The "security barrier" Israel erected during the past decade to separate itself from West Bank Palestinians has diminished terrorist strikes and thwarted the opportunity for lasting peace. Aside from its physical ugliness, the wall violated internationally recognized boundaries by zigzagging across the land to protect Jewish "settlements" on the West Bank while worsening the lives of Palestinians by separating farmers from their fields and workers from their jobs.
The sad irony of an Israeli government appearing to emulate the East Germans wasn't lost on some of the graffiti artists who have descended on the cement barrier. In some of the photos collected in William Parry's Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine (Lawrence Hill Books), slogans slapped on the edifice compared it to the Berlin Wall. Another historical word is sometimes used: Apartheid.
As the British freelance journalist and photographer set out to document the visual protests painted on the wall by a few disgruntled locals but mostly by foreign provocateurs such as Banksy, he found the usual urban scrawl mixed with images of bombs falling on children and pointed ironies ("I Love Tourists"). Considerably more compelling than the graffiti are photographs of the people who must endure the barrier, including checkpoints where Palestinian workers cross into spaces as crowded as cattle cars. The Palestinian people have always been ill served by their leaders, but Israeli policies toward the co-inhabitants of the Holy Land have often been shocking in light of Jewish history.
