Jerusalem Reflection 2: Cypriot Separation Barrier in the Holy Land?

The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme of Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) is a World Council of Churches (WCC) program in existence for about five years. A volunteer in this program, called an 'EA', comes from around the world to monitor checkpoints and other locations where Palestinians face challenges from Israeli settlers and border police. They report the time it takes to cross the checkpoints, monitor delays, and report harassment of Palestinians.

Of the twenty four EAs in the country with EAPPI, I met one during my visit who was half-Norwegian, half-Greek Cypriot in origin. We had a conversation about her island in the middle of the Med. Sea, forcefully separated in 1974 when Turkish forces invaded the island to protect, according to the Turks, the Muslims of the Island from Greek Cypriot harassment.

Fifteen years ago, I remember walking across that border between those two peoples on this small island. As a foreign passport holder, it was possible for me to cross, and I remember the propaganda along that route was memorable. There were photographs of churches and mosques reportedlyi destroyed by each other's armies. A separation barrier, a wall, was erected shortly after the invasion to protect themselves from each other, and the UN had been monitoring the dispute ever since that invasion.

When I would teach about the political situation of the Middle East, I always used Cyprus as an extreme example of what happens when two peoples can't get along. A wall is a permanent solution. A wall does not allow for any interaction, no inter-mingling, no relationships to develop between people.

I never though a wall would separate Palestinians and Israelis. There have been many walls that separate them from each other, but none so daunting and concrete as this separation barrier. Frankly, vertical walls are hard to turn into horizontal tables where people of differing opinions can gather. It is almost impossible for them to become bridges. But that is what we hope and pray for in the Middle East.