To mark the 20th anniversary of Rou?ya Ukhra (the Arabic publication of the Alternative Information Center, first published in the 1980s under the name ?Akhbar min al Dakhil), News From Within, AIC?s English language journal, and Mitsad Sheni, AIC?s Hebrew publication, we decided to publish a joint issue of our three publications.

Moreover: we decided that this time, the statements would not be in writing, as is usual in newspapers and journals, but in pictures. The photographers speak. Jews, Arabs, others.

The photographers were only given a title: Walls and Bridges. Why ?Walls and Bridges?? We believe that these two concepts signify our era and the challenges facing anyone who believes that another world is possible, that another world is imperative? Walls separating Israel from the Arab world; walls between Jews and Arabs; but also walls between various deprived groups; between peoples living as neighbors, who overnight become ?eternal enemies?.

And the global walls that Bush, Blair and Sharon want to erect between the ostensibly cultured world and the jungle of barbarians, slaves and the starving. Establishing bridges is, of course, our answer to those who want to enclose us behind walls 26 feet high; to those who want to thrust us into tribal wars in the name of religion, the homeland, or just fear.We made sure that the photographers we asked to participate in this project know that the two terms do not necessarily refer to Israel/Palestine, and certainly not only to the ?separation fence? now under construction in the West Bank Territories. Nevertheless, most of the pictures that we received referred to the Palestinian apartheid wall.

In retrospect, it is clear that its barbaric power obscures all the other walls: the walls that hide the foreign workers, the walls between the rich and the poor in Lod, the walls that the hi-tech rich in Herzliya Pituach build so that they don?t have to see or be seen by the million and a half Israeli children living below the poverty line. These are our photographers? choices, and this is evidence of our reality ? the reality that we all share.

Michael Warschawski

published by the Alternative Information Center