West Bank Diaries

    In May, the author spent ten days traveling
    around Israel, Palestine and Jordan with the
    liberal pro-Israel advocacy organization J
    Street. What follows are excerpts from the
    journal she kept during her trip.

By Marilyn Katz
InTheseTimes
June 15, 2012

http://inthesetimes.com/main/article/13381

Day 1: May 3, 2012

We leave Tel Aviv, a sun-drenched city filled with
beaches, high rises and casually-dressed Israelis, on
the only road across the West Bank to Jerusalem. It's a
slick highway surrounded on all sides by a "fence" --
in some places cement and in other places barbed wire,
dotted with armed checkpoints. On the side of the road,
Palestinian men walk through a narrow barbed wire
pathway, some carrying bags, others carrying furniture.
The road, I'm told, is for Israeli citizens only-those
Palestinians who have permission to work in Israel must
park their vehicles elsewhere, pass through a check
point and board buses that exit the road shortly
thereafter.

What is the purpose of this fencing? The ostensible
reason-security-is less than convincing. The fences are
made of barbed wire; anyone wishing to damage a road or
a village could easily shoot over or through it, or
simply take the risk of being cut. My guides estimate
that thousands of Palestinians "penetrate" these fences
to reach Israel each day. More than anything it appears
that these fences are cages, locking people in,
restricting their movement and ultimately making them
prisoners in their own land.

On to Jerusalem. When I was here 10 years ago, I saw
many Palestinians working throughout the city. Today, I
am struck not only by the absence of Palestinians and
Israeli Arabs, but by the massive numbers of Haredi and
other Ultra-Orthodox Jews. With an average of eight
children per family, the Haredi and other Ultra-
Orthodox Jews are the fastest growing segment of the
Israeli population, and they are a huge factor in
Israeli politics and a huge drain on the economy and
political life. Some of the Ultra-Orthodox,
particularly the Haredi men, do not work and have been
exempted from military service so that they can
"study." They all receive a government stipend for each
child born. Due to their growing numbers, they have a
big influence in the parliament and in the military.

Impression: The separation is total. Despite the 3
million Palestinians living in the West Bank, it is
totally possible for Israelis never to encounter
Palestinians and for Palestinians never to encounter
Israelis, except at checkpoints.

Day 2: May 4, 2012

Just returned from a day in the West Bank. Since the
1993 Oslo Accords (which were meant to be only an
interim step), the West Bank has been divided into
three areas: "Area A" (large cities under the full
control of the Palestinian Authority), "Area B"
(smaller cities and villages supposedly under
Palestinian civil authority and Israel Defense Forces
(IDF) military authority), and "Area C" (the rest of
the West Bank, which includes farms, villages, and
individual houses the Israelis claim to be uninhabited,
and which is under the complete control of the IDF).

Today, visiting Kafr-a-Dik, a Palestinian village about
20 minutes from Tel Aviv, I got a pretty good sense of
what occupation means. We had lunch in the hills
outside the village at the site of a summer "tea house"
that had been razed the week before by the IDF. The
young children of the family who built the house, which
they used for shelter and rest while tending their
olive trees, told us they came here last week after
school only to find their "shelter" gone. It turns out
that while they were at school, hundreds of IDF
soldiers descended on the spot with bulldozers,
destroying the shelter and the 250-year-old well along
with the walled terrace that had protected the olive
trees for centuries.

Day 3: May 5, 2012

How to consider Israel? It is a land of more than one
reality-particularly since the Second Intifada of 2000,
after which Palestinians could no longer travel freely
through the country, and after which Israelis did not
even go to East Jerusalem, which is like living in the
New York's East Village and never visiting the West
Village.

Life in Jerusalem is pretty much like life in any urban
center, except for the ever-visible presence of the
Haredim, and their reflection in the larger
society-there are no billboards with women on them,
many radio stations do not play songs in which women
sing, and on some bus routes, women are relegated to
the back of the bus, despite a Supreme Court ban on the
practice.

What is different is the absolute absence of the Other.
As Palestinians are barred from entry to Israel, people
in general don't have to think about them, and there is
a generation of young Israelis who may have never seen
or met one.

In some ways it is not so different from those who live
in American suburbs or rural areas and who rarely see
anyone who is not like themselves. The situation in
Israel is more pronounced, and is true in the cities as
well as the suburbs. Ironically, it is probably only
the Jewish settlers in the West Bank who have any real
continuous "contact" with Palestinians, and then only
as occupier of the land or as employer of menial labor
-since Palestinians cannot enter Israeli cities, their
only work is either in their villages for the
Palestinian Authority, or as gardeners, etc., in
settlers' villages (with special work and travel
permits, of course).

Day 4: May 6, 2012

After a fascinating morning meeting with the son of
assassinated Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin and other
leaders across the political spectrum (with as many
views as there were people in the room), we took an
afternoon walk to Jaffa, the original Arab port just
north of Tel Aviv, where most Jews landed when they
came in the 1880s. An ancient city, Jaffa was home to
100,000 Arabs in 1948, before the war. Today, only
6,000 remain.

