Writing on the Wall

by Katharine Maycock

From: Bullet Points (used w/permission)

Today as I came through the main checkpoint into Bethlehem - newly reinforced with concrete barriers for the start of Ramadan, two old ladies were pushing a supermarket trolley towards the taxi I was heading for.

Dressed in traditional embroidered robes, and undaunted by the complaints of the driver who wanted a quick get away with me for a higher price, they started to unload sack after heavy sack and heave them up onto his roof rack. They had not pushed these olives past the young Russian-speaking Israeli soldiers who were looking on, but had come round the checkpoint on a mud track to the side, having picked them in some nearby olive grove since 6am that morning. They could not have slipped their trade round the other side of the checkpoint as it has recently been swathed in 6 feet high rounds of new shiny silver barbed wire. This barbed wire is the trade mark of 'the Wall' which now comes right up to Bethlehem. It keeps the nearby fortress of Har Homa settlement built on Bethlehem land on the 'Israeli' side of the wall aswell as Rachel's Tomb inside Bethlehem, enabling bus loads of Israeli tourists to continue to visit the shrine. The would-be local Christian and Muslim pilgrims to the shrine, meanwhile, remain trapped in the city as they have done for three years, unable to make such a pilgrimage or exit Bethlehem. Gaps in the security apparatus remain however, through which people outside of the 1-45 year age bracket, can still risk making a trade. These wrinkled business women smiling through their metal-capped teeth told me they could sell a kilo of olives in Bethlehem market for about