For more than a decade an astonishing if not unique remaking of the Palestinian map has been taking place. A succession of Israeli governments has been pursuing a massive by-pass highway building campaign designed to not only remake the map of the West Bank and Gaza, but also to-if not remake history-at least leverage it.
What were once main roads in the occupied territories no longer lead directly to, into, and through the places where for hundreds and hundreds of years one knew they would-ancient Christian and Muslim Arab villages, towns, and cities. Now access to and from the smallest Palestinian hamlet to the largest municipality by means of those venerable thoroughfares as well as lesser ancient roads and tracks have been choked off by scores of checkpoints and barricades-augmented by constant curfews-all of which are intended to keep Palestinians in their place: out of sight, relatively speaking, if not out of mind.
Of course, the never ending tit for tat violence-fomented, encouraged, rationalized-and carried out by Palestinian radicals and the radicalized Israeli military guarantees that Palestinians can never be out of mind, although Israeli officialdom keeps trying. The new system of comfortably wide blacktopped by-pass highways have been designed to skirt the Palestinian reality by providing direct and therefore presumably safer access to the ever encroaching Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza: settlements which over the decades through legalistic subterfuge, downright seizure, confiscation, and night time stealth have been erected systematically and relentlessly on the sites of former Christian and Muslim Arab home sites and farmlands.
Gertrude Stein once expressed this indelible thought, "There is no there…there." A century ago, modern Zionism's founders became the propagators of a myth that the "there" of Palestine was a land without a people waiting for a people without a land, in other words there were no Arabs…"there."
Then a generation or two ago, Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, gave a new twist to the notion-when it had become abundantly clear to the entire world that there were and had always been plenty of Arabs…"there." She repeatedly tried to convince world opinion that there were no such people as Palestinians…"there." That verbal sleight of hand did not prevail either. So since then, Israel's road builders in the territories have been hard at work helping to perpetuate a condition in which there will be increasingly less of a there..."there" for the Palestinians than there is for the settlers; less of a there..."there," in other words to be put back under Palestinian administration or an eventual contiguous Palestinian sovereignty.
The West Bank and Gaza are the only places in the world I know of with an extensive and extensively demeaning set of us against them roadways. Glaring examples of some of yours and my apparently fungible tax dollars at work. Loan guarantees and outright grants, which continue to perpetuate Israeli domination and diminution of Palestinian-Christian and Muslim-culture, society, politics, and presence. Someday-perhaps sooner rather than later-if the Palestinian "there" continues to shrink, will the only facts on the ground in the West Bank be a totally Israeli there "there?"
In fact, with respect to the shrinking Palestinian land area, even though the focus is mostly on the settlements, the new road system has consumed much more of the land-about seventeen percent-than the settlements, and much of it had been agrarian, because the by-pass roads shun built up Arab areas and instead deliberately circumvent them. As a result the new roads have taken a huge bite-thousands of dunams-out of once productive land, which in all likelihood is gone for good.
But the connecting highways inside Israel, just as much as the by-pass roads and settlements have also become bleeding symbols of the out of control hatred, and rage that-in the form of violence and counter violence-has become the characteristic of Intifada II resistance and counter resistance. For it is on or along highways and lesser streets in both Israel and Palestine that so many of the killings take place. And it is the killings which are the most memorable manifestation of Israeli and Palestinian pain turned to rage.
All roads, any roads are potential conduits or locales for the never ending reflexive violence. The Israelis use the roads baldly to hurry along their troops, tanks, and other military vehicles from one "danger zone" to another in order to cow and terrorize the civilian population. Meanwhile young Palestinian men and women are furtively sneaking along many of those same roads in order to kill in an exceedingly indiscriminate manner-also with the aim of cowing and terrorizing civilians.
The Israelis and Palestinians engaged in terror are not entitled to claim that they are involved in either legitimate armed struggle or legitimate self-defense. Notwithstanding the uneven nature of the sophisticated armaments possessed by Israel when contrasted to the essentially pop-gun nature of the Palestinian arsenal, the disparity in fire power nevertheless does not provide a moral rationale for some Palestinian's resort to the suicide card.
Tragically channeled Palestinian youngsters are being enticed to turn themselves into capable, deadly (but culpable) smart bombs or mini-F-16s in order to administer a brand of outrageous collective punishment that is just as contemptible and counterproductive as that being meted out by Israeli soldiers and Border Policeman. The troopers' excuse for taking part is that they are just doing their duty even though they too are being tragically maneuvered into furthering official policies of a) revenge, b) social and political debilitation, c) additional land expropriation, (masquerading as security measures), or d) disingenuous invitations to further violence.
Yesterday two more soldiers doing their duty on guard near the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron's Old City were killed by Palestinian guerillas. One was the first Israeli female conscript to die in combat during the current uprising. They were killed by snipers hidden along the same road quite close to the spot in Hebron where twelve soldiers, Border Policemen, and armed civilian security guards were ambushed the middle of last month. Reprisals, which will be considered doing one's duty, can be expected.
However, does the following story qualify as simply doing one's duty?
One day a jitney full of Palestinians and I were making the slow twenty mile trip from Hebron to Jerusalem, we were stopped for the inevitable security check by Israeli soldiers at a roadblock. After glancing at my passport and realizing that not only was I an American but my last name is Levin, he shouted angrily at me while waving deprecatingly at my fellow passengers, "Is this your family?!?"
Instead of answering, I quietly asked, "Why not?"
My fellow Palestinian passengers held their breaths.
Instead of answering me, he shouted back even more angrily and insistently, "Is this your family?!?"
This time, I answered, "Of course," but then asked, "Why isn't it yours?!?"
He did not answer, but instead disgustedly flipped my passport back at me, dumped the rest of the ID's into the lap of a Palestinian and waved us on-my fellow passengers high-fiving me as we drove away.