Qalqilya: The Wall

On a settler highway running north-south past the Ariel settlement block, you might never know that you were cutting Palestinian territory in half with your speedy commute. The wall to your right if you're going north, to your left if you're going south, looks like one of the sound barriers you find on I-495 around Washington DC, the kind that keep bedroom communities quiet and serene. But it's not a sound barrier — it's a physical barrier, a separation wall constructed in 2002 to enclose the approximately 40,000 residents of Qalqilya. The wall cuts Qalqilya residents off from their land, from the labor market in Israel many once depended on, and from their families.

In early June, a week after these photos were taken, Qalqilya witnessed a spate of violence that captured the insanity of Israeli-Palestinian blood politics. Israeli authorities made it known to the PA security forces that they wanted several high-priority targets from the Hamas paramilitary wing dead. Who knows what the Israelis promised to the PA in exchange for doing their dirty work. PA forces botched an assault on a Hamas safehouse, getting three officers killed in an attempt to kill their own targets. Two Hamas fighters and the owner of the house also died in the attacks. A string of retributive arrests took place in the West Bank and Gaza over the ensuing days. The violence and the political turmoil that resulted threatened to derail the fragile reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas in Cairo.

In the end, Israel decided to remove its major checkpoint going into Qalqilya from within the West Bank, and also decided to allow yellow-plated cars belonging to Arab Israelis to enter Qalqilya freely (Israeli citizens, Jew and Muslim, are prohibited from entering Palestinian territory almost everywhere else, although it's an odd prohibition, given that 400,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem).

It seems the IDF got what it wanted. And lived up to whatever promises it had made to the PA.

LIFE ALONG THE WALL: QALQILYA, WEST BANK

Jerusalem, Old City: Orthodox on Shavuot

Friday, May 29, was a Jewish holiday called Shavuot. I went to the Old City to watch the Orthodox Jews pour in through the Damascus gate on their way to pray at the Western Wall, sometimes jogging — clutching their big fur hats to their heads, strollers rattling across cobblestones — to get to the Wall before sunset. I didn't know until now what the Shavuot holiday signifies. I just Googled it and found out that it marks the day when God handed the Torah over to Moses at Mt. Sinai.

I would have known last Friday, on Shavuot, when I asked four or five Orthodox to explain the significance of Shavuot to me. Each successive person looked at me with a look of disdain or discomfort, or some mixture of both. No one would answer me, or even respond to my "Shalom," and the dozen or so people that I made eye contact with and smiled at looked straight through me, as if I weren't even there. Maybe there's a prohibition against smiling on Shavuot — when the Orthodox observe Sabbath conditions — or maybe they were reluctant to speak to me for fear of embarrassment or because of poor English language skills. Whatever the case, the experience caused me to wonder if the Orthodox behave similarly to more secular Jewish Israelis, or if the silent treatment is reserved for foreigners and Arabs. Do they not condescend to acknowledge my presence because they are God's chosen people, and I am not one of them?

I walked home in the quickly cooling air of early evening. I stopped to take a picture of some Arab kids playing soccer in a park lit by electric lamps. A few of them came up to talk to me. We talked about all sorts of simple things — food, geography, soccer (mentioning Barcelona is a quick way to make friends, even if you, like me, know nothing about soccer), etc. Then I said I had to go, and as I started to walk away, I heard a kid yelling "Cous ukhtek, cous imek." Your sister's pussy, your mother's pussy. Two common insults hurled at me for no reason that I could understand, other than the fact that the kid probably thought it would be funny to make fun of me loudly in a language I couldn't understand. But I did understand, and I made him aware of the fact that I understood. I asked him why he would say such a thing.

Instead of apologizing, he threw a rock at me.

A Palestinian woman sells parsley next to the Damascus Gate as Orthodox Jews pour in on Shavuot


Foot traffic inside the Damascus Gate as Orthodox Jews make their way to the Western Wall


The Orthodox have large families, rivaling the Arab "population bomb" with their reproduction rates.


Orthodox men speculate on what's causing the blockage at the Damascus Gate.




Oranges and apples inside an Israeli soldier's helmet at the Damascus Gate.