THE GREEN LINE: ENCOUNTER AN INTERCULTURAL WALK ALONG THE GREEN LINE STARTING FROM JERUSALEM

NOVEMBER 1-5, 1996

a collected documentation of very personal experiences

Austrian, German, Israeli, Palestinian artists and scientists walk for 5 days along the Green Line - the border between the West Bank and Israel

IMPRINT:

Editorial work: Wolfgang PreisingerDesign: DIE FABRIKANTEN Viktoria SchlöglCo-operation: Akram Safadi Contact: DIE FABRIKANTEN, Spittelwiese 8, A-4020 LINZAUSTRIA,Tel: + 43-732 -795684, www.fabrikanten.at

IMPRINT:

Editorial work: Wolfgang PreisingerDesign: DIE FABRIKANTEN Viktoria SchlöglCo-operation: Akram Safadi Contact: DIE FABRIKANTEN, Spittelwiese 8, A-4020 LINZAUSTRIA,Tel: + 43-732 -795684, www.fabrikanten.at

AUSTRIAN PARTICIPANTS

Dr. Peter Arlt: sociologist, Linz/BerlinWolfgang Preisinger / DIE FABRIKANTEN: artist, Initiator of the project, Linz/ Jerusalem

GERMAN PARTICIPANTS

Jens Windolf: architect and conceptartist, CologneSimone Hartmann: performanceartist and painter, Berlin

ISRAELI PARTICIPANTS

Aron Adami: sculptor, Kibbuz NahshonHadas Ophrat: artist and festival director, JerusalemProf. Dr. Moshe Zimmermann: Prof. of the Department of History, Hebrew University, Tel AvivTzippy Ash: performanceartist, Tel Aviv

PALESTINIAN PARTICIPANTS

Akram Safadi: artist, photographer, JerusalemProf. Dr. Saleh Abdel Jawad: Direktor of the “Center For Research and Documentation of Palestinan Society“- BirZeit University/ Ramallah

4th Day: TULKARIM

2nd Day: BUDDRUS 

JERUSALEM

PARTICIPANTS:

3rd Day: QALQILIYA

5th Day: BARTA’AH

1st Day: LATRUN

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THE GREEN LINE: ENCOUNTER AN INTERCULTURAL WALK ALONG THE GREEN LINE STARTING FROM JERUSALEM

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Akram Safadi my friend,

You asked that I write something about our journey along the Green Line. Of what shall I write? Of the scent of hyssop, of anise, of grapes rotting on the vine in the autumn sun? Of an old map from the early 1960´s which Saleh tried vainly to use to navigate among the villages? It´s even difficult to write of the landscape, since it too has changed; new roads have been paved, settlements established, village ruins obliterated.

The walker through the hil ls of Jerusalem must f ix his gaze on the rough ground in order not to stumble over rocks and stones. The walk is a pain-staking one, from stone to stone. Only when he stops to rest and lifts his gaze does the landscape spread before him, as if it had always been there: the terraced hillsides, the mouth of a cave, smoke rising between olive trees, the houses of a village.

Now as I write to you, I realize that the memory of a place is bound up with stones and clumps of earth, with steps walked, with the plow that furrows the earth.

Saleh photographed the abandoned villages and told the history of the place. He gathered evidence. What lies between memory and evidence? Perhaps it is the distance realization and consciousness. Realization is the absorption of an experience, and consciousness the link between the indi-vidual and experience. In this sense, the one’s conscious is in exile. He is busy catalogueing classifying mapping experience, rather than experien-cing. The walker experiences the land and the memory stored in the stones directly, innocently. That is the power of the journey we took.

Akram, I realize that I am writing to you for the first time. The circum-stances are not arbitrary: At this moment I am at a concert of the East-West Ensemble — a group of musicians who devote their art to the mutual influ-ences of eastern and western music. And just as the music flows easily from folk tune to classical melody, from Farid el-Atrash to jazz, so I easily give myself to the memory of the journey of which I was a small part, to its mean ing for me as an Israeli with a short memory, as a Jew with a long history.

