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Contents Matthew Small 2014
The right of the above author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.
Print ISBN 978-1-9102663-0-4
Ebook ISBN 978-1-9102663-1-1
Set in Times. Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays Ltd.
Cover design by Simon Levy www.simonlevyassociates.co.uk
Photography Engaged Dharma, photo insert
Author Photo Jannika Khn
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Matthew Small is a fiction writer and freelance journalist, currently living and writing in the limestone city of Bath in south west England.
Matthew has travelled through many parts of the world exploring different cultures and societies across five continents. In 2012 Matthew embarked on a trip to the Holy Land to further his political understanding of the area, which is documented in his debut book The Wall Between Us.
Visit Matthew at
thewordsisaw.co.uk
or on
Preface
Everybody has a story to tell. This is what I learned while attempting to further my understanding of the ongoing Israel and Palestine conflict. Unfortunately, these stories predominantly reverberate around suffering, hatred and lasting injustice. In short, they are painful to hear. And after having left these fertile and volatile lands, after hearing these tales and seeing humanity being lost to fear and distrust, what hope can one retain that peace will ever be mastered between these two deeply scarred neighbours?
Over the course of these reflections, I will do my best to capture my experience of a month spent in Israel and Palestine. It will recall my time spent in Jerusalem; of joining a group of Europeans and Israelis as we travelled into the West Bank to harvest olives with Palestinian farmers, incorporating meditation into non-violent activism; it will retell a meeting with a settler who lives in the controversial settlement of Shilo; and recapture encounters with different organisations which are determinedly trying to plough both lands for a sustainable future, whilst drawing on my own diary entries and my search for answers as to why this wall between us exists.
I am not an expert in this conflict; I am a writer who tries to find reason through writing. In truth, and after two weeks spent listening to stories, I had almost come to the decision that I couldnt comment about this conflict. The history is too complex, the wounds too deep, and the helplessness I unknowingly wrote my way into was constricting. Who am I, an outsider, to think that I can do anything to help this situation?
However, this was soon changed by one little boy: Isam. I had joined him and his family in his fathers olive groves in the rich soils surrounding the Palestinian town of Deir Istiya. By midday, the hot sun was beginning to take its toll, and in a moment of respite I took to collecting fallen olives in a plastic bucket, seeking shelter in the shade of the trees. Isam left the group and came to help me. Together, we sifted through the dry, crumbling soil, retrieving the bruised, purple olives. He suddenly looked up and gave birth to a few words that have inspired all that is to follow: You give me the life in Palestine, he said, faltering over his English. Talk the world! he added. I was taken aback, unable to respond to this boy who had already returned to searching for more olives. Talk the world, he said again, now pinching the source of his familys livelihood between his fingers. I was speechless. There was nothing I could say, no hope I could offer him. And in the patter of olives falling into the bottom of the bucket, the moment soon passed, and the harvest continued.
I cannot talk to the world; I do not have a strong enough voice. But of the few who I can talk to, you few who have taken it upon yourselves to share in these words, my only wish is that you too talk about the pressing need for peace to be again brought to the forefront of both Israels and Palestines interests. Presently, there is no political will for peace in Israel, or a strong united will for peace in Palestine. In fact, I would say that there is no real want by politicians to entertain the idea of peace. But in the will of the majority of people I spoke to, both Israelis and Palestinians, there was a real lust for peace. I fear that both are being gravely let down by their political leadership.
I do not want to cast judgement about who is right and who is wrong, the situation goes beyond this. But at the same time, I will not suppress my feelings and reactions to the things I saw. Sitting here now, with the November chill whispering through my window and the winter sunshine light and playful outside my family home in the New Forest, the memories I hold onto from my trip to the Holy Land already seem distant. Did I really depart from the intoxicating and soothing spirit of Tel Aviv just yesterday? Still, today, I know that both sides suffer, Israeli children and Palestinian children suffer, and that is why I have titled this book, The Wall Between Us. We are all children of this one Earth; even if we cant see the concrete or the barbed wire fences, we are still impacted by their existence our humanity is one, after all.
My hope is to share with you that even in the midst of conflict, bridges can be formed and relationships encountered the seeds of peace can still be nurtured.
The Holy City
In his hefty biography, Jerusalem, Simon Sebag Montefiore embarks on what appears to be an impossible mission, bringing the complex story of the Holy City to life. I stumbled over the scale of his endeavour as I passed under Damascus Gate, first entering into the Old City of East Jerusalem with darkness sheltering in the narrow stone streets and my backpack heavy with excitement. My month in the Holy Land had begun, and where better to begin than in the Holy City itself, where Heaven and Earth are said to meet.
I could feel its immense history seeping out of the ancient architecture. The dark alleyways housed a sombre silence with the shops all barred shut as the night continued to veil the slip of a starless sky above. I hurried on, looking back and forth in search of my hostel, passing a group of Arab men sitting on low plastic chairs sharing a shisha pipe, smoking silently together.
The complex, turbulent and often bloody past of Jerusalem called on Montefiore to write a book of no less than 600 pages. I will write only, while conscious of my brevity, that the Old City is home to the holiest sites of the three Abrahamic religions: the Temple Mount with the Western Wall for Jews, the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque for Muslims, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians.
