Alex M Goldblum

Israel and Palestine Alex M Goldblum

See Israel & the lands of the Bible through my eyes. See both the beauty and the conflict. See the ancient and the modern. Envision war and peace in the land of milk and honey. I will take you across the thin green line, to the other side of the wall. Israel and Palestine: A Photographic Journey features images of Israel, Judea and Samaria (The West Bank), The Golan Heights, and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. I went to Israel the first time purely as a tourist. The second trip was more motivated by my desire to document the people, places, and culture that I was reading about online and in the media. I wanted to be close to the action. I found action alright, tons of it. Israel and the Sinai and the West Bank are hot zones for action. Anything can pop off anywhere at any time. Dozens, if not hundreds, of political hot points, flash points, that are ready to reach the boiling point. No place better exemplifies the world on its tipping point than these places I visited. They are places in flux, places where change it the only constant. Israel, Palestine, The West Bank, these are all disputed territories. Israel has been a Democracy for 64 years, but people there in positions of legislative and judicial authority seem to be abusing their powers, and applying biased and prejudiced opinions to their design and application of the law. No better example exists than in El Araqib, a Bedouin village in the Negev Desert, where the land and housing policy has been "bulldoze these people's homes to make way for a forest of trees." Dozens of other institutionally racist examples of home demolitions exist in other parts of Israel and The West Bank. The only place conspicuously missing from my photo series is Gaza. Why didn't I visit Gaza? The only way to "visit" Gaza is to do so via Rafah, Egypt. I simply did not feel comfortable going there, but in theory, it can be done. One does not "visit" Gaza from Israel. The blockade there will not allow it.