Dinner was at the sumptuous Tel Aviv home of an Israeli
businessman. We were joined by four other "progressive"
Israeli businessmen, the heads of hedge and equity
funds, all of whom do business with Palestinians and
with Arab countries. Three of the four, including the
son of a former prime minister, are virtually
uninvolved in politics and think that the market, with
its lack of borders and its commitment to "innovation,"
will simply take care of the issue. The most loquacious
of them thinks the wall separating Palestinians from
Israelis has actually helped both communities and that
in separation, each population is beginning to thrive.

When I returned to my room, I wanted to see whether the
most articulate and powerful speaker among these men,
the one who stated that the wall has helped both
Palestinians and Israelis, could have a point. The
bottom line: GDP in Israel is $31,000 per capita; in
the West Bank it is $2,900.

That's all for my Sunday report.

Day 5: May 7, 2012

Today we traveled to Jordan, a stunningly beautiful
country. Our first meeting was with King Abdullah, who
turned out to be an exceedingly smart, thoughtful and
engaging man. Needless to say, the palace was gorgeous.
What could be bad about sipping tea from a gold-
embossed glass in a room that makes the Metropolitan
Museum of Art's exhibit on Middle Eastern decorative
arts look shabby?

We met with the king and the prime minister for about
an hour. On Israel, the king was probably the most
optimistic person we spoke to all day-and that wasn't
very optimistic. It is his opinion -- and pretty much
everyone's we talked to -- that the window for a
possible two-state solution is closing fast, with
Israel having totally rebuffed (to date) the Arab Peace
Initiative, with Palestinians chaffing under accords
that were meant to last two years, not two decades, and
with the Arab Spring asserting itself as alternative
mode of achieving change. He thinks, as do others, that
the growth of Jewish settlements in the occupied
territories and of the Palestinian population under
occupation is such that if we don't reach a two-state
solution by 2013, the only options will be a dual
national state (untenable for the Israelis) or an
apartheid state (simply untenable).

Then on to dinner at the home of a former Jordanian
Ambassador, joined by 20 other ex-ambassadors, sitting
senators and leaders of Jordanian society. It was a
sobering conversation. Contrary to the happy talk of
the Israeli businessmen about "joint endeavors with the
Arab world," these business and political leaders have
pretty much given up on Israel (despite many years of
investment in the prospects and endeavor to find
peace). They do not believe that the government in
Israel is interested in peace, and they feel that the
demographics of the West Bank settlements, which have
brought more than 500,000 hard-line settlers to the
occupied territories, will continue to give right-
wingers the vote. They believe that the total
separation of Israelis from Palestinians is breeding a
new generation that could care less about peace, and
that the Arab world and the Palestinians will just give
up on Israel as a "member state of the region," since
it appears to them not to be interested in being one.
They are horrified by the occupation and actions of the
Israelis, even while understanding Israel's legitimate
desire for a state. They also rue the retreat into
fundamentalism and extremism in both the Jewish and
Muslim communities.

Day 6: May 8, 2012

Started off with a gracious meeting at the Jordan
Parliament with the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee-a self-selected group (all men) who spent
about two hours with us giving their prognostications
on the situation of the Middle East. All are cautious
about the Arab Spring (although remember they are all
friends of the King) and worry about the rise of
Islamist states.

Their main point was that the Arab Spring is a wave,
demanding human dignity and full citizenship rights,
and that this tide will also affect Israel. Like all
others from whom we heard, they believe that the window
for a two-state solution-which they all favor--is
short, and they do not see a negotiating partner in
Israel.

We spent the afternoon in the West Bank looking at
Jewish settlements-all illegal, according to Article 49
of the Geneva Accords. Hundreds of thousands of
settlers now live in the West Bank, and settlements and
their "outposts" have been placed to totally surround
Arab villages, confiscating Arab lands in the process
and creating an internal colony.

(A note: I know when we think of settlements, we often
think of the American West, where whole towns have
grown. In the West Bank, settlements vary. In some
cases they are huge, with thousands of residents, and
resemble the gated communities of southern California
or Florida. But in other places, settlements are one
building on a street in East Jerusalem, or some cases
whole blocks, where one or two lone Palestinian
families remain.)

Day 7: May 9, 2012

Today was Israeli official politics day. We started off
at the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) with a series
of meetings with a variety of representatives of
various parties-Labor, Meretz (the socialist party) and
Kadima, which is a center-left (more center than left)
break-away from Labor. It is a very tumultuous time for
the Knesset. Last week, Netanyahu declared that the
Knesset would be dissolved and that elections for a new
parliament would be held in September. Then, on Monday
night, Kadima's leader made a radical u-turn and
decided to join the Likud (Netanyahu) coalition, giving
Netanyahu a 94-vote majority-if the deal holds of
course...

And there are reasons why it wouldn't hold. Kadima,
while not a strong party, represents the faction that
in theory wants to freeze the settlements and pursue
the peace process. Likud has shown little inclination
to do so. There is much speculation among all about
what will happen. All say they are committed to a two-
state solution, and that there isn't much time, but all
doubt the political will of Netanyahu.

