This is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature

by Ahdaf Soueif

Every day Israel kills at least one Palestinian. Every day it arrests and detains and interrogates and demolishes. Every day at Damascus Gate you see Israeli soldiers push young Palestinian men up against the walls to search them. Every day the settlers and soldiers stroll through Moroccan Gate into the Sanctuary. Every day the language of the authorities shades further into settler Third Temple language. Sometimes a young Palestinian wakes up in the morning and takes a knife from her mother’s kitchen and goes out to mount a solitary, hopeless attack on Israeli soldiers. Sometimes Israeli soldiers kill a young Palestinian and toss a knife onto the ground next to him. The language of justice and decency is no longer relevant. The language of human rights is bitter. The language of red heifers and crimson worms and red heifers and cable cars and crimson worms and holy package tours is swelling. Here. Here in the heart of the world that will burst. Soon.