I return home from the concert and tell Amalia about the letter I have begun, and about my realization of the distance between memory and evidence, and between land and landscape. She tells me of the class she taught on Socrates this evening, in the same context — memory.

I open Plato’s Works and read what Socrates said to Menon: „Since the mind is immortal and is born many times and has seen what is here and what is in hell and all things, there is nothing it has not learned to know. Thus it s no wonder that it can remember, both good things and other things that it has known before... inquiry and learning — are all a matter of remembering“.

Do you remember arriving at the village of Bidu on that first evening? The Palestinian mothers hastened to gather their children for fear of the „Israelis“. When suspicion abated, a discussion began with two youths from the village. They refused to believe that you — you and Saleh — were Palestinians, since anyone who would walk along this imaginary Green Line must be mad.

The stone is silent. The landscape calmed. The mothers are roused by a natural instinct to survival; they have no time to look or listen to what the stone remembers or the landscape has witnessed. That is the lesson I lear-ned.

L’hitraot,

Haddas Ophrat

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THE IMAGE

A portrait that I try to capture within a certain composition. It appears assimi-lat ed with the lines of the view. The horizon looked as if it is moving from the top to the bottom and from the bottom to the top.

The image itself stood steadfast in the space. I asked myself, why this length-wise division, why from top to bottom? Wouldn't it have been better if the divi-sion was widthwise. From the sea to the sea for example, or from the river to the sea, or maybe from the lake to the see? Maybe then there would be a diffe-rent meaning of the distances.

I am dreaming while walking. I turn my back to see the others. I stop. I wait and look at them. Their bodies reduced. I converse with myself often and I don't know what to talk to them about. It is a pleasurable feeling to wander between memory and conscious in an attempt to catch a signal to no avail. I stare at them while they are progressing. Their heads elevating and descen-ding like dancing birds blending with the cords of the barbed wires that infini-tely extend ed behind them.

The jutting breasts, the luscious lips, lust, sex, freedom, barbed wires, the sun that sluggishly hides behind the scattered autumn clouds and all other things suddenly developed a distinct meaning.

Akram Safadi

INTRODUCTIONA project from DIE FABRIKANTEN Harringer and Preisinger

The Project:A small group of people of different nationalities walks along a former border between Jordan and Israel. The border does not actually exist anymore since the Israeli army broke through during the Six-Day War, and the Palestinian territories were taken over. The annexed areas, today known as the Westbank, are neverthe-less separated from Israel. The cultural area dominated by the Arabic tradition is generally somewhat fenced off from the rest of Israel.We limit our chances more and more to experience something for ourselves, to actually let our bodies be aware of things. The impor-tance of information technology has increased tremendously, it dominates our society, a society in which we receive information - occasionaly knowledge - usually second or even third hand. Cultural conditions of information gathering are constantly chang-ing and this demands new opposition strategies for exploring the world, or rather old strategies looked upon from a different point of view.One of these strategies is walking, walking up and down, being well-versed in a field here meaning an area; all this can often only be achieved by roaming about. After all, we talk about fields of know ledge in territorial categories. The direct way may be the shortest, but the criterion “short“ often only has meaning in relati-on to speed and progress, hence a criterion of the modern age, which in itself is going through a crisis and in the eyes of some philosophers is out-dated.If we try and measure things by sensual standards, let us take the sexual act, who would try to make it as short as possible - provid-ing it is pleasant? (“Linger a moment, you are so beautiful“).Unlike a hundred years ago we now have the choice between fast modes of transport and pensive motion with and within our own bodies. And exactly this possibility to choose, as well as the not necessary, only seemingly senseless aspect of walking contains new quality. Not self-tormenting us by walking, but an increased intensity of possibilities of perception are our motivation. Just like “face to face“ communication will take a different, no longer obvious role due to communication technologies, we will learn to see, for example, walking as a new form to get to know the world, to see it in a different light. Physical excitement will increase our ability to perceive and to experience, I would even say it is what facilitates these abilities. Computer screens, for example, with their rays and the position we have to sit in in order to work in front of them only excite us in a very one-dimensional way.Only recently was the fact that one can get from Paris to Marseille by train in a matter of a few hours a sensation. Now it astonishes us even more that twenty kilometres are enough to travel for a whole day on foot. We are motivated not simply because we want to cover the distance and say we walked that way, but we also want to enjoy being on our way. Since these sort of journeys are in danger of dissapearing, because of today’s speed in travels, dila-tion is appealing for the one who enjoys travelling. Travelling means to discover new horizons.The Greenline project is not about a peace process where we all shake hands, smiling, in order to demonstrate how wonderful living together peacefully works. No, that is a question we will leave unanswered for the time being, we let the matter take its course.Since in Jerusalem everything is reduced to a political dimension, it is important to point out that this project is not meant as a politi-cal provocation.

