a city under military occupation

Walking the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, one is confronted by the sight of soldiers everywhere: a very young conscript army; most of them look little more than 16, yet they are to a man tooled up with M16s, each with a spare clip taped to the first. They are trained to fire on anyone they perceive as a threat. Oddly they are also trained to permit photographs: I have taken several without the slightest objection.

This afternoon we travelled by bus to the nearby Palestinian town of Al Azaria. There our friend proudly showed us his "permission", the form issued by the Israeli authorities allowing him a six month extension of his permission (not right, you understand; the permission may be revoked at a moment's notice with no reason given) to visit Jerusalem, the town of his birth, though no other place in Israel.

He gave us a tour of his pet scheme, the "Vision Association", where on a near non-existent budget he and a few highly motivated and extremely smart friends and relatives work with emotionally damaged youths, a sort of healing process through the media of music, dance and art.
If UNESCO or the like had any sense they'd be funding schemes like this with millions of dollars, but I imagine the all powerful American Jewish lobby would have something to say about that...

While there, we were also shown their logo, daubed on the "security fence" (or "apartheid wall" as the locals call it) which cuts the town in two, the road leading up to it disappearing into the breeze-blocks of the 15 metre-high wall. The Israelis say they built the wall to stop the suicide bombers entering Israel, but even after only 2 days here it is obvious that this justification is completely bogus: the Old City of Jerusalem is, with the exception of the tiny Jewish quarter, almost exclusively populated by Arabs, that is, thousands and thousands of Palestinians already live on the ISRAELI side of the wall. No, the labels of "apartheid, or "separation" are much more accurate ways of describing the wall.