Although tourism is said to be picking up again in Jerusalem, it seems to have come—as tourism so often does—at the expense of this city's ancient charms.

Here the Old City's most traveled path, the Via Dolorosa, is caught between the Coca-Cola sign and the Israeli flag. So too is the destitute Palestinian woman who spends her days waiting, a hapless beggar ignored by the dozen or so Israeli agents who pass her by as I snap this photo.

The agents and the occasional European tourist are plain-clothed, the first gun-slung, the second camera-slung. As Palestinian children chase each other up and down the narrow alleyways, they seem the only reminder of the hustle and bustle that once was Arab Jerusalem.

For me, all else points to Qalandia, where an oppressive system of concrete, steel, and weaponry is keeping more than two million West Bank Palestinians from accessing—and breathing life—into this city.

This is not the Jerusalem I remember, and that, I think, is the occupier's point.

React: samer@helpupa.com