Wolfgang Preisinger,

Jerusalem Oct. 1996

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ENCOUNTERREPORT ON THE PROJECT

Friday, 1. Nov.5.30 am, the phone wakes me. It is Tzippy Ash, the performance-artist from Tel Aviv. After a settler killed a stone-throwing, Palestinian child with his bare hands, I postponed the project by two days in order to await possible violent reactions. Tzippy did not want to sleep in an Arabic village, so we arranged a second night in a kibbutz, hoping after three days she would gain enough confidence to carry on and eventual-ly sleep in an Arabic village after all. Otherwise she had the option to leave the project after three days, but in the last moment Tzippy calls it off anyway. We had been talking about her fears in the previous two months and she had emphasized again and again that she was torn, until she confirmed she would take part three weeks before the start of the project. She now says on the phone that it must sound paranoid, but she is simply afraid, too afraid to come. Safety measures had been taken, such as to reduce the group, so we would not provoke settlers by looking as though we were marching up. Israeli and Palestinian laywers were prepared to act instantly, Israeli ministries of defence and of the Interior had been informed, Palestinian authorities had given their OK. But Tzippy’s phone call shows an invincible border, a border in her mind. Rationality does not help in this instance, it is something we, with our Central-European horizon, cannot understand. The political situation remains tense: mourning services one year after Rabin’s assassination are in process, demonstrations against Netanyahu take place regularly. Talks about Hebron that have fallen through and the possible threat of bomb attacks by extremists predominate the media.We leave - later than planned - on 1. November for our journey. Prof. Dr. Saleh Abdel Jawad had to come to the meeting point by illegal means. On his way he had to avoid checkpoints on foot because Israel had been closed for Palestinians for three years and military controls had re cencty been tightened.

We begin in Lifta, a village whose inhabitants had been driven out, but for once the houses had not been destroyed. Lifta lies outside Jerusalem. Here Hadas Ophrat, artist and director of the international performancefesti-val “Phenomena“ joins us. We asked him at very short notice and he spontaneously decided to walk with us for a day. In the course of the day, while walking and discussing things, he becomes a complete part of our group. He walks to the kibbutz with us where we will spend the first night and also joins us for an evening meal. We all find it strange that he should not be with us the next day, and Hadas himself would like to stay with us, if it wasn’t for all those appointments. The same applies to Aron Adami who also walks with us for only one day.Already on the first day we find that it is not always easy to know exact-ly where the green line is and how to follow it. Sometimes we have to climb walls or walk on rough grounds, other times we only have to fol-low barbed-wire, military streets or barriers. In Hable - on the third day - we find a solid concrete wall, 2.5 metres high, which Israel had actually started building. It is supposed to have an electronic security system one day, and the original plan is that this wall will separate Israel from the Westbank, or rather protect Israel from it. But progress is slow, on one hand there is lack of money, on the other a lack of meaning. Even the most conservative politicians can see by now that this bulwark will protect no-one, and furthermore that it means creating a border al-though everyone claims there is none (maps hardly exist in Israel that show the green line; for this hike we had to search in archives for useful maps).

