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A contemporary tale of two Israeli citizens whose friendly visit to Ramallah becomes one of Israel's latest successful "rescue operations"
It is perhaps because the sovereign borders of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories it controls are not fixed, but are rather elastic and in constant transformation, that Israel's obsession with separation is so profound. Checkpoints, roadblocks, closed military zones, bypass roads and, of course, the infamous separation wall, are all means aimed at both restricting the mobility of Palestinians (while enabling the movement of Jewish settlers) and preventing human interaction across the state's ethno-national divide. It is for this purpose that Israel found it necessary not only to prevent the entrance of Palestinians into Israel, but also to prohibit the entrance of Israeli citizens into most Palestinian-populated areas in the West Bank. The official reason given by Israel in justification of this prohibition was of course "security." Virtually everything Israel ever does is justified by recourse to this magic word. But in reality, the law passed in 2000 prohibiting the entrance of Israeli citizens into Area A zones of the West Bank functions first and foremost as a means of vilifying Palestinians and dehumanizing them in the eyes of Israelis, for whom they have become an invisible (literally blocked behind a wall) source of danger against which the Israeli-Jewish tribe must protect itself, and with whom it should have no direct contact.
While Israel may currently rely on the cooperation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in executing its policy of segregation, it is also facing a growing number of alternative collaborative efforts, which bring IsraeliJews and Palestinians together in a shared fight against the occupation and Israel's imposed politics of partition. The following anecdote is told in honor of all such collaborative efforts to bring about a shared future.
It is the 5th day of my short visit to Israel. I meet my friend, A at Sha 'ar Shchem (Nablus Gate) in the Old City of Jerusalem, from where we are set to take a transit to Qalandia and then a cab to Ramallah, to visit my dear friend H.
The drive from Jerusalem to Qalandia takes no longer than 20 minutes and soon our van enters the hallucinatory reality of the "modernized...