On wrong side of a barrier, and not willing to move

TEQOA, WEST BANK -- Halfway down a rocky slope, in a small cave that provides a breathtaking view of the deep wadi below, 13-year-old Koby Mandell spent the last terrifying moments of his life cowering in pain and fear.

It was May of 2001, in the bloody, early months of the Palestinian intifada, when Koby and his friend Yosef Ishran cut school to go hiking in the hills that surround this isolated Jewish settlement deep in the West Bank. They never returned, and their bloodied bodies were later found inside the isolated cave, surrounded by rocks.

The two boys had been stoned to death. The killing was blamed on Palestinian militants, though none has ever been arrested or charged with the crime.
The deaths of Koby and Yosef, one of the most horrifying incidents of that grim period, provoked international outrage and suggest the depth of hatred some Palestinians feel toward the Jewish settlers that live separately, yet in their midst.
That the attack occurred in Teqoa, which is home to a large Israeli military base as well as 1,200 settlers, showed how indefensible the smaller, far-flung settlements were.

The death forced Koby's family to confront an unfortunate truth: If they didn't live in a settlement deep inside what the world considers to be Palestinian land, Koby wouldn't have been killed that day in that way.

Seth Mandell says that after his son's death, he and his wife, Sherry, seriously considered moving away from Teqoa. They stayed because their other children begged them to, not wanting to be separated from their schoolmates, and because of their faith that they were living on land that God had promised to the people of Israel.

But most of all, it was to cling to the memory of Koby.

“The entire neighbourhood, the entire yeshiva [Jewish religious school], is filled with memories. That's one of the ways we keep him close to us. On a very personal level, to lose Teqoa would be to lose a very deep and meaningful connection to our son,” Mr. Mandell said.

Now, however, as Israel's controversial separation barrier snakes through the West Bank, enclosing the neighbouring Jewish settlement bloc of Gush Etzion but leaving Teqoa on the outside, they're beginning to believe that their decision to stay may soon be overturned by the Israeli government.

“People saw what happened in Gush Katif and thought, ‘We're next,' ” Mr. Mandell said, referring to the main settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip, which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon closed this summer, pulling out 8,500 Jewish settlers, despite heated domestic opposition. Residents of Teqoa can see the likely implications of the barrier's route for their future, he said. “I don't think there's much illusion.”

Security is the stated reason that Israel is building the 685-kilometre barrier, which has been credited with dramatically reducing the number of attacks on Israel.
But Palestinians say the route was chosen to placate and protect as many of the 240,000 Jewish settlers who live in the West Bank as possible. By coiling deep into the West Bank to enclose major Jewish settlement blocks such as Gush Etzion, Maale Adumim near Jerusalem and Ariel in the north, the barrier cuts the West Bank into what Palestinians complain will be nothing more than disconnected “Bantustans,” using the apartheid-era South African term for black homelands.

“For Sharon, this is the Palestinian state,” said Jad Isaac, director of the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, a respected Palestinian think tank, pointing on a map to the thin stretch of land left between the barrier and the Israeli military zone in the Jordan River Valley. “In the West Bank, his plan is to keep most of the settlements in the big blocks. . . . It's a disaster.”

But in an odd paradox, those same settlers are among the barrier's staunchest opponents.

Some, like the Mandells, are upset because they see themselves on the wrong side of it. But even those settlers who are safely on the Israeli-controlled side are upset at what they see as Mr. Sharon's decision to abandon the land beyond it to the Palestinians.

Construction of the barrier is stalled here by court challenges, and neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians who inhabit this hilly region squeezed between Bethlehem to the north and Hebron to the south want to see it go forward.
“I think the barrier is a bad barrier for Gush Etzion. Our biggest fear is that it will become a national border,” said Shimon Karmiel, a mechanic in one of the settlements that falls to the west side of the proposed route.

Using a term that many Palestinians, but few Israelis, like to employ when describing the barrier, he said it would create an “apartheid” system that would yield further hostility between Arabs and Jews. At the same time, he said, it would produce another Jew-against-Jew showdown akin to the one seen last summer during the Gaza withdrawal.

The Gush Etzion regional council has launched a full-scale effort to prevent the barrier's completion, arguing that it will not make the settlements safer, but will only provide cover for militants who will be able to strike with rockets and gunfire from beyond it, without fear of being seen or caught.

“Security-wise, we cannot defend Israel with a fence,” said Shaul Goldstein, the head of the regional council. “And we should not give up the land beyond the fence, which is also our own.”

The Globe and Mail; 5 January 2006