We walk through split villages alongside Israeli, barrack-like, “secured“ settlements and through many small Arabic places. The difference could not be greater. Within a few hundred metres we walk through slum-like areas and then reach through useless barriers absolutly clean, respec-table, almost middle-class rows of houses, which distinguish themselves by monotony and their „building-block-aesthetic“. We experience a con-stant change from one extreme to the other since we permanently cross the “border“. Arabic villages on the Israeli side have a very different flair compared to the Westbank. The people are more open, the atmosphere is more relaxed. The Palestinian photographer Akram Safadi is in a complete turmoil as we reach the last destination of our journey. “Can you feel the difference“, he asks, “I had enough of history, of all these conversations about sorrow and victims, of these depressed faces. I do not want to ignore the situation, but I am fed up with con-stantly talking about it - even if we are occupied, I just want to live.“

Apparatus of the Media as a WeaponEspecially when walking through Arabic villages of the Westbank people react with fear. Mothers call in their children the moment they see us in the distance. Not only are we a ‘foreign body’ as a walking group, but our obsessive recording with tapes, camcorders and cameras must cause fear, must appear aggressive. Even when our Palestinian partici-pants start talking to the inhabitants, they still think us all foreign, which is probably not surprising. One woman says amazed to the others in the village: “He speaks Arabic like an Arab!“ (meaning Prof. Dr. Abdel Jawad). Soldiers at the checkpoints also react more carefully and more nervously than usual towards our equipment.Constant contact via mobile phone with representatives of international agencies and stations like CNN, BBC and NBC was also part of our pro-ject. That would have been our form of pressure, our “weapon“ - had we been arrested. The accusation of a political campaign in militaristic occupied territory would have been incorrect, but that still could have led to an arrest - especially with an illegal participant from the West Bank. We then would have started the media machinery in order to exert pressure.

To get an Idea:The main aim of this project was to start a process, a process of getting one’s personal idea; on the one hand to dismiss internalized, stereoty-ped images of the conflict in the Middle East, and on the other hand to approach the whole situation for once impartially. The inhomogeneous mixture of the group and the continuous walking were supposed to speed up this process during which a team works towards getting an idea, getting different ideas. The participants could not easily get away from this dynamism since we were together day and night.Twice during these five days we slept in a kibbutz on the Israeli side, once in an Arabic village - in the mayor’s room in the local administrati-on office - due to lack of infrastructure. The last night we spent in the town of Tulkarim, in an institution for handicapped children. Tulkarim according to the Oslo peace agreement had already been made subordi-nate to the Palestinian authorities.The project was a success because not only inexperienced Austrians and Germans, but also Israelis and Palestinians involved in this situati-on, had the chance to see a different, living image. We exposed oursel

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ves to the situation and did not rely on newspaper or radio reports or on politicians. Five days of interaction with people from different back-grounds had their effect.Prof. Dr. Abdel Jawad, director of the Bir Zeiter University, who deals with documentation about destroyed Palestinian villages, says: “It is unbelievable for me, I can’t really grasp it: for three years I haven’t been allowed into Jerusalem not even for a prayer and tonight I’m sleeping in a kibbutz.“The Israeli artist Aron Adami: “I haven’t been in the West Bank since my time in the army in Hebron. It is unbelievably wonderful to just walk in this landscape.“Jens Windolf, a German architect says: “I can only perceive or experi-ence the border the moment I actually cross it, and even though it appears so irrational to me as a Central-European, I can do no less than accept it.“Hadas Ophrat, an Israeli artist: “We (meaning Arabs and Israelis) have a very similar mentality, but we cannot live together in one state, yet.“Peter Arlt, Austrian sociologist: “I found the border in the conscious-ness of the people and the differences in their everyday life. It was not until I had crossed and left the border and talked to people who live near it on either side, that I was sure of its existence.“Akram Safadi, Palestinian photographer: “I’m speaking of intellectuals who are afraid to speak the truth in this country: we will have a lot more problems to live in two separated states, problems of economic, of so cial, of any kind.“Hadas Ophrat, Israeli artist: “I haven’t said it so far, I have always been optimistic, but I believe we are missing our big chance at the moment.“An old Palestinian shepard with Israeli identity, whom we meet on the way, says: “Life here is wonderful, there isn’t another place on this earth where the sun and the landscape are as beautiful as here.“Prof. Dr. Zimmermann: “Germany under Hitler produced general human characteristics, which might develop somewhere else. It could happen in Israel and that troubles me.“

