"My new friends told me stories of past and present military attacks, house demolitions, land confiscation, imprisonment without trial, torture, and government-sponsored assassination... Questioning Israel in any way felt like a betrayal of my grandmother. "Nonetheless, it became important for me to decifer my own ‘truth’ about the conflict through research and personal witnessing... I... began to realize that the question coming up most for me and the activists I met was not whether or not my grandmother’s Israel had a right to exist, but whether or not it had a right to be expanding its territory and control through systematic human rights violations." Anna Baltzer from the Introduction "Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories" SALT LAKE CITY — When Anna Baltzer, 27, a Columbia University graduate in mathematics and economics, visited the West Bank in 2003 to see for herself what life there was like, she expected to see an arid land, sparsely populated. She was immediately struck by the beauty, the lush, green valleys, and the modern roads. Baltzer, a strong believer in doing her own research and gathering her own facts, had been cautioned by friends and U.S. State Department officials about the dangers there. Still, she signed on as a volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service. Five months later, Baltzer had seen enough, experienced enough, and been so changed that she published her journal, "Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories." In observance of United Nations Human Rights Day Dec. 10, Baltzer spoke at the Salt Lake City Library, the guest of Utahns for a Just Peace in the Holy Land and the Utah Film Center. The powerful documentary film, "The Iron Wall" opened the afternoon event, preparing the large audience for Baltzer’s comments about settlements, land confiscation, checkpoints, the Wall, and the systematic destruction of the Palestinian way of life in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Central to their lives today is the massive destruction of their homes and their generations-held olive groves. A passionate Baltzer spoke of turning from observer to activist as she got to know the Palestinian people and witnessed their ongoing suffering at the hands of the Israeli Occupying forces, largely financed by the United States government. "Since 1946, the Palestinians have watched their land disappear as it is being annexed by the Israeli government," Baltzer said. "Today, the land to which Palestinians have access is a fraction of the land that is legally theirs, and those lands are fractured, separated from each other by the Wall." Baltzer explained that the actions that are oppressing the Palestinian people in their own country are not the work of Israelis as a whole, but are the work of radical Zionists whose aim it is to claim Palestine as their God-given land and eliminate the Palestinian people forever. "This is not an age-old rivalry with religious differences... It is a war about land, water, and resources in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," she said. "It is a war about structures that restrict the movement of people who are legally there and have been there for generations." Showing slides of roads, both modern and ancient and crumbling, Baltzer said modern roads on which Palestinians are not allowed to travel connect hundreds of Israeli settlements and outposts. The modern roads and the Wall, with its sniper towers and razor wire, separate Palestinian people from their fields, their villages, their olive groves, and their families. They are relegated to dirt roads and paths dotted with checkpoints and roadblocks. "It may take an hour, many hours, or even an entire day to get through the checkpoints," she said. "This makes it impossible for Palestinians to attend school regularly or hold steady jobs. Every part of their lives are affected, and the rules are arbitrary, changing from day to day." As an American, a Caucasian, and a Jew, Baltzer was often waved through checkpoints, but she chose to remain with the Palestinians as they waited hours in the desert sun as a gesture of solidarity. "I’ve seen ambulances forced to wait at checkpoints for hours while construction trucks and armored vehicles went through," she said. Baltzer leveled harsh criticism on the Israeli government’s practice of building settlements on the hilltops of Palestine, peopling them with poor immigrants looking for a higher standard of living, and linking them to each other and Jerusalem with roads the Palestinians are not allowed to travel. "Throughout history this has been known as colonization, and it is illegal according to Article 49 of the fourth Geneva Convention," she said. "The settlers are well paid to become part of illegal colonization." Baltzer’s research suggests that of the people living in the settlements and the outposts, 20 percent are ideologues, there for perceived "reasons of belief." The remaining 80 percent are there for purely economic purposes. "When considering the Wall, the settlements, and Israeli policy, we must ask, ‘does segregation bring peace?’ Most Israelis I’ve talked to know what the reality of the Wall is. They dislike it and feel it is unjust. They also know that more than 14,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished to build it, 100,000 people displaced, and uncountable olive groves destroyed. I urge you, do your own research," she said. "Go there. Don’t take my word for it."
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