Day 8: May 10, 2012

We started our day off at Hebron, a large town in the
Judean mountains. We were brought to Hebron by a group
called Encounter, a Jewish organization that tries to
expose Israelis, American Jews and others to the
realities of life in the West Bank, without commentary.
Most of the Encounter members are rabbinical students,
and quite lovely.

Some context: In 1929, during the Arab uprising against
the British, 67 Jews in Hebron were killed by
Palestinians (many, many more were sheltered and
protected by their Palestinian neighbors). After that,
Jews left Hebron, not to return until 1968 when they
began to settle in an area just outside of the Old
City's downtown. The settlement they established grew
into Kiryat Arba, which now has 7,500 residents. In
1979, a group of Hasidic families occupied an old,
empty hospital in the Old City itself, creating another
settlement.

After a 1994 shooting in which a settler killed 29
Palestinians (and injured dozens more), the government
decided that Jews and Palestinians needed to be
separated, and the barricading and death of the old
Palestinian city began. Today, as you walk around the
half-deserted streets of the Old City in which
Palestinians still live and try to have shops, you see
shuttered stores, their façades often graffitied with
the Star of David.

Most disturbing is Shashuda Street, once a central
street in the Palestinian community, where the
vegetable and meat market once stood. The remaining
Palestinians' homes are like hen's teeth on the first
blocks of the street, squeezed among the new
settlements. Many Palestinians now put screening over
their interior courtyards and over their stores to
protect them from the feces and trash thrown down by
settlers from their higher homes.

The next block is almost fully occupied by Israelis,
and Palestinians are prohibited from driving on the
street. Many are not allowed to exit their homes onto
the street; rather, they must exit via the roof or an
adjacent apartment onto the "Palestinian street" on the
other side of the block.

Day 9: May 11, 2012

From the surreal experience of Hebron we went off to
Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA)
and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), to
meet with Salam Fayyad, the PA's prime minister.
Ramallah is a bustling, modern city, with cranes
dotting the skyline and the same type of buildings that
you see in Jerusalem. Israelis are not allowed to visit
Ramallah or any other place in the West Bank designated
an "Area A" without a special permit.

Fayyad, who got his degrees at the University of Texas
at Austin, is responsible for the administration of the
West Bank, while President Mahmoud Abbas is the
political leader. A small, fairly quiet and compact
man, he was engaged and engaging. He says that they are
fully committed to a two-state solution, but feels a
growing sense of despair due to the lack of response by
the Israelis to the Arab Peace Initiative and the
refusal of Israel to halt or freeze the settlements,
which, if they continue, will make a contiguous
Palestinian state impossible.

He talked with pride about the growth of Ramallah's and
the West Bank's economy and the reduction of violence.
But he fears that the delays in the peace process, the
jailing of hundreds of Palestinians, the sense of
hopelessness, the confiscation of Palestinian homes and
lands, and the settler violence against Palestinians
will once again lead to violence.

As for him, he is engaged in "constructive defiance."
For example, after the IDF bulldozed a road the
Palestinian Authority had built in the West Bank to
connect two villages, the PA rebuilt the road. After
the IDF again bulldozed the road, the PA rebuilt it a
third time, and for now, the road still stands.

Day 10: May 12, 2012

Lunch in Ramallah was hosted by the emerging young
business and political leaders of Palestine. Among them
were investment bankers, youth leaders and a number of
entrepreneurs. All came back to Palestine-from Harvard,
MIT, Stanford and the like-to nation-build, and all are
frustrated, some only with the U.S., and others with
the PLO and the Abbas leadership as well. They speak of
the degradation of being stopped at checkpoints on
their way to business meetings in Israel (despite their
permits). They speak about supplies and goods being
held up by the Israelis for months at a time, and the
impossibility of generating a real economy, as Israel
controls the timing and the content of all imports and
exports. While all believe in a two-state solution,
they are really beyond that. Their demand, very simply,
is that the occupation-it's walls, its rules-be ended
now.

The day ended with a trip to Neve Shalom, a community
on a hilltop above the lush and fertile valley between
the mountains and Tel Aviv, the green belt of Israel.
Established more than 30 years ago, Neve Shalom is a
"model village" where an equal number of Israeli Arabs
and Israeli Jews have created a community committed to
providing a model of integrated living. We joined
members of the Sulha Peace Project for an evening of
"encounter" between Palestinians and Israelis. Founded
by Palestinian and Jewish leaders, the organization
regularly brings together Palestinians and Jews for
song, talk and sharing. Not exactly my cup of tea, yet
I was moved and impressed nevertheless with this
people-to-people grassroots attempt to envision a new
way of being.

In the end, though, it isn't enough. The two groups may
break bread and sing together tonight, but their
ability to even come together at all is dependent on
the benevolence of more gracious occupiers who give out
"get out of jail for a day" cards to the occupied. And
at the end of the day, the occupied go back to their
cages.
__________________

Marilyn Katz is the founder and president of Chicago-
based MK Communications. An anti-war and civil rights
organizer during the Vietnam War, she served with Lee
Weiner (one of the Chicago 7) as co-head of security
during the August 1968 protests at the Democratic
National Convention.

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