Prof. Dr. Saleh Abdel Jawad, Palestinian: “I suffer from many phsycho-somatic symptoms, such as seeming heart attacks and stress. Two months ago I was at a symposium in the USA and all signs of any illness simply disappeared.“Aron Adami, Israeli artist: “When it comes to the crunch, we know nothing.“Wolfgang Preisinger, Austrian artist: “It is important to do a mainly non-political project once, where the result is unknown and where not every thing is black and white. I am interested in where we don’t under-stand each other on an intellectual level.“ Prof. Dr. Saleh Abdel Jawad, Palestinian: “The problem is the inequality of the people and not always these great political dimensions.“Prof. Dr. Zimmermann, Israel: “Israelis and Palestinians, even though they are very extreme, can understand each other better than both (at symposiums) on one side and Europeans on the other. The Europeans are outsiders who constantly expect a drama in which the primitive people of the Middle East beat each other up. The audience over in Europe is far more spiteful, it wants to see blood.“Peter Arlt, Austrian sociologist: “Green Line? Because green is the colour of the Islam, and the line separates occident from Orient.“Hadas Ophrat, Israeli artist: “Who really cares about humanitarian free-dom, settlers - no, Americans - no, French, Germans - no. Noone, we are losing a battle worldwide.“Simone Hartmann, German artist: “For me walking was the first part of the project and it worked well. Now the second part begins, we have to document our impressions by talking to people about this project, pas-sing on our experiences.““Let’s go.“ Akram Safadi, Palestinian photographer.

Wolfgang Preisinger, DIE FABRIKANTEN

A “sentimental journey - and my feeling: love. Unprepared, politically uneducated and for the first time in the Middle East I am participating in the projekt one week after arriving in Jerusalem.Since I can not join the conversation anyhow, I stay away from group-discussions about the israeli-palestinian conflict and try to catch any information. I’m using the chance of a team, don’t care about orientation on a map and concentrate on the perception of my feelings, try with all my senses to inhale the spirit of the country, the people and the group. Whenever we change sides and meet people - observing the two cultures, I still perceive the same impression: they’re opening themselves with benevolence, showing their will of living together peacefully with the “Brother“ in this land.And yet we walk the ground where many people die for their country, their people. The concept of “the walk“ is explicitly a nonpolitical one - we all agree on that.And there is Mrs. Zimmermann who came with us because she is against the occupation - Aaron, who is happy to walk in a landscape 25 kilometres away from his kibbutz - Akram, palestinian resident of Jerusalem who is sent back by israeli soldiers at a checkpoint before Qalqiya , an autonomously-administrated city - Hadass, who constantly keeps his mind open for the subject of the conflict - Prof. Zimmermann and his wife, who leave earlier - children in arabic villages, who greet us with “Shalom“ - Jens, who is taking the lead - Peter, who is searching for a meaning of the walk for himself - Wolfgang, who brings in a structure with his sharp and bright character - Prof. Jawad, palestinian resident of the West Bank, the reason why we sneak around the checkpoints - who with angelic patience and to complete exhaustion is sharing his historical knowledge with us - Tzippy Ash, who didn’t came with us out at fear - and I, the only woman in the team, who gives in to the urge to play - who is protecting herself with various, coloured plastic necklaces to calm eventually scared or aggressive human beings. For me, the Walk meant diving into a new World where every breath is political. And i love now - totally unpolitically - the palestinians.

Simone Hartmann

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MELODIES IN THE EARStill at home:I am being invited to take part in the “green-line-encounter“ - have no idea what “green-line“ is - presumably a neologism of the organizer.

