The head of the Katzir-Harish council, Dubi Sandrov, warns against traveling to the fence - sorry, the seam zone. "Guys, we're not involved in this scene. It's dangerous territory," he says. According to regulations, a permit from the army and military escort is required. Sandrov is equipped with two cellular telephones and a Mirs device. He calls the company commander in the area and asks him to send an armored personnel carrier to accompany and protect the journalistic tour along the fence. The plan is to circumnavigate the communities of Shaked, Katzir and Harish and to travel along the fence to the village of Barta'a.
It turns out that the company commander is currently unavailable. He tells the council leader something and from Sandrov's expression, it is apparent that something unexpected has occurred. We later learn that the company commander's wife, who serves in the immigration police, was injured during a roundup of foreign workers that morning and that he was with her in the emergency room at Rambam hospital when Sandrov called him. There was no one else who could approve an IDF escort at such short notice. As Sandrov was contemplating whether or not to risk it, a vehicle from the private security firm Yiftah pulled over. The security employee knows Sandrov and is willing to provide protection for the tour up until the Shaked checkpoint. We travel behind him on the security road, heading west along the fence. On one side of the road is barbed wire. On the other side is the "obstacle" - an electronic fence, with an electronic system that provides a warning and the location of any infiltration attempt. Beyond the fence is a trench.
There is a gate every three kilometers. Locked. These are the "agricultural gates" in the parlance of the defense establishment. A humanitarian gesture: Arab farmers who are citizens of Israel and whose lands are located on the other side of the "obstacle" wait at a given hour for the gate to be opened. They cross over to work their fields and at the assigned hour wait again at the gate to return home. Sometimes the military vehicle comes on time to open the gate for them. But the problem is that sometimes the farmers have to wait for a half hour or more because the military vehicle was sent to deal with a more urgent mission.
We pass the villages of Anin, Tel Menashe, Katzir, Hinanit and Shaked, all on the "Israeli" side of the fence, though only Katzir is on the western side of the Green Line. From this close perspective, it is easier to understand why Umm al-Fahm residents insist on calling this "the border" and why the Palestinians are worried.
Shaked was a settlement. And today it still is a settlement. But the fence surrounds it, as if annexing it to Israel. There is "action" at the Shaked checkpoint. A group of dozens of Arab girls and boys, of elementary school age, come running from the other side toward the fence, toward the checkpoint. The soldiers welcome them. They live in the Palestinian village al-Malek, which was left on the "Israeli" side of the fence, but go to school in the Tura village, which remained on the Palestinian side. The fence created a barrier between the pupils and their school. They come here every morning, cross the fence at the gate and return the same way in the afternoon.
Nadav Martin, a guard posted here, says with a smile: "Our job is to protect the Arab children from the Palestinians." As the children joyfully cross the checkpoint, a convoy approaches from the west. It is led by an IDF armored personnel carrier, followed by a bus with children and another APC brings up the rear. These are children from Shaked on their way home from the Omer regional school. The bus is equipped with bulletproof protection. At this very spot, two Israelis were killed and several other local residents were injured in shooting attacks. The parents are not taking any unnecessary risks.
A new era in Katzir
There were also shooting attacks on the hill leading toward Katzir from Wadi Ara. These incidents, luckily, did not result in fatalities. Do the residents feel better after the fence was erected? "And how," responds Sandrov. Earlier that morning, he joined the Iron police in a toast for the New Year. The head of the Ha'amakim district, Commander David Siso, told the assembled officers and council leaders that there has been a dramatic decline in the number of attacks and warnings. The area is really quiet. The infiltration attempts and warnings have moved toward the northeast (in the direction of Megiddo, Afula and Beit She'an) and toward the southeast (from Elkana and onward) - where the fence has yet to be completed.
In the meantime, the situation on the ground brings to mind the picturesque description made by Defense Ministry Director-General Amos Yaron when work on the "obstacle" project began. There were proposals at the time to only build the fence in particularly problematic areas. Yaron responded, "To build a fence that has no beginning and no end is like building a gate in the middle of the desert."
But the uncompleted fence has already made a significant impact - for example, on the level of crime in the area. The figures provided by the police showed a drop of over 40 percent in the number of complaints of theft - including auto theft, pilfering of farm equipment and other stealing. Sandrov is sure that the fence has ushered in a new era for Katzir. He is now working on establishing an artists' colony in Katzir. No fewer than 3,500 guests came to a bazaar held in Katzir two weeks ago, featuring local painters, potters, jewelry makers and alternative healers. Tourism, Sandrov says, requires security. And the fence provides this.
