Wall Separates Two Worlds
Visitors To West Bank Learn Of Palestinians' Life Under Occupation
By BETHE DUFRESNE
General Assignment Reporter/Columnist
Published on 4/19/2005
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Day travels with a group organized by the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme for an eight-day visit to Israel and the occupied territories, a land holy to Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
Bethlehem, West Bank
Rana Hussein expected to show passion when she agreed to give a short talk about life under Israeli occupation for American visitors to Bethlehem University. But the 19-year-old hadn't planned on crying.
“I am sorry,” she said Monday morning, wiping tears and explaining she had just received some news. A fellow student, a friend, had been arrested and sentenced in Israel to 25 years in prison for planning to assassinate the nation's chief rabbi. The Israeli press said that he is part of a terrorist cell and that he had confessed.
Outside in the university courtyard, a crowd was gathering around a freshly posted notice with photos of four young Palestinian men. No one acted as if something shocking had happened. Inside the university auditorium, Hussein and two other women students kept up a polite dialogue with visitors.
Hussein said she couldn't believe the news about her friend, but she made no grand assertions about his innocence. In the occupied territories, these women would explain, guilt and innocence aren't that simple.
Twenty-three Americans touring Israel and the West Bank on a trip organized by the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme had a difficult time reconciling what students clearly saw as war casualties, the majority of them on their side, with such a physically lovely and historically rich setting for campus life.
Built high on a hill, Bethlehem University has a panoramic view of the city, surrounding hills and burgeoning Israeli settlements that Palestinians find both spectacular and disturbing. The university is small and struggling hard financially, but students and faculty show pride and the grounds are well kept.
As a measure of resistance and resilience, a huge hole in one wall left by a blast from an Israeli tank during the 2004 Bethlehem siege has been glassed over and artfully incorporated into a cultural gallery, a window on the dark side.
Earlier this spring U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, canceled a university visit during a tour of Israel with friends from the Jewish Federation of Eastern Connecticut, but he met in neighboring Beit Sahour with university representatives. The fact that a U.S. congressman ventured into the West Bank and listened to the Palestinian side of the conflict with Israel had obviously made a good impression.
But Palestinians reacted to Simmons' later statements that any action on the West Bank would have to wait until Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip this summer — the official date to begin is July 20 — as yet another indication that U.S. leaders only see through an Israeli lens. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said that there will be a complete withdrawal in Gaza and that some settlements in the West Bank will be abandoned but others expanded.
“We've been waiting since 1948,” said Hussein, referring to the year the independence of Israel was proclaimed, displacing thousands of Palestinians.
While American eyes are on Gaza, faculty and students said, Israeli settlements, roads and a separation barrier reduce the West Bank more each day. Four southeastern Connecticut teenagers with the Old Lyme church group got a dramatic illustration when visitors moved to a top-floor deck of the university.
“You mean you've never been able to travel farther than we can see?” asked 15-year-old Matt Hurtt of 20-year-old Rawan Khater.
“Yes, that is right,” she said, likening life for Palestinians to living like animals in a cage.
Some students said that, despite the expense and their strapped finances, they have had to move onto campus to make sure they can make it to class. Travel is made slow or curtailed by military checkpoints, and they are restricted or excluded from certain roads in Israel if they don't have a permit.
Finding a job is next to impossible, they said, with the tourism- and agriculture-based West Bank economy ruined by years of fighting.
Yet they continue to prepare. Khater, who is majoring in mathematics, accompanied the visitors to a luncheon cooked by faculty and students from the university's celebrated culinary program. It was “Spanish Day.” All rated the gazpacho, fruit-laden sangria and Spanish-style chicken “excellent.”
The Connecticut teenagers wanted to know what students thought would happen next with Israeli building accelerating and the chances of a “viable, contiguous Palestinian state,” as President George W. Bush has called for, seemingly shrinking. “Will there be a third intifada?” they asked Khater, referring to a violent uprising among Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to protest Israeli occupation.
She couldn't say. For now, she said, just coming to class is an act of faith.
“It's our resistance,” she said.
Later that day, when the Old Lyme group inspected a 40-foot-tall section of the Israeli separation barrier in Bethlehem, the students left a small mark if not of resistance, of solidarity.
After canvassing the adults to borrow a magic marker, they added their own messages to the massive wall art and graffiti. Fifteen-year-old David Zall quoted John Lennon's “Imagine,” and 14-year-old Eliza Nguyen quoted Pope John Paul II on building bridges, not walls.
Matt Hurtt, who wants to be a U.S. Navy officer, wrote “with dignity, humanity and loyalty, anything is possible.”
Tashrik Ahmed, 16, the only Muslim among the young people, left a message of hope that “With God's will Inshallah, this signature will not remain here long.”
Then, with the adults waiting impatiently, they hurried back to their tour bus, past far bolder messages that said “Live Until You Die” and “To Exist Is To Resist.”
b.dufresne@theday.com 
