GRAFFITI Sumud: The Palestinian Art of Existence REBECCA GOULD ETHLEHEM, West Bank—At the intensely for decades. He had managed edge of Bethlehem, a few blocks to save enough to build a home not only Bfrom Gilo terminal, past one of for himself and his family, but also to add the checkpoints where anyone who needs a two-bedroom guesthouse. He was now to reach Israel must pass, is a small apart- seeking a tenant. ment—its view obstructed by the Barrier. The price of living in Bethlehem is of- The home was recently built by its Pales- ten a commute to Jerusalem. Two decades tinian Christian owner, Adnan, from money earlier, the commute would have been easy, he had saved while working for a foreign for it is a mere 15-minute ride from the company in Jerusalem. His permit had Bethlehem border to central Jerusalem. recently expired, though, and he was no But the recent proliferation of checkpoints longer able to work in Jerusalem. Still, Ad- has radically obstructed movement within nan, who asked that his name not be used the Occupied Territories, as well as between KATE GOULD KATE in this explosive environment, had worked Israel and the West Bank. Now, the act of Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 19, 2014 REPORTAGE crossing the narrow border is counted in homes in its path, this structure leaves a terms of hours, not minutes. Random clo- different impression. For the majority of sures, sometimes related to current events, its route through the Occupied Territories, and sometimes without any explanation, the Barrier consists of electrified barbed often keep the checkpoints closed for days wire and trenches. In other parts, most without any advance warning. No one, not notably urban centers in the West Bank, even the soldiers who stand guard, knows such as Qalqilya and Bethlehem, the Bar- whether the checkpoints will be open rier consists of concrete slabs 25 feet high, or closed on a given day. Living near the more than twice the average height of the checkpoint slightly eases the commute into Berlin Wall. In Bethlehem, these concrete Jerusalem for the few Palestinian workers slabs slash straight through the heart of who are able to cross the border, but it is this ancient city. never easy. Of course, the complications for Declared illegal under international foreigners who cross into Israel pale in com- law in an advisory opinion issued by the parison to Palestinians, who may be fired if UN’s International Court of Justice in they cannot make it to work on time. 2004, the Barrier is just over 60 percent To the northwest of the checkpoint is complete. In the years since its construc- Gilo, a settlement established in 1973 with tion began in 2002, Israel’s Supreme Court a population today of some 40,000, and of- has received hundreds of civil lawsuits from ten informally considered part of greater Je- Palestinians protesting the path of the Bar- rusalem. Beyond Gilo’s alabaster and lime- rier through their land and homes. Occa- stone terraces is central Jerusalem. Dividing sionally—although not in Bethlehem— Gilo from the center is the Barrier, referred the Barrier had to be rerouted to cut less to locally as the jidar al-fasl al-unsuri (wall deeply into Palestinians’ houses and back- of segregation) and by the Israeli state as the yards. The Barrier is a site of continued hafrada geder (separation fence). The archi- contests, not only with respect to how it tects of the Barrier argue that it is essential is defined, but also the path it follows, and if terrorist attacks are to be prevented. especially the images that are painted on From Bethlehem, it is hard to under- it. Alongside the many conflicting agendas stand how this structure, made of concrete surrounding this structure, the Barrier ex- lined with barbed wire, could be described acerbates the tension within Israel between as a mere fence. Viewed from outside the the judiciary and military over issues per- Occupied Territories, however, the label taining to the occupation. makes more sense. The wall appears less Already nearly 500 miles long, the intimidating from the vantage point of an Barrier is more than twice the length of Israeli road, where it resembles a highway the Green Line, which has served as Israel’s barrier looming in the distance, or a mirage internationally recognized border with the that flickers according to the angle of the West Bank since 1949. Fully 85 percent of sun. When its concrete slabs cut through a the Barrier crosses through, and not mere- backyard, and serve as an excuse to destroy ly alongside, Palestinian territory. Even Rebecca Gould is an assistant professor at Yale-NUS College (Singapore). Her first book, The Literatures of Anticolonial Insurgency, is forthcoming from Yale University Press. 