Banksy on that Wall

Construction on the Berlin Wall began June 15th 1961. What became the most infamous wall of the 20th Century began to collapse on November 9th, 1989. To our shame European leaders such as Margaret Thatcher pleaded with the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev not to let the Berlin wall fall. She and other European sceptics opposed the reunification of Germany. In 1990, friends in Germany gave me a small piece of the Berlin Wall as a symbol of our European unification. The Wall did fall.

Today I spent several hours walking along the Israeli Apartheid Wall which has created a  ghetto of the ancient cities like Bethlehem.This time it is the United States in the person of Joe Biden who is assuring Israel that  there is "no space" between the US and Israel on Israel's security. So like Thatcher, twenty years before, Biden insists Israel's security is sacrosanct and therefore, by implication, the apartheid wall must remain. While Iran is scolded for failing to meet its international obligations, Israel is given a free pass. And so the Wall remains.

Banksy's paintings are still there but they are now crowded out by hundreds of nameless artists determined to change the colour of this ugly grey brand of apartheid.

For me, the most poignant graffiti was of a verse from Ephesians 2:14 underneath an F16 fighter. "For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility."

This sets the agenda for authentic Middle East negotiators and peacemakers - justice for Palestinians will bring security for Israelis, and, God willing, peace and reconciliation to both.

While Netanyahu demands the Palestinians recognise the "permanence and legitimacy of the Jewish state of Israel" (read 'apartheid'), he has yet to define what the borders of Israel are.

Biden and Netanyahu remind me of Thatcher and Gorbachev - they are relics of a previous century of colonialism and imperialism. This Wall will fall too, eventually, and with it the governments that justify it.

In the words of Canon Naim Ateek,

"we defy the occupation;
we defy the injustice;
we defy the oppressors;
we defy the powers.

They do not possess the last word,
they can build high walls, but they cannot take away our hope,
they can put us in jail, but they cannot take away our joy,
they can prevent us from visiting family, but they cannot take away our love,
they can stop us at checkpoints and impose all kinds of restrictions,

but they cannot take away our pursuit of freedom and liberation, they can prevent us from going to Bethlehem, but they cannot prevent the spirit of Bethlehem from reaching us, they can treat us as nonhumans, but they cannot crush our spirit nor can they take away our God-given human worth and dignity, they can act with hate and disgust but, by the grace of God, we can always refuse to stoop to the level of hate and maintain our love of God and neighbor that includes them."

See Banksy on the Wall

See also Stop the Wall