1. (re)construction (andante con brio)“Police and thieves in the street“ (clash):

I am by now informed about “green-line“. My penchant for maps and my abil-ity to read them, causes the organizer to ask to transfer the „green-line“ from old, inaccurate maps to more recent, better maps (in which it is still missing). There are only rough clues for the transfer of the line. Once transferred, it confirms more or less where I thought the line would run.I see the “green-line“ for the first time, and I get an idea of the area.The departure is being delayed for two days. I walk around in Jerusalem and think ahead: it will be like this when we go; what might happen... what kind of border is it, what does it mean to give up a border that hadn’t existed for nearly thirty years - and anyway: what am I doing here, what does it have to do with me, why do I take part?

2. to go (allegro con motto)“To the right, to the left“ (stereo mc):

Finally - we are leaving, finally it is becoming real.But we are still not moving; individual participants reach the meeting point at

different times, others join us at various other places. Everybody has ques-tions and still something to organize. By taxi to the meeting point and undeci-ded waiting. One group goes ahead and then - decimated - comes back, others wait. One participant still shows up - all are moving, even if not all together. Eventually we meet several others, one is still missing. After three hours from the first meeting point the group is complete, the journey begins.Finally moving. I am glad to get away from Jerusalem, I enjoy walking.But: where is the border, where are we supposed to go, this or that way, or simply across country wherever the line on the map suggests?No sign of a border - is there still a border at all?

3. to search (semper vivace)“What’s the name of this town“ (D. Thomas):

We discover signs of a border and are happy-An old fence full of holes and a sandy street. Or concrete pedestals half a metre high, 500 metres apart. In the villages inhabitants show us deserted ruins of Jordanian police stations: romantic places.Stone and earth banks right across small paths for carts. Car and moped tracks alongside or across it: places of delaying.Asphalt streets amid the landscape are interrupted by automatic gates. No military, noone who could open the gate. Cars turn around and stand either side of the gate: places to stop and change.

I documented the journey with the help of a dictaphone. This three - hour recording contains personal thoughts, conversati-ons with other participants and also non-verbal sounds. Upon listening to the recording again, I noticed melodies I was humming and singing at the time. Content and mood of the melodies reflects - more or less - those of the respective situation. There is a sentence in German Roman ticism which says something like: “In every tree sleeps a song.“ Less romantic and app-lying to Israel/Palestine, it would have to be: „In every stone sleeps a song.“ I am not referring to the topography nor to Intifada, but to concrete experien-ces during this hike, to something that started the ball (or: “the stone“ as they say in German) rolling and made me think of these melodies. The structure of the following text is based on those songs.

MELODIES IN THE EAR

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There are checkpoints at connecting streets. We avoid them since not all of us are allowed to pass: final stops.They are building a wall in Hable. In style and height it resembles the “Berlin Wall“. It is anachronistic even before it has really started. It is the first thing district councelors show us on our sight-seeing tour: places for tourists.Yet, a lot of the time we see no border.Orientation is usually possible with the help of villages and settlements we happen to see.A lot of times I don’t know where I am. I am neither here nor there. Inwardly I am tense, latently nervous, uncertain, undecided. What do these romantic or symbolic or arbitrary signs of a border refer to? Is there a border or did we only find one because we searched?

4. to find (andante sostenuto)“With a little help from my friends“ (Beatles):

Occasionally we see people in the border area. Those who cross the border are not very talkative. The Palestinian workers who came out of the olive trees are vivid in my memories, they weren’t allowed into Israel and avoided any contact with us. We spend the nights away from the border in Kibbutzes and villages. One meets people and gets into conversation with them. The small worlds this side and that side of the border become transparent. Differences

are great. Common ground is the knowledge about the boundary line. That is what’s in everybody’s head and what is being reproduced daily.I found the border in the consciousness of the people and the differences in their everyday life. It was not until I had crossed and left the border and talked to people who live near it either side, that I was sure of its existence.

BACK HOME

Why is the “green-line“ called „green-line“?

1. because it was marked green in the maps in those days (1967) (standard answer from bureaucrats)

2. because it separates the fertile from the infertile land (answer from S. Mansour)

3. because it is a “green border“ and thus it can be crossed without any formalities or passports, although not legally - hence “line“ (!)