100 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 19, 2014 GRAFFITI greater than the damage from preventing increasingly suffocating the West Bank. Palestinian access to Israel is the effect of the While the Barrier has bisected the region Barrier in keeping Palestinians from visit- for over a decade, the checkpoints that be- ing family and friends, schools, and places of gan to proliferate in the 1990s now num- work in neighboring Palestinian cities and ber well over 700. The Barrier has proven villages. And in many instances, the paths particularly damaging to Bethlehem’s closed by the Barrier have deprived Palestin- tourist-based economy. It has diverted ians of their very livelihoods. tourism to Israeli tour guides and buses, given special access by the Israeli authori- ART FORMS Flourishing along the length of the Barrier is a form of art, com- monly known as graf- fiti. My window looked out onto a mural, comprised of a blank book with salam, the Arabic word for peace, inscribed on it. In the mural, a dove hovers above the word, hold- ing an olive branch in its beak. Between the book and the dove soars a rainbow with clouds on one end and green leaves on the other. Such hopeful and meticulously crafted art has no guarantee of preservation on a surface where it was almost certain to be washed away, or even wiped out, in the full- ness of time. But this mural is only one part GOULD KATE of a far broader pat- tern. On walls, windows, and doors, art in ties to this territory, even as local Bethle- Bethlehem is everywhere. Not many cities hem residents are refused entry to Israel for are as suffused with art as Bethlehem. such basic needs as work, medical care, and Much of this art was created in re- education. Meanwhile, checkpoints sever sponse to the enclosure policies that are West Bank villages from each other. FALL 2014 101 Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 19, 2014 REPORTAGE Both checkpoints and the Barrier er of the transience of the medium used to work in tandem to break the Palestinian compose this art. In block roman letters, economy and to isolate Palestinians from a sign points to Jerusalem, and in Arabic, each other and from the world. Such are to Rachel’s Tomb and Bethlehem’s City the conditions where art is being willed Center. Sponsored by the Palestinian Au- into existence in the shadow of and on the thority’s Ministry of Tourism and Attrac- very Barrier itself. Yet curiously, much of tions, this sign is a holdover of an era long- the art both on the Barrier and on homes gone, when tourists flocked to this sacred near the Barrier touches on themes that and prosperous city in search of the sites appeared to have nothing to do with the named on the sign post. At the time, none occupation. The mural near my window is was obstructed by an immovable wall. As a case in point. What do a dove, a rain- with so much of Bethlehem’s graffiti, this bow, and a book with the word peace in- sign does more than offer an example of scribed on its blank pages have to do with art imitating life. Here, on this innocuous Palestinian resistance? In Bethlehem wall, life has imi- fact, by combining politi- tated—and ironized—art. cal activism with artistic vi- much of this Although Banksy’s mu- sion, these signs and sym- art was created ral, by a foreign visitor to bols have a great deal to say Bethlehem, may not reveal about the contemporary in- in response to much about the Palestinian teraction between Palestin- the enclosure experience, it does suggest ians and Israelis. policies that something important about Many of the murals the relation between art and painted by foreign visitors are increasingly politics. The impermanence are more straightforward, al- suffocating the of this mural, which has though never entirely trans- been impeccably preserved parent in their meaning. west bank. for several years, is central Consider the image just a to its meaning, suggesting few blocks away, past the blank book in- the hope that inversions of reality, like the scribed with peace. A Palestinian girl is girl frisking a soldier, will not and cannot frisking an Israeli soldier, the pair paint- last forever. ed by the British graffiti artist Banksy in 2007. By casting a small girl in the role of TRAFFIC STOP the occupier and a uniformed soldier in the Viewed historically, the Barrier is the cul- role of the occupied, Banksy’s mural clev- mination of a lengthy effort to cut traffic erly subverts the victimization narrative between the West Bank and Israel, as well that is all too frequently invoked to ex- as within the West Bank.