Patricia Smith: Saturday
Posted on | November 1, 2008 | No Comments
Coming into Jerusalem last night from Tel Aviv, alone in the taxi, the Wall, which runs alongside the highway in some places, seemed closer and longer. Was it the light at dusk? Or was it closer and longer?
There is a great poignancy, knowing as I do so well, that there is no way, none, for the ‘average Israeli’ – as though such a person exists! – to know the life of the ‘average Palestinian’ — as though such a person exists! — on the West Bank or Gaza. Just there on the other side of that 10 meter high wall. You can try to envision, but it is impossible, really.
It’s extraordinary that I, an American, can do what is illegal for an Israeli to do, visit the Palestinian Territories, and what is virtually impossible for most Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to do, come into Israel. Meet with each other. Talk with each other, share realities.
Arriving here for the Israeli and Palestinian book launches of Sixty Years, Sixty Voices: Israeli and Palestinian Women, knowing the book itself will carry the women’s voices to each other, knowing that an American woman, me, was the catalyst for a team determined to be a bridge across the wall and through the world is suddenly humbling.
When I ask deeply “why?” The answer comes, because there was a slot that needed to be filled. No heroics. Just simple.
Through all the year of immense work by the full team, we gained more than gave. The women in the book are the heroines.
