Our entire group finally made it into East Jerusalem where we’ll mostly be based in the upcoming days with only minor complications. We landed at Ben Gurion International Airport outside of Tel Aviv in the early afternoon and had some setbacks before getting on our way to Jerusalem that I’ll likely write about soon .
I didn’t expect to be confronted so soon with the realities of the expansion of the Israeli occupation from 1967 to the present day. Our guide, Said, told us that there are two main roads to take from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem: Highway 1 and Route 443. We took the latter, which is a perfect living example of the realities of the situation here and a stark one to encounter so early in our trip.
443 leaves the town of Lod and continues through the West Bank with many junctions along the way. Before Said explained the context of this highway, I was busy admiring the rather thickly forested area just off of the highway which I was surprised to see in an area that’s been ‘civilized’ for longer than most others in the world. As you round a corner just past this lovely forested park (Canada Park, I believe is what I heard it called), you see a gigantic cluster of settlements which has grown steadily since the Six Day War in 1967.
At first, I was so excited to see a diverse and robust forest along the side of 443, much like I had just seen by the tracks across the U.S. Right in time, though, Said explained to our group that the area is a park adjacent to a Jewish settlement (which is the one that appeared around the corner when I took the above photo). I’ll remind the readers that this entire space we’re in during this time is within the West Bank according to the Green Line and the park and settlements discussed are illegal under international law. The forest there reminded me of another unfortunate cover-up in history: Sobibor extermination camp in the outskirts of Sobibor in Nazi-occupied Poland. It is the site of one of only two total prisoner uprisings within the camps. An underground committee hatched a plan to murder the guards in a coordinated attack and lead the prisoners out of the front gate. Their plan was thwarted about halfway though, and only 300 of 600 prisoners escaped into the forest. All but 30 were caught and executed. The Nazi regime was so ashamed of the incident (the partial overthrow of their guards, not the death camp in the first place) that they ordered the space demolished and planted over with trees.
When I shared those parallels that I saw during our group sharing time, a fellow delegate pointed out that the same history is shared in her neighborhood at Central Park. I didn’t know before that the space where the famous park now sits was once not only stolen Native American land (that part I knew), but also mass housing for freed slaves and eventually some other immigrant populations. More ‘respectable’ citizens described the village known as Seneca Falls as a collection of shantytowns and they were all destroyed, displacing the residents without relocation or reparation. While I’m usually so grateful to see nature that isn’t destroyed by mass civilization, these examples helped me expand my perspective on what goes on behind the scenes before the forests are seeded.
To build Route 443, three Palestinian villages were demolished. For some time, the highway was shared to some extent, but after the 2nd intifada in 2000, it was restricted to Israeli citizens by the government. This decision was disputed in the highest courts in Israel for years, and in 2011 the segregation of the highway was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court. The concession that was made in the name of security was a series of mandatory checkpoints for Palestinian residents wishing to drive on the road. By this time, West Bank residents had already constructed alternate roads underneath 443 with connecting routes between towns. They were obviously indirect and crowded routes, but still ended up being more convenient to use than to go through the hassle of checkpoints, a process which can take 2-4 hours on average.
Today, Palestinians are, according to the law, perfectly welcome on Route 443. However, none use it. Would you feel welcomed on a road which delayed your route to work, school, and travel with an intrusive search of the interior of your car with arbitrary and shifting rules about what you can and cannot have in your car with you?
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