4. because green stands for hope (for change). However, it remains open what exactly they are setting their hopes on

5. because green is the colour of the Islam and the line separates occident from Orient.

Peter Arlt

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GREEN LINE STORY

I was born before there was a Green Line, but since it was drawn in 1949, when I was six, it is hard for me to eradicate it from my memory - even though it has not, in effect, ex isted for some 30 years, since the Six Day War. I spent my forma-tive years with the Green Line. On a day-to-day basis, this meant that a border ran through Jerusalem, where I lived; that one had to make a detour through Latrun to get to the coastal plain; and that Jerusalem was isolated from the rest of the State of Israel. For me and those of my generation, the enemy lived on the other side of the Green Line. The only Arabs I encountered were from the village of Abu Ghosh, which was on the Israeli side of the Green Line. We Israelis got our ideas of what was happening on the other side of the Green Line from a then-popular series of adventu-re stories for children. In several of the adventures, the prot-agonists crossed the border, which was for us impassable.

The Six Day War erased the Green Line, revealing what had been behind it. Idle contemplation leads me to conclude that the little Jerusalem, and the little Israel, that existed before then were preferable, not only because they were the reality of my childhood, but because the eradication of the Green Line destroyed my fantasies and, more importantly, because it was inexorably bound up with the reality of occupation. Any visit we made to the “other side“ of Jerusalem or of Israel-Palestine we made as occupiers, and the reality we saw was one of occupation.

Like the Berlin Wall, The Green Line disappeared from the (Israeli) map but not from the mind. It exists even in the minds of the settlers who have chosen to live on the other side of it. The Intifada and the establishment of Palestinian autonomy have further re-established this line. Usually, if not always, the Israeli knows where it is.

Those born after 1960 who travel from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv do not remember the old road and are not aware that the new one traverses the Green Line. Because of my age and because I was born in Jerusalem, I can never forget either.

The idea of hiking the Green Line would never have occurred to me had it not been suggested by an outsider. I joined the hike for one day, one that had significance for my personal history as a Jerusalemite. I joined the visit to Latrun.

An Israeli raised on stories of the battle at Latrun — stories of heroism, naturally — has a mythological concept of the place. Of course we knew three Arab villages were razed by Israeli bulldozers in 1967. We also knew why: The human race tries to learn from history. According to the history taught in the

young State of Israel, the blockade of the road from the coastal plain to Jerusalem in the 1948 War was a most trau-matic experience. Jerusalem had been under siege, and I had lived in besieged Jerusalem. I remember lining up on the street every day with a jerrican to get water for the fami-ly. There was no running water. After the Israeli victory in 1967 the obvious historical lesson was: Never again let the road to Jerusalem be blocked. On this basis those three villa-ges were destroyed.But here is the problem with history. In 1967 we were still thinking in 1948 terms — terms of war, siege, revenge. Had we thought differently, and had the other side thought differ-ently, the sight of those destroyed villages would have been spared us. A visit to Emmaus to see where Judas Maccabeus fought 2,000 years ago would have been a purely archeologi-cal visit.

However, even an archeological visit is political. For Israelis, Judas Maccabeus was the “tour guide“ to the wars of the 20th century. Anyone who prefers the pacifist tradition in Judaism to the bellicose one largely fostered by Zionism would prefer a different kind of visit.My discussion with Professor Saleh of El-Bireh was pleasant and informative. Nevertheless, there was some tension. I am from the occupier’s camp, and he from that of occupied; in spite of having searched for ways to end the occupation, I do not feel exculpated. Although neither of us would want to see the Green Line back in place. It still passes between us. He would undoubtedly prefer a Palestinian State in this entire territory, and I believe an Israeli-Palestinian federation is the best solution for this territory, and I believe and Israeli-Palestinian state will be established. Only thereafter will it be possible to contemplate confederation.In the meantime, Professor Saleh’s memories darken the pre-sent. For an Israeli it is difficult to accept sweeping general-ization about the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict.His version places too much emphasis on the idea of an Israeli “plot“ or conspiracy. Albeit not all of our archives are open, but given the complete lack of comprehensive archival research on the other side, it is far too easy to develop con-spiracy theories. We know that stupidity and intransigence played a much larger role in Israel’s actions than did conspi-racy. Even though we walked together along what used to be the Green Line, and spoke in the lingua franca of English, we fundamentally disagreed on how many of the events of 1948 and 1967 came about.

