Fact and Fiction about the Israeli Wall/Fence/Barrier in Jerusalem
04/12/2004

Like almost everything in the Middle East, the Wall/Fence/Barrier under construction by Israel has become the subject of partisan politics. The truth is inconvenient for most political puproses, because too often it favors nobody and makes everyone look bad. Thus,the raw material truth product must be reworked and reshaped by experts until it suits the purpose of those marketing it as "truth." Consequently it is impossible to determine the truth except from first hand accounts, and as these are inconvenient, they are not believed.


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Here is an actual first person account of the construction of the Israeli fence/wall/barrier in Abu Dis. The reporter chooses to remain anonymous:





Yesterday I visited the Abu-Dis wall. When we turn to enter Abu-Dis inwhat used to be the main road via the town toward Jericho and the Dead Sea, we came face to face with the 9-meter tall monster. But wait, this is not going to be the usual story about the wall - if you are willing to walk up the hill with me you will hear a story different from all others. This is a promise.

Abu-Dis wall is the most photographed segment of the wall. A 2-meter provisional wall was established across the main road in the town almost a year ago. Since the place is so close to Jerusalem it had two distinct advantages for the media:

1. Thousands of Palestinians crossed the 2-meter wall every day on their way to work, school and other business in Jerusalem,

2. A photographer or reporter does not have to travel far from the comfort of his Jerusalem office, take a few photos (the cross wall traffic there was constant, within a 5 minutes wait one would see a baby being transported across the wall and the photographer can be back to Jerusalem within half an hour after the daily Abu-Dis photo.

Since this is a wall and not a fence, it fit the anti-wall media campaign. Every foreigner interested in "the wall" was taken to Abu Dis by various organizations. In each of my Abu Dis visits there were many professional photographers, students and activists taking photos of Palestinians crossing the monster. (see here.

At the end of January 2004 it all changed. Israel started replacing the 2-meter wall with 9-meter concrete slabs that were supposed to be the REAL wall. No one can cross here any more. The reports were that the construction crew is working day and night, photos of night time construction filled the news wires. The buzz was that Israel want to finish the wall before the ICJ Hague hearing on February. The area was again the center of anti-wall demonstrations and this time the "wall photos" coming from Abu Dis were different: A woman with a 9 meter wall in her front yard, a nun with a 9 meter wall at the entrance to her monastery, a Palestinian riding his horse that seemed dwarfed by the 9 meter monster, a monster covered with graffiti comparing whatIsrael does to the Palestinians to what the Nazis did to the Jews -See some of this graffiti here, here, and here.


The fate of Abu Dis seemed sealed or was it ?

I was there yesterday and this time walked along the wall, wondering what will I find. It is a steep climb up the hill. No reporters I know have done that. Why bother climbing when the story is there available on the main road? After 5-10 minutes walk I arrived at what I can only describe as "the end of the wall", there is a gap in which a small stone is placed and yet again everyone can climb and cross there.
Another 5 minutes to the other side of the hill and it is completely open space, no wall in sight (except a small stretch of 100 meters built on top of a far away hill in the horizon)

This is it. All the rush of pre-Hague construction has finished, there are no construction boldozers in sight.

The famous Abu-Dis wall (mentioned tens of thousands of times in news articles, photos and on the Internet) is ONLY less than one kilometer in length!

A new "wall by-pass road" is already in use by the Palestinians residents of Abu Dis and while this is somewhat non-convinet (a 10 minute detour by car, 15 minutes by foot) it is hardly a story that if would occur elsewhere in the world anyone would bother reporting about.

Will this stop suicide bombers ?

Decide for your self.

Will this cause the town of Abu-Dis a slow death and cause her residents to move away ("the wall is a slow transfer" says the graffiti on the wall)

Decide this for yourself.



That is all he wrote in this letter. However, this same correspondent has pointed out the ubiquitousness nature of half-truths about the fence/wall/ that have been perpetrated by media and by activists on both sides. For example, from Al-Jazeera :




"In recent weeks, Israeli bulldozers have finished their work at the Palestinian village of Abu Dis, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and moved to.."




They finished their work, but the wall is not finished.

And from Gadi ElGazi from Taayush:





"Jerusalem, where the barricade around Abu Dis has been replaced by a 9-meter-high wall which cuts off the 250,000 Palestinians within the municipality of Jerusalem from the 600,000 Palestinians living nearby."




But Ta'ayush knows it is not true. The wall/fence/barrier doesn't cut off the Palestinians, because they simply go around it. The wall is not complete. What it means is not clear. Will Israel finish the barrier? What is the point of having a fence for a brief distance. Does someone think the suicide bombers are too lazy to travel 10 minutes out of their way? Whatever the case may be, the truth is different from what you have been reading in the media.

For those who are interested in collecting "talking points" to bolster their propaganda positions, this must be very confusing. We are not saying that the Palestinians are evil and that the Israelis are good or the other way around. If my what we say is untrue, then show us where the wall is being built that seals off Abu Dis, and I will gladly publish your report here. But anyone can go to Jerusalem and verify the truth. We do not pretend to know the significance of the truth, except that it is the truth. For crazy people like us, that is important in itself. If that doesn't suit you, it is not our problem. If you insist on being deceived, then go on reading the media and believing them.

Ami Isseroff