I thought that the reading "Old and New Walls in Jerusalem" was strange because it analyzed the ideas of walls. I realize that this article was written from a geographers point of view and for that reason, it discussed the different types of walls, in theory, that exist to serve various political and social purposes in our modern world. When I think of Geography, I think of cartographers on Spanish and Portuguese ships traveling the world drawing maps. No offense to Joseph, I just never realized the place the geography plays in our world.
It is interesting that they author of that article analyzes why that wall was built. Personally, I would have never really analyzed the purposes of walls. I always thought that if you have rowdy neighbors, you build a wall; this author looks deeper into "walls." Klein compares Jerusalem to Belfast, in Northern Ireland. I recently traveled to Ireland and heard the stories of people from the Republic of Ireland, usually they do not have nice things to say about the Protestants in the North. It is interesting to compare a European city to the strife in Jerusalem. I imagine that most people, save a geographer, would not think to compare the two cities regarding sectarian strife.
Reading the graffiti article was valuable the pictures in the article helped bring it to life. I can see myself in both positions of an Israeli military officer trying to prohibit writing on the wall, because that is the law and as the guy who lives next to the wall who wants to express himself. I would want to write on it and especially when a foreign dignitary comes. I would want to make my views known and appeal to the aid of others. It is a rough situation, I do not see an end to it. On one hand writing graffiti is a small offense, however I think that it is just a minuscule model of the overwhelming strife in that region. I think that the graffiti is just the little guy (in this case the Palestinian guy living next to the wall) trying to speak out against the bigger guy.
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