander along the gully, they are following us, running ahead, disappearing behind boulders only to pop up later, sometimes higher, sometimes nearer, but always there.

  The conversation moves on to Combatants for Peace, the campaigning group of ex-Israeli soldiers and ex-Palestinian fighters, where Wael and Itamar met.

  ‘I met Itamar at the third ever meeting,’ says Wael.

  ‘No, I wasn’t at that one,’ replies Itamar, who is alongside us. ‘You are thinking of my brother.’

  ‘His two brothers are founders of Combatants for Peace, too,’ Wael says, smiling and shrugging at his own confusion. ‘I heard about the second ever meeting from friends: I said to them, “Where are you going?” and they said, “To meet Israeli soldiers!” I thought they were mad but I went to the next meeting.’

  A pebble hits the Barrier behind us, then another lands with a hollow clack, clicking eerily along the rough concrete.

  ‘Hey,’ Wael shouts up at the ridge above us, then calls out in Arabic till a handful of kids walk to the edge and with some trepidation make themselves known. When another pebble scuttles by, Wael calls out again, and two of the smallest children point at someone over the brow. A sheepish child joins the others, dropping a stone from his hand as he does so. They must be nine years old, at most.

  ‘They think you will bring soldiers to them by walking here,’ says Wael.

  ‘Will we?’

  ‘No,’ he says with confidence, and he calls to the kids who are still following us. They have moved down the hill to be nearer to us, and are listening to our conversation.

  Itamar gets us back to the first Combatants for Peace meetings, where Israeli and Palestinian fighters gathered to discuss the conflict. ‘It was very strange,’ he says. ‘You are going to meet someone who was ready to kill you. You’re going to shake hands with him.’

  ‘“You are crazy meeting Israelis!”’ says Wael, mimicking his friends’ initial disapproval. ‘But that third meeting ran for three hours. We are enemies from military backgrounds but we found a chance to sit down and talk peace.’

  Suddenly, with an almighty crack! a rock slams into the Barrier behind Phil, then one above Fred. Instinctively we duck, looking in panic at the hillside. Crack! Another lands.

  ‘Watch out,’ someone calls.

  ‘What the fuck?’

  Crack! Crack!

  ‘Up there,’ points Itamar.

  At the very top of the ridge, standing on the roof of a half-built house, four masked youths, much older than those nearby, are hurling rocks at us.

  ‘Don’t run, and keep your eyes on the rocks!’ shouts Itamar.

  Crack!

  The rooftop is a distance up the hill and the height gives the rocks incredible velocity. These are no pebbles; these are big, the size of a fist. But the distance gives us about three seconds to spot the rock, see its trajectory and dodge it.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ I shout, thinking if one connects it will take someone’s head off. There is nowhere to go. We are trapped in the gully. All we can do is huddle on.

  Suddenly, the air fills with even more black shapes flying towards us.

  Crack! Crack! Crack! Phil runs for cover.

  ‘Stay calm,’ calls Fred.

  To my astonishment, Wael is standing upright, holding his arms out like a prophet, clutching his walking stick and shouting at the stone throwers.

  ‘What are you doing, I am a Palestinian! These are our guests!’

  By way of reply, the air fills again as the youths redouble their efforts and still Wael stands, moving slightly this way and telling them off, berating them as an elder spokesman. Like I said, the man has presence.

  ‘Keep walking,’ says Fred, and he calmly leads us out of the immediate range of the stones. I am as terrified as it is possible to be without physically shaking.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ says Wael, when we are clear. ‘They probably thought you were the secret police or the army. But you must judge the situation, not them.’

  Lying, I agree, saying, ‘I don’t judge them.’ But of course I do. There have been many discussions about stone throwing on the walk. Mohammad with the goatee beard had said, ‘A stone is a symbolic gesture of our struggle,’ just as the Israeli anarchists at Bil’in had said stone th
rowing was unarmed resistance. But for all the symbolism and theory, it is simply fucking terrifying being on the receiving end of them. One of those stones could have easily split a head open, and we could not have escaped or called in medical help. It is entirely possible someone could have had a serious injury or died. So fuck the little bastards.

  Then something occurs to me. When Wael went to meet the Israeli soldiers it must have been a real moment for him: going to meet the people who had killed his comrades and might even have tried to have killed him. So while I judge the stone-throwing youths, he is clearly the bigger man.

  Some ten metres ahead, Fred and Itamar are surrounded by the younger kids, who have come down from the slopes and are now gabbling and playing around the tour guide and the ex-Israeli soldier.

  ‘Jesus, it’s like the Pied Piper over there,’ I say to Phil.

  ‘I don’t know what they are doing, but as long as the kids stay around us, the older ones won’t risk ambushing us again,’ he says.

  As we walk on, both of us keep a wary eye on the hills. Up in the slopes, a broken pipe flows as a sewage waterfall, cascading down ledges, burbling over stones, down gulches and falling through broken metal frames. The sides of the waterfall are marked by tatty shreds of plastic hanging forlornly from discarded wire and branches.

  ‘So I joined Combatants for Peace, and our main goals are to end the Occupation and for a Palestinian state to be built along the 1967 border. This is what the PLO wanted, but this time we are doing it with non-violent methods. This is different. Before, it was the armed struggle, but we learn from the Indian experience and the South African experience; they use the non-violent way and they succeed.’

  ‘And those who want another intifada? The kids?’

  ‘We try to convince them that the non-violent way is more effective.’

  The walk ends by a checkpoint, right by Shufat refugee camp, and the kids drift off. We say our thanks and farewells to Wael, promising to keep in contact. His shades have not moved a millimetre, though his trainers are not quite as white as they were at the start. When he departs with his rock and roll presence, he leaves me with a tiny crush on him.