Katzir looked more pastoral and peaceful than ever last week - planted on Mount Amir, above the villages of Arara and Barta'a (in accordance with the formula "Jews above, Arabs below"), immersed in greenery and with a view of the sea on a clear day. In the older section of Katzir, located on the western ridge, there are rows and rows of well-tended homes with blossoming gardens. All of the children were returning from school and everyone was preparing for the Rosh Hashanah holiday.
But behind the pastoral appearance is an extensive array of security. The intifada exposed the fact that Katzir is sitting on a powder keg. During the violent clashes in Wadi Ara at the beginning of the intifada, on one dark night when someone cut off the electricity in Katzir, the residents experienced a fear they will not soon forget: they were situated on higher ground, but were defenseless. From below, rumors spread about groups of Arab rioters organizing to ascend the hill and rampage. This did not transpire, but the rumors were terrifying enough.
The security measures Katzir received soon afterward, when it was declared a high-risk community, included a perimeter fence; gates at Katzir's two entrances, manned by guards day and night; weapons for the emergency squad; two security coordinators (an officer and a non-commissioned officer); a community policeman; regular patrols by the Border Police and, just to be sure, a permanent deployment of Border Police at the entrance of Barta'a.
Anton Dudin is a computer professional living in Katzir. "Every morning when I drove down from Katzir, there would be dozens of Palestinians from the territories crossing the road. They would enter the woods here and continue on their way to work in the area," he says. "I have nothing against people who just come to work and have a permit. I'm not in favor of hurting anyone's livelihood. But I have kids and how can you know who's coming to work and who's coming to attack. I worked for a while at the Logiplast factory in the Shahaf area near Shaked. An Arab came to work there and everyone said he was a great guy. A month later they caught him with explosives."
The workers who used to cross the road during Dudin's drive to work have disappeared. The contractors who used to come to pick them up are also gone. The last traumatic incident he vividly remembers occurred in March. On the main road, at the end of the climb to Katzir, at the traffic circle where you turn into the town, shots were fired. No one was injured. "Can there be any question about whether the fence has improved the situation?" he asks incredulously. "It's obvious that it has. My home is right along the town's fence. We're the last house. So my wife is more at ease now. Before, we didn't let the children ride the bus to school. We took them in the car. Now I let them. It has allowed us to worry a bit less."
Ostensibly unified
The residents of Barta'a are very hurt by the mention of their village's extremist image, as a place hostile to Jews. They strongly deny this and are prepared to go to great lengths to prove that their village strives for peace and coexistence. But Riad Kabha, the head of the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace at Givat Haviva, says emphatically from his cell phone: "Wait for me in the car, at the central square near the mosque, and don't go by foot to the market under any condition."
Why? Are we in danger in Barta'a? And which Barta'a - the western or eastern part, or both? Kabha dodges the question and repeats his directive not to go anywhere without him. It is about noon now, and business is brisk at the market. Cars are unloading goods at the storefronts. Teenage boys are carrying sacks full of melukhia to the vegetable stands. A row of shops and caf?s stretch from west to east, toward the riverbed that was once the border. Here, up until this coffee and nuts wholesaler, is western Barta'a, the "Israeli" part. Starting from his neighbor, the clothing store, is eastern Barta'a, the "Palestinian" section.
In 1949, the armistice line split the village into two parts, dividing families and imposing a traumatic separation on men, women and children. In 1967, the village was unified again, if only partially. Families came together and joint businesses were established. The homes of eastern Barta'a touch those of western Barta'a. About 3,000 residents live on the Israeli side of the Green Line and some 4,000 on the Palestinian side. Most of the latter are subjects of the Palestinian Authority, but some 30 percent have already obtained Israeli identity cards.
Talk about the separation fence aroused great consternation here that the village would be split into two again. The defense minister at the time, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, decided that the fence route would include eastern Barta'a, effectively cutting it off from the West Bank and annexing it to Israel. Did this decision please the residents? Even if it did, they would not admit it. As soon as one achievement is attained, they focus on the next problem.
There are also members of the Kabha hamula (clan) who live on the other side of the current fence route, in the villages of Tura, Yabed and Zabdeh. A fence now separates these family members. A "border." They do not like this. In addition, they contend, eastern Barta'a "was purportedly annexed" and they were "ostensibly unified" - but not really. And why is this? "There were great expectations that the fence would create a new situation on the ground on many levels," explains Kabha. "Until the fence was erected, a resident of eastern Barta'a who entered the western part was liable to be apprehended by the Border Police and arrested for entering Israel without a permit. It would be logical to expect that this would change, right? But no, even today when we are supposedly united, anyone caught passing from the eastern to the western section is arrested. Nothing has changed."
