Previous | Next :: Arrested Crying Palestinian Boy : Jerusalem Old City : Israel | March 18, 2010, 12:21 am

US Vice President Joe Biden was just beginning a visit to Israel to try and kick start the Peace Process when the Israeli plans to build more housing in the Palestinian West bank on the outskirts of Jerusalem where revealed. This building is the primary blockage to any kind of two state solution. Rioting and clashes ensued as the outraged Palestinians took their protests onto the streets.

These clashes reminded me of the first Intifada from twenty years back when the Palestinians took to the streets to throw rocks and the Israelis responded with gunfire. Back then world opinion certainly seemed to back the Palestinians.

Back then I was certainly most sympathetic to the Palestinians myself. They were clearly living under oppression and occupation having suffered a terrible injustice in being dispossessed of their land and homes and forced to live in refugee camps. But with the rise of Hammas and eventually the adoption of suicide bombing I felt totally alienated from the Palestinian call for justice. Primarily because of the vile tactics they had adopted. I found it difficult to argue against the "Peace Wall' that was built by the Israelis as a bit of a land grab..... a new de facto border....... but was also clearly helping to stop the vile suicide bombing.

But when I see now the deliberate wrecking of any American diplomacy that the announcement of more building in the occupied territory is ....... and announced just as the prospect of a peace process is being relaunched ........ especially when I see youth on the streets throwing stones in defiance and desperation. Then, I am reminded of the terrible injustice that goes on to this day.

I think back to when I made this picture 20 years back. The arrest of a Palestinian boy by an Israeli Border Policeman and an Israeli soldier in the Old City of Jerusalem....... If this little boy has survived the violence and has not become a suicide bomber he will have grown to be a man. A man who will have lived his whole life under occupation.

Cheers Jez XXXXXX

www.jezblog.com