Collaborative research and a combined basis for research are necessary to overcome the Green Line that passes through the minds of those who stand on either side of the Green Line on the ground.

Moshe Zimmermann

The tree, The olives, The oil

The oven, The bread, The tea

The fence, The road, The village

The people - Everything is green

Waking before darkness

Aharon Adami / 97

Jens Windorf

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PETER ARLT

WOLFGANG PREISINGER

SIMONE HARTMANN

JENS WINDORF

MOSHE ZIMMMERMANN

TZIPPY ASH HADAS OPHRAT

AKRAM SAFADI

SALEH ABD AL-JAWAD

CREDITSIDEA & CONCEPT: DIE FABRIKANTEN

ORGANISATION

Wolfgang PreisingerAkram Safadi

THANKS T0

Dr. Gabriele Kreidl-Kala - BMWVK Abt /8Al Wasiti Art Center - (Sliman Mansour, Taleb Dweik, Vera Tamari) general supportDr. Margit Scherb - (SAAR) support for the conceptAyad Al-Malki Tours Agency - support for the contactsPeace Now - PRDoron Polak - Projective - artist contactOrient House - backgroundsDr. Jonathan Kuttab - advocateAnat Shalgi & Yael Keiny - (Kibbuz Nahshon, artist contact, general support)Larry Abramson / Oril Ben Sabat - Betsalel - (artist contact)Ofer Bronster - translation - contacts Fritz Froehlich - SAAR - informationsMichel Sternberg - PRPetra-Rent a car -George Ghazawi - Mobile PhoneUhe Jaban - artists contactCarng - (hamsleha)Abed Al-Nasir Saleh - poet - Tulkarim (Ministry of Culture)Ahmad Attris - D.C. HablehMahmoud Rasheed - Club P. BuddrusLyana Badir / Jack Persekian - Palestinian Ministry of CultureMohamed Zahayka - journalist - JerusalemJuri Gutman - (Israeli Foreign Ministry)

TRANSLATIONS IN THE CATALOGUE:

Matthias SchmidtRula Kort

ParticipantsAron Adami - artistAkram Safadi - photographer - filmmakerDr. Saleh Abd Al-Jawad - historianHadas Ophrat - artist - teacher of theaterJens Windorf - architect - concept artistProf. Moshe Zimmermann - historianPeter Arlt - sociologistWolfgang Preisinger - artistSimone Hartmann - artist and painterTzippi Ash - perfomance artist

DIE FABRIKANTEN, Spittelwiese 8, A-4020 LINZ, AUSTRIA TEL + 43-732-795684, www.fabrikanten.at

BKA

THE GREEN LINE-FEAR NOVEMBER 1996

Walking along the Green Line - Five days, six to ten people. A school field trip, accompanied by artists, people of culture- Germans, Austrians, Palestinians and Israelis - very, very interesting.Almost pastoral.Jerusalem-Kibbutz Nachshon - Budddrus, Jellad, Tulkarim, Bartah...I would love to see the beauty of these places, the beauty of the people. To feel the road, the essence of the 1967 border, to open my mind and heart. To observe.To be able to contain the pain, the hardships, the wounds and the violance of the struggle of these two sides. This is the violence I live and breathe every day.

FearThe time is a time of waiting. No progress for the implementation of the Oslo-agreements, uncertainty in the Hebron negotiations, and an earthquake after the opening of the tunnel in Jerusalem.In this conflict which I felt, between my desire to take part in this special, blessed journey and encounter opposed by the knowledge that this time is the brooding of violencefear had the upper hand.I felt that it was naive and unsafe to walk the Green Line trail, I could only follow the journey in my heart, in my spirit and creation.

Tzippy Ash