The Green Line: Part Two; Pictures

I realize that maybe that was not really "History" in Part One, but it gives an idea of what we are dealing with. So on our trip we spent about 2 hours listening to Lydia lecture on Israel, the Green Line, Palestinians, the college she teaches at, etc. It was very interesting. Then we went on a tour of the area she was talking about. We went to Barta, east and west. We talked to real live Palestinians, too.

Here are some views from the bus on our way to the college that Lydia teaches at. It is a special school for combat soldiers that want to study international relations and the peace process:



Above: a cotton field
Below: do you like the giant hand STOP sign?









Before you continue I wanted to throw in this picture for perspective. Keep this picture in mine as you view the next pictures. This house is an Israeli home in the West Bank. It is located very close to Barta. Most likely it was built by men living in Barta. The street is clean and well kept. Their was a boy walking his dog on the street here. He had nice clothes and good shoes. Most of the kids in Barta that I saw had no shoes and the roads were dirt.

When you travel through Arab towns you see homes that are not even close to being complete with people living in them. It is very sad to see.



Above: Welcome to Barta. Come on in!



Above: Meat market in Barta. There were animal bodies hanging all over the place and live chickens that you could see the employees killing and cleaning for the customer.

Below: View of the homes in Barta





Above: Trash everywhere. Do you see the woman in black in the right of the photo. As soon as someone else came to take a picture of her she vanished.

Below: Trash in front of a mosque. The air smelled. There is no proper plumming either.





We were walking to the line that separtates east and west Barta, and Lydia asked these guys that we passing if the spoke English. They did, and so they stood with us for about 5 minutes talking. The laughing one is 24, he is Palestinian. His family lives in Barta and he is studying medicine in Jordan. He talked about how difficult it is to get to Barta to visit his family because of the fence. He said he took a long way around and came in illegally. When asked about this thoughts on ever having peace, his answer was: we really want it, the people of Barta are willing to talk.

It was an amazing experience to stand in the dangerous area, with a woman no less. Many people in Barta know her as she is in Barta giving tours about 4 times a week.
Below: Lydia with two Palestinian men, the one on the left was 27; a cousin to the med student who did most of the talking.







Palestinian boys in Barta













Above: This is a part of the fence. We followed it for a while on the tour. There are cameras, and a sand road that runs right a long the fence. 4 times a day, trucks come and brush the sand so any foot prints or tire tracks can be noticed. We also saw a check point, but it was from within the bus and I couldn't get any pictures of it. But basically it just looked like a mass of cars and soldiers.

Below: There was a stretch of road in the West Bank covered with these and just cemente gravel. This is what remains of the dismantled settlements in the West Bank. Israel agreed to demolish everything and then they had to move all the rubble somewhere to get rid of it.







Above: Arab men making charcoal. It looks like an aweful life. The man had no masks on to protect their lungs.

Below: A crappy Israeli toilet (just thought it would be funny after all this sad stuff)