Hussein Mahmoud Kabha, a young man who works as a painter, lives in eastern Barta'a. Two weeks ago, he says, his uncle who lives in the western part of the village hired him to work. A Border Police patrol came, arrested him and took him to Salem. He was fined NIS 500, taken to the Jenin checkpost and left there. "This also happened to my brother and my cousin. It happens every day. It's impossible to work. It's impossible to do anything."
Riad Kabha says the fence has done nothing to improve the quality of life in Barta'a. On the contrary, it has only made things worse. "Merchants, who for years moved goods to and from the territories, have serious problems today. The market is weak. And the checkpoint at the fence has made life a nightmare for many people."
A relative of his, Abu Judi'at, who owns a large wholesale business in western Barta'a, lives in the eastern part of the village. His daughter is married to a resident of Baqa a-Sharqiya, located on the other side of "the border." Until the fence was erected, she could come to visit her parents without any problem. Now her way is blocked. And he feels stuck from two perspectives: "I can't come to Israel. Even if I come to my business, it's as if I'm breaking the law. On the other hand, I can't go to visit my daughter. This is what this fence has done to me."
Lines at the checkpoint
"What a country this is," complains a taxi driver waiting in line at the checkpoint. "One hand gives a present, the other hand delivers a blow." The present is that the village was not divided again. The blow is this "damn checkpoint." It has only been here for several months, since the construction of the fence was completed. But the familiar scenes from older checkpoints in the territories are already here.
In one line is a convoy of cars waiting to leave Barta'a for the territories. The second line, from the east, is a convoy of vehicles whose drivers wish to enter Barta'a. Only two soldiers are stationed here. They are currently dealing with those wishing to enter, carefully checking each vehicle and driver. It is midday. Hot. The people in the first line watch what is happening and boil with rage (and from the heat). Izat Kabha, a resident of eastern Barta'a, comes every day to pick up his grandson Munib, 16, who studies at the high school in Yabed. Suddenly, they erected a fence in the middle of the way. He now has to wait here in line for an hour, an hour and a half, and this drives him crazy. "Why didn't they send two more soldiers so that there would be two for those leaving and two for those entering? Why do I need to wait until they check those people? Is it so complicated? There's a commander there, right? He is not concerned with us. Why didn't they think about us?"
Other drivers get out of their vehicles and voice their complaints. The complaints get louder. The soldiers, who were concentrated on the second line until now, get the message. They leave the other convoy and walk toward us, one hand on their rifle. The drivers get back into their cars. The soldiers ask us to leave. They have no answer to the question of why additional soldiers were not posted here in order to avoid this frustrating situation, which is so familiar. On the other hand, they are interested in knowing how we got here without approval from the IDF Spokesman's Office.
Then they return to the line of cars waiting to enter Barta'a. An hour has passed since we arrived at the checkpoint. During this whole time, the cars waiting to leave Barta'a have not advanced even one centimeter. The drivers wait until the soldiers leave and then resume their complaining. "And then you ask where the hatred comes from," one of the drivers yells. His friends hush him. No, he is not willing to give his name and dispenses a juicy curse in Arabic.
Ghassan Kabha serves, on a volunteer basis, as the head of the local council of eastern Barta'a. He is also the director of the Sports and Youth Division in Jenin, an employee of the Palestinian Authority. He lives in Barta'a and is furious. "They came and put a border here," he shouts. "Okay. There are security problems. Okay. This is understandable. But I expect the army to already learn something from experience. What, must it be each time as if it were the first checkpoint in history? They should make a separate line for residents of Barta'a. The border is here forever. And we're also here forever. They recognized this in Fuad's [Ben-Eliezer] decision, right? So now they must explain to me why I have to be stuck here like a jackass for an hour, hour and a half, everyday in this line. Why? I swear to you - another few days like these and I'll have a heart attack, right here at the checkpoint, from all this aggravation."
The IDF Spokesman's Office was asked to respond to the complaints of Barta'a residents and the response was surprising. In regard to the reports about arrests made by the Border Police, the military official responsible for this matter said: "We're now in a period of adjustment and getting used to the new reality in which eastern Barta'a is located within the barrier area. We're studying this matter now. In terms of integrating life within the village, it does seem logical to allow the residents of eastern Barta'a to spend time in western Barta'a. On the face of it, it seems that there's no need for there to be a problem here. The matter is under review."
The IDF also provided a surprising response in regard to the unsuccessful management of the Barta'a checkpoint for those traveling toward the village of Yabed. "This is an entirely temporary checkpoint," said the military official responsible for the seam line barrier. "And it definitely does not operate the way it should. Next week, work will begin on the permanent checkpoint. A transit point will be built there featuring a high level of inspection and a high level of service, so that no one will have to wait in line. We expect that it will ultimately be operated by civilians and not by soldiers. It will be something similar to entering Ben-Gurion Airport, for example. It will take about four months until the work is completed.
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