Graffiti: Pollution or Art?

There are few specific moments in your life that you can remember so clearly.  Some of these moments have meaning, some don't have meaning, and others have meaning that you just cannot figure out or understand yet.

I clearly remember when I was ten years old and my dad and I were picking up my grandma from her house in New Jersey to spend the week with us in New York.  Each way is a two hour drive and on both ends you start in the suburban areas and make your way through the surrounding urban streets of New York City until you hit suburbia again.  It is a real interesting drive as you exposed to such a variety of lifestyles in just two short hours.  I remember coming off the George Washington bridge as my dad drove up and down ramps and loops, etc.  When you get off of the bridge (on the New York side) you are greeted with litter and graffiti and angry drivers honking their horns at you.  It was a long day for me, just a young kid sitting in the car for a few hours...I wanted to just be home.  But I clearly remember looking at all of the graffiti and genuinely enjoying it.  I didn't care that historical structures had been tainted by somebodies signature in spray paint...it was beautiful.  I even remember asking my dad if those [the graffiti] was the signature of all the hardworking construction people who had built the bridge.  There was something about that moment graffiti that has made me find it somewhat interesting to this day.

Although New York might be more diverse than Jerusalem, when something is said in Jerusalem it seems like everyone is listening.  In Jerusalem a random act of racism could turn into a major conflict while in New York I feel that things like this happen all the time and result in nothing.  Jerusalem is like a giant bubble...bubbles look their best and amaze people at their biggest, however they are most prone to popping.  Jerusalem is beautiful, but how much more conflict and violence can it take before the bubble pops?

The wall represents all that is bad.  The Berlin wall is just another historical example of what walls can do.  In general walls represent separation, and separation is a result of conflict.  Now I understand that Jews and Palestinians may not get along and I understand that the wall is for security measures, but if the wall is still going to exist (which it will) then beautify it.

If the wall is dirty, littered, polluted people are going to think bad of what it represents.  Repaint it, color it, just do something.  Maybe having a "positive wall" will make Jews think better of the Palestinians and vice-versa.

I understand that I am rambling, but I want to ask one question: What really is graffiti?

Graffiti is a work of art, and although it is usually associated negatively it does not have to be negative.  I just looked through the photo album I took when I went on Birthright in December 2011- January 2012 and one picture stood out to me.  This below picture is in fact the wall the divides Israeli and Palestinian territories.

Look at the wall.  Yes, this is the wall that you have heard such negative things about.  This image speaks that there is no trouble, no conflict as everything is at peace.  Just think...making a barrier look positive could bear such a positive impact on this current conflict.