Travel
Bride at the Waling Wall
The Apartheid Wall
Palestinians call the Apartheid Wall, a wall that Israel is building on village land and is cutting the farmers off from their fields on the other side of the wall. We drove there from Bethlehem, a two hour journey through spectacular desert landscape. Locals, Israelis and international activists take part in this weekly demonstration. We all gathered in the small village hall where we were told what to expect and how to react. The Israeli army would use tear gas and possibly rubber bullets to disperse the marchers. We set out in the midday heat on a narrow dusty road. A little band of young women, Palestinian and Israeli, beat their drums, Palestinian and Irish flags fluttered in the breeze. Some marchers wore gas masks, one man was in a wheelchair. When we had walked a short distance out of the village we saw the Israeli soldiers and their armoured jeeps lined up a few hundred yards away. Immediately we came into view they started On the Pink Lady walk, one of firing tear gas canisters, the gas came swirling the walks in the Festival across the valley towards us. We soon began 14 Senior Times l May - June 2016 l www.seniortimes.ie
Stand off between Israeli soldiers at Al Aksol Mosque, Jersualem
to feel the effects of the tear gas, eyes stinging and tearing (hence the name). I was walking with a woman from Northern Ireland. She said she had seen too much of this during the Troubles. We decided to turn back. As we were walking back towards the village we met an elderly Palestinian woman who invited us into her home. Also in the house was an Israeli journalist from Tel Aviv. She was of the view that the State of Israel should never have been
set up, that it was doomed from the beginning. Soon the marchers returned, most suffering from the effects of gas inhalation. People have been killed or seriously injured on this march. There is, of course, another side to the Arab Israeli conflict. What I have written is simply an account of some of the things I saw and heard during an eight day political visit to the West Bank in September 2015.