The Wall...

Today in Israel resides a Separation Wall, completed in 2005, the wall was meant to reduce the number of suicide bombings that were occurring, which it did.  The sad part is that this wall doesn’t the Palestinian neighborhoods completely from the Israeli neighborhoods, but rather cuts through Palestinian neighborhoods dividing families from each other.  Because of this wall many kids can no longer go to school because they cannot pass through to get to a school that was originally a 5 minute walk away.  But at the same time it is because of this wall that suicide bombings have significantly reduced and it is mainly the reason that BYU reopened the JC in 2005 so without it I would not be in this wonderful land.  I feel like there is no answer to this problem, which made this field trip really hard for me.

You’ll notice the messages are in English… these words aren’t meant for the Israelis who put up the wall… they are meant for Americans… we need to do something… but what?

The wall is about 50 feet high with barbed wire on top, its really quite ominous

  

Gotta keep your head up…

The wall and me… I think I have a love-hate relationship with it

So the man in the purple was our tour guide for this trip.  He is a civil rights lawyer in Israel who has worked with the President of the United States on multiple occasions and the Prime Minister of Israel… basically he’s a really cool guy.  He’s also reminded me of my World History teacher Hildy, which was probably why he was one of the first guides we’ve had that I actually could understand and felt interested in what he was saying.