Hashomer Hatzair emissary to Canada DORON EREZ and educator with the Intensive Arabic Semester YISRAEL NEEMAN take a tour of the Green Line with International Department’s
A scrap metal merchant from Nablus discusses his trade with Doron Erez (center) and Yisrael Neeman (right) outside a scrap metal yard at the entrance to East Barta’a – the flags flying on the telegraph poles around the newly designed Palestinian/Fatah combined colors and emblems
Israeli emissary to the Hashomer Hatzair movement in Canada Doron Erez is based in Toronto but recently spent some time in Israel together with the leadership of North American Hashomer Hatzair for seminars and meetings with the leaders of the movement in Israel.
Doron, born and educated at Kibbutz Hazorea in the Jezreel Valley and American born educator Yisrael Neeman – who teaches at Haifa University and also one of the Intensive Arabic Semester courses – joined International Department’s Lydia Aisenberg for one of her aptly nicknamed ‘Magical Mystery Tours’ of the Wadi Ara region.
Lydia describes her tours so as she herself is often pleasantly surprised with new people, events and physical developments in the fascinating area she has been visiting, introducing thousands of overseas folks and Israelis to and writing about since the mid-1980s.
For Doron, whose kibbutz is a short drive from the Israeli Arab Muslim village of Salem and Kibbutz Givat Oz - thought of as a ‘border kibbutz’ as sitting on the pre-1967 divide between the State of Israel and Jordanian annexed West Bank, the tour was a chance to reconnect with his ‘old neighborhood’ and be updated as to the region in present times as well as meet a few local Palestinians.
For Yisrael it was a broadening of knowledge about the area he does not live in but passes by frequently when traveling Route 65 (Wadi Ara) on his way to teach the Intensive Arabic Semester students based at Kibbutz Barkai and staff meetings at the Givat Haviva Institute, just down the road and around the corner from the main highway.
“Getting around and about with Lydia in ‘Limboland’ – the area over the Green Line but west of the security fence that she has conjured up this name for – is always an adventure,” said Yisrael, who lives in the Galilean community of Eschar near Karmiel, over an hour drive away from the West Bank Dotan Valley region now known by many as ‘Limboland’ – a sort of neither here nor there area.
“As the smallest of microcosms of hands-on Israeli-Palestinian relations we first took in the security fence and checkpoint in the region of Salem-Givat Oz, a short distance from Jenin, houses of which visible. We scanned the scenery, first of all over the tops of Palestinian homes in Zabuba, across the Jezreel Valley to the Gilboa range of mountains, clearly seeing the security fence coming down the mountain, across the valley floor – Palestinian fields being worked up to the fence on one side, Israeli farmers doing the same on the other. From the same vantage point we could see the outskirts of Umm al-Fahm sitting on the highest point of the city, Har Alexander on the Amir mountain range. It was very impressive,” said Yisrael, a resident of the Galilean community of Eshchar.
Left: Security fence, Palestinian village of Zabuba, course of fence between the fields of the Jezreel Valley, Gilboa mountain range in the near distance.
Right: Umm al-Fahm
“Before I knew it we were on top of the Amir Mountain peering down towards the Jezreel Valley and the fence where we have been before and a couple of hundred meters to the south from the Umm al-Fahm municipality garbage dump, we looked over the Green Line and security fence to the Palestinian village of Anin and deeper in could see the Jewish settlements of Shaked, Tal Menashe and Hannanit that, with Rehan nearby, make up the four settlements between the old Green Line but east of the security fence.”
Doron and Yisrael were then taken to the Rehan checkpoint (also known as the Barta’a checkpoint) where they had the opportunity to speak with a few Palestinians.
“This tiny area of ‘Limboland’ includes the checkpoint where a few hundred Palestinians cross every day getting from Um Rehan, East Barta’a (Palestinian villages wedged between security fence and Green Line) and a few thousand coming from the other side (Jenin, Yabed) every day to work in East Barta’a. It can take – both back and forth – anywhere from 15 minutes, if one is in luck, to a couple of hours to get through, depending on the security situation,” Yisrael explains they were told by local Palestinians.
Entering East Barta’a from the Dotan Valley side, and passing through a built with Hebron stone double arch – the Palestinian flag set deep in the stonework on the top corners of the construction – Lydia explains that the Dotan Valley is an Area C but once under the arches, they are entering an Area B, the Palestinian Authority responsible for infrastructure and daily running of the area but Israel with final say on security matters.
Rehan checkpoint and East Barta’a Palestinian welcoming archway
The archway and telegraph poles just past the archway are bedecked with flags, half of each the Palestinian national flag and the other – on a backdrop of yellow, the emblem of Fatah.
Not sure what the flags were as they were new on the scene, Lydia asks a Palestinian scrap metal merchant – who turns out to be from Nablus but with permission to do business in that area and also travel freely around Israel – what the bottom half of the flags flapping in the breeze represents.
The thirty-something metal merchant, who was in the process of buying bits and pieces from one of the many compounds of wrecked cars and other scrap, although speaking some Hebrew had difficulty in explaining and so just said “Fatah” whilst with his finger sketched an eagle in the dust on the window of his vehicle parked alongside.
Doron Erez in East Barta’a and eagle in the dust on car window
“I found the flags most interesting as they do not represent the Palestinian Authority but rather are a composite of the Palestinian national flag and that of Fatah. In the new Palestinian state-to-be it appears loyalties to a political party trump the state. This is a copy of the Hamas Gaza experience, but taken from a secular angle,” commented Yisrael.
Inside the bustling village, Lydia introduced Doron and Yisrael to the local barber and friend of many years, Rateb Kabha.
“Speaking with Rateb was really enlightening and one should not be fooled by the fact that he is a barber and therefore ‘just another working man’ and having raised and helped educate eight children he has an interesting take on Palestinian society. Critical of the PA and Hamas, both of whom he does not believe particularly have the people’s interests in mind, he bewails the fact of so many educated Palestinian youth being left with no real job opportunities. His solution is based on the Turkish model as he hopes for the rise of a Palestinian Erdogen,” said Yisrael.
Doron, Yisrael chatting with Rateb and P.A. East Barta’a taken from an Israeli West Barta’an rooftop
January, 2010
Lydia Aisenberg
