4. The exhibition about the Apartheid Wall at the Walled-Off Hotel, Bethlehem.

4).  The exhibition about the Wall at the “Walled-Off Hotel”.

After walking along a much-painted section of the Apartheid Wall,  we came to the Walled-Off Hotel, which was financed by the British street artist Banksy in 2017, to mark the 100th anniversary of the British control of Palestine.   Carved into the concrete of the Wall opposite the hotel was the British Crown symbol, as found on letter-boxes, with, underneath it, “ ER….Sorry”.  The hotel contained a welcoming bar serving Palestinian beer,  a small art gallery and an exhibition about the Wall.  

The Wall is 810 km long and cost $1.3 billion, and was built using materials and labour from the West Bank - it is not best conceived as a single barrier, rather as a set of local walls, checkpoints and colonies inside the West Bank.  The tall concrete blocks are characteristic of the urban sections of the wall, but other parts use trenches, electrified fences, barbed wire, watchtowers, as well as drones, snipers and surveillance equipment.  It was declared illegal under international law by the UN in 2004 - whatever that may indicate beyond the impotence of law in the face of military domination. 

 There was an exhibit of the different kinds of ID cards issued to Palestinians - none to those exiled, green cards with a Palestine flag design around the edge for West Bank Palestinians, another one for Gaza Palestinians, and a different blue card with Jewish symbols on it for East Jerusalem Palestinians, different again from that for Jewish Israeli citizens, which was similar in appearance but specified a different religion from that issued to Palestinian Israeli citizens.   These cards are used to kettle people in their respective enclosures, and cause particular pain and difficulty for people in Occupied East Jerusalem, since the Israeli state is trying inexorably to increase the percentage of the population of Jerusalem who are Jewish.  There were little cards with brief stories on the walls of the exhibition that told of the heartbreaking difficulties that people face trying to live their lives in the face of this enforced compartmentalisation.  For example -

We think a thousand times before we build, go on vacation, study, work, trade, or grow crops. It’s not because of laziness or inability.  It’s because of concerns about the obstacles, about harassment and attacks by the Israeli military or by settlers.  Its as if we live in a big prison, with invisible walls, as a result of the restrictions imposed on us.  Lana, Ramallah.

When I was young, I did not know the meaning of fear; however, the situation now is much different because I have children.  I try to arrange everything in our lives so that my kids do not experience the occupation and its everyday humiliations, as I did. For example, I do not travel outside Bethlehem with my kids so they don’t go through checkpoints.  I know that this is an escape from reality, but I want them to grow up proud of who they are. I cannot imagine for them to see their own father humiliated and abused by the Israeli soldiers, of for them to be abused and I could do nothing.  I do not want to teach hate to my children, and I wish that the Israeli occupation would end before they learn to hate.    Ahmed, Bethlehem.

Another showed the Wall, like other barriers to movement of people across the world,  being used to increase the exploitation of labour, and to make seeking work mean taking  the risk of murder by the State on a daily basis -

I wake at 3.30 a.m. to get ready to work inside Israel.  I go with some other men to the fence separating my village from the road to Jerusalem.  We hide in the olive trees until the army trucks are gone.  One of us offers to jump first over the fence, and then the rest follow.  We run.  The owner of the construction pays us little because we have no permits and he knows we have no option.  But I am saving to build a house, to marry and settle.  I have an engineering degree.  Even with a permit, you must goat 3 a.m. and queue for hours at the terminal to arrive on site for 8 a.m.  You may not get through and lose your job.  It is humiliating, lonely work, because we leave before dawn and get back at night.  We do not see or visit anyone.   A worker from Da Salah village, age 30.

These cards reminded me of some of the stories told to Nadera Shalboub-Kevorkian in her research, such as stories told by women, trying to make sure that they give birth in the right place to ensure that their child can be entitled to documents that make their very existence legal, even to the extent of putting that child’s life or their own life at risk by going through check-points whilst in labour.   Or stories of people struggling to get the bodies buried of their family members who die unexpectedly when they are visiting relatives or friends and are not in the place that they are supposed to be to be entitled to burial. 

Another exhibit showed the different number plates of cars issued for Israelis and Palestinians.  In all the Arab West Bank towns we visited, there were a large number of cars being driven around with Israeli number plates, which at first I did not understand at all - what were all these Israeli cars doing driving round Abu Dis or Bethlehem?  It seems that motor insurance companies in Israel allow written-off cars to be sold on to Palestinians in the West Bank, who get them going again and drive them to get around their enclaves, but they cannot leave that enclave in them, since a person with a Palestinian ID driving an Israeli car will forfeit the vehicle and pay a fine when they are stopped at a checkpoint.  The fixed checkpoints that we saw are not the only ones, the Israeli army can set them up anywhere at any time.

The next exhibit was an array of permits - the Israeli army issues 101 different kinds of permits, which must be sought regularly and then carried by Palestinians inside the West Bank to travel, for example to reach their school or a hospital, to reach their land if they are a farmer, or to reach their relatives or shops if they have been isolated on the ‘wrong side’ of the Wall.  This again made me aware of the pervasive surveillance under which the Palestinians are forced to live, and the experience of always being mis-recognised as an intrinsic security threat, or, rather, “to have one’s very humanity and personhood eclipsed by institutionalised non-recognition” (Shalboub-Kevorkian, 2015, p 139).

There was also a poignant exhibit of a small suitcase with the question, what would you take if you were told that your home was to be demolished in 15 minutes time?  Over 1000 Palestinian structures were demolished or seized in 2016, affecting more than 8000 people.  Demolitions are carried out by the army without notice, using a ‘swarm’ of troops and police to keep neighbours from interfering, often in the early hours of the morning when people are asleep inside; explosives or armoured bulldozers are used, and the displaced inhabitants are made liable for the costs.  Sometimes people are forced under threat of further expense to demolish their own homes, which really amounts to torture.  Permits to build or repair Palestinian homes are rarely given, so a large number of people are living perpetually under the fear of their home being demolished as they have had to build or enlarge it without a permit.  Some other demolitions are carried out as a punishment when one of the family members from it has attacked Israeli soldiers or civilians, even when that family member is already dead or jailed.

Another exhibit, doubtless already out of date, stated that there are 547,000 settlers in over 137 settlements and 100 outposts in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; the Wall has been routed around many of these settlements, but others have their own walls and infrastructure.  Whilst all ‘illegal’ according to international law, they receive military protection.  The settlers are allowed to carry automatic weapons, despite growing vigilantism by settlers against Palestinian communities.

A final section focussed on the Israeli arms industry, which the Defence Minister in 2013, Ehud Barak, said provides employment for 150,000 Israeli households.