Sami Jadallah: Will Obama Say Break Down This Wall?

I am certain Israel will not dare to tear down President Barack Obama's comment as he crosses from Israel to the Israeli Occupied Territories, to prevent him from seeing the barbed wires, and the Apartheid Wall. Will President Barack Obama stop at the ugly gate step out of his car and say to Bibi Netanyahu: "Mr. Prime Minister, Tear Down This Wall? I don't think so. Perhaps the greatest moment of the late Ronald Reagan presidency was, when he gave his speech at the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987, and challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall". It was only a few years later, that the citizens of Germany, including the East and West, tore down the Berlin Wall without having to wait for permission from Gorbachev. Several years ago, when I was the general counsel for a large Middle East construction company, I used to travel to West Berlin almost every other few weeks to our engineering office, and on a few occasions had the opportunity to travel and cross over to the former East Berlin. What a contrast! On my first trip to East Berlin, on a Saturday in late November, a cold and snowy day in Berlin. As the bus stopped at Check Point Charlie, the East German police directed the bus to a stop, and with mirrors inspected the under carriage of the bus, and checked both passengers luggage very carefully. Finding nothing, we proceeded to the East Berlin bus station. What a contrast? As if the cold wintery day were not enough, the miserable faces of East Berliners told the story. Perhaps the most memorable moment on my first visit was not the Soviet Memorial to the fallen Red Army soldiers, but the old woman carrying two bags, as she walked the long lonely road while light snow was falling. On many occasions, I also had the chance to cross Israel's Apartheid Wall, a wall built by Israel, not for its security from terrorists, but to rob Palestinians from their homes and land, to rob them of the underground aquifers, thereby robbing the Palestinians of water resources and a way to redefine and redraw the "provisional" borders of the state of Palestine. The Israeli Apartheid Wall is a racist wall, that defines the Zionist cultural and moral value system of Israel. It is built to inflict permanent damage for the Palestinians, and their properties. It separates Palestinian villagers from their land, from their only source of living, and is intended to humiliate Palestinians, by having them wait for hours, and days for permission to cultivate their fields, if they are not confiscated by Israel for "security reasons".