JERUSALEM DISPOSSESSED
During our documentary work in and around Jerusalem, we have been increasingly exposed to the dark side of the City of Light. There, hundreds of thousands of people are living in shadow, almost without identity, unwanted in their own homes, afraid of being expelled while they are just asking to live peacefully in their city.
Above all we want to discuss humanity, but the sad thing is that in Jerusalem one’s value as a human being is determined by ethnic group and religion. Together with its bulldozers, Israel is trying to smash the Palestinian community in East Jerusalem to dust. Divide and rule. Conquer and annex.
If Jerusalem is to remain the symbol of peace and tolerance it cannot be a ghetto for anyone or owned by any particular group. In the same year that Israel celebrates 40 years of the so-called “unity” of Jerusalem, the city has been divided by force, discrimination and injustice. In the holy city of 2007, it seems that the only god is “security” and real estate. Israeli policy is drawing a twisting path of a wall that more than anything ensures more conflict, suffering and despair.
The future of Israel cannot be built by blocking the potential of the other. Without real freedom and respect of the other’s right to live in dignity, there is no basis for political negotiation.
ActiveStills, October 2007
See it at: http://www.activestills.org/jerusalem/jerusalem.html
PLEASE CONTACT: angela@icahd.org for inquiries as to booking the photo exhibition, funded by Irish Aid, Austrian Development Agency & Netherlands Rep. Office and sponsored by the Rachel Corrie Foundation and Evergreen’s “Students Educating Students About the Middle East (SESAME).”