** Updated Abu Dis Wall -- January 2004 **

January 3, 2003

Abu Dis Wall

[Bethlehem, West Bank] Although we were under curfew all day today, a week ago curfew was lifted. JZ was in Jerusalem working, and he invited me to meet him at the infamous new wall in Abu Dis, a Palestinian town between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. We agreed to meet at the University there. Abu Dis is a distant five miles from my house in Bethlehem, so I knew to allow myself plenty of time. Three vehicle changes, one walk, three checkpoints and two hours later, I arrived.

Abu Dis has the distinction of having a large wall running through the center of the town. Israel erected this wall for security purposes rather than just to constantly harass the Palestinian population. Because if people are deliberately harassed and humiliated every day, they might try to leave the country to find a better life elsewhere. That would be a slow "transfer" of the Palestinian population. And no one wants that, do they?

Your eyes do not deceive you. This is indeed a wall running through the middle of Abu Dis.
Faced with daily challenges like this, most Palestinians are remarkably restrained.

High-heeled Palestinian women climb over rubble to squeeze through an opening in the wall.

This butcher had a common story. He lived only several hundred yards from his shop.
Unfortunately the wall ran between his home and his business.
So now he has to drive ten miles around the wall to get to work every day.

Looking through a hole in the wall.

An Israeli checkpoint inside the West Bank.