Security Barrier: Good, Bad and Ugly (A view from Kibbutz Metzer)
Lydia Aisenberg (Israeli Peace Activist, Givat Haviva)
Balanced on a rock overlooking a section of the security fence built over the last six months, Kibbutz Metzer general secretary Dov Avital cannot seem to decide whether it is good or bad. We both agree that the 50 metre wide swath of land taken for fence building of the opposite kind his community are committed to, and slices up a pastoral area covered in acres of olive trees, is ugly! Basically, Avital accepts that a fence had to be built in order to stop terrorists and their explosive carrying vehicles find their way to the streets of Israeli cities. What is bad he says is the route that was finally chosen.
For a member of a kibbutz where 5 people were murdered by a Palestinian terrorist who infiltrated their community in November 2002, Dov Avital doesn't seem to make sense. However, after a trek over kibbutz land to the new divide, one begins to understand that although no fences are good but sometimes necessary, this section is really rather more than an eye sore for the people living close by.
To reach the fence separating Kibbutz Metzer and neighbouring Israeli Muslim village of Meiser from the Palestinian village of Kafin just across the way in the West Bank, one has to travel tracks that have been churned in to fine white powder by the heavy machinery and trucks used during construction.
From the rocky and thorn covered hilltop, which is still within the land limits of Metzer, the houses of the 9,000 Palestinian residents of Kafin seem just a short walk away. However there is no possibility today for the residents of Kafin and the kibbutz members who nurtured the best of neighbourly relations over a fifty year plus period to meet for a cup of coffee as they did in the old days – just a mere 10 months ago.
"The issue is not whether the fence should have been built or not but where finally it was decided to build it," explains Dov Avital, who took on the role the morning after his friend and then Metzer's general secretary the late Yitzik Dori, was murdered by the Palestinian terrorist. Dov points to two large bollard type concrete blocks, one close to us and the other sticking out from a clump of olive trees a few hundred yards away. The bollards mark the l949 brokered demarcation line, and the track that connects the two was the patrol road used for many a year by Israeli border police.
"This would have been the most natural choice for the fence – the 1949-l967 border would not have necessitated taking any land from our Palestinian neighbours on the other side," explains Dov, who like many of the members of Kibbutz Metzer originates from South America where he was a member of the Hashomer Hatzair movement.
As far as Dov knows, that border was never even considered as a possible route for the fence which was slated from the outset to cut through land owned by Kafin residents, all of which covered with old and new olive trees providing them with their daily bread – olives and olive oil.
"We wrote letters and organized demonstrations in order to try and make sure that the fence in this area would not destroy our special relationship, valued by the people on both sides," stressed Dov. The efforts of the kibbutzniks initially gleaned some positive reactions from within the government. The members of Metzer even suggested that if land had to be appropriated for the 50 meter wide fence, patrol road, drainage ditch and other elements, then half the land should be taken from Kafin and half from Metzer.
"The Palestinians agreed to this measure and you have to understand that as the Palestinian Authority control Kafin they could not have agreed with this proposal without the permission of someone high up in the P.A.," said Dov.
"At that time the mukhtar (village leader) would not have had a cup of coffee with me without the P.A's permission," he further explained. "This was the first, and as far as I know the only time, the P.A. agreed to where a section of the security fence would be," he said, pointing to an area much closer to where we were standing and therefore a distance from where it actually stands today. In the midst of negotiations and the day before the then Minister of Defence was due to visit the kibbutz, tour the area and make a decision, the terrorist from the Tulkarem area entered the kibbutz by crawling under the kibbutz electronic gate and carried out the shocking murders.
What difference does a hundred yards make if the fence is going to be constructed anyway, I ask Dov.
"The difference is that if it had been built as we suggested the people of Kafin would still have been able to work their fields and tend their olive groves. They are mostly farmers, have no other means of livelihood other than those who would cross over the Green Line and work in Israel. The route that the fence has now taken means they now cannot reach at least 50% of their farms and olives because they are on this side of the fence.
"The problem is compounded by the fact that those who were working in Israel and earning enough to keep their large families are now also unable to do so and the situation there is chronic.
"Israel has succeeded in building a fence between three communities, Metzer, Meiser and Kafin, always pointed out as a positive example of co-existence at work on the ground and not just slogans. "However, more serious than that, is the volume of hatred the fence will spawn in time on the other side," continued Dov, pointing his finger in the direction of Kafin, Arabeh and many other large and small Palestinian villages spread out on the opposite hills, the minarets of local mosques standing out against the skyline.
"The Palestinians fought together with us through diplomacy to try and stop having their property confiscated, and together we almost succeeded. Young people over there will quickly fall in to the mindset that if they are going to have to fight physically to get back their land on this side of the fence, they might as well fight not just for their olive orchards, but fight to get back the whole of Palestine instead," Dov sadly surmises.
Kibbutz Metzer celebrated their fiftieth anniversary this year. When the first pioneers began to settle the kibbutz they were without a water source. The neighbouring Arab village of Meiser connected them to their own small well and thus began an extraordinary story of a friendship built up and maintained over five decades between Jews and Arabs inside Israel, and which encompassed the Palestinians in Kafin after l967. The kibbutzniks also have not forgotten that in the l950's when a dangerous bush fire threatened to engulf the kibbutz, fireman from the Jordanian Legion stationed on the other side of the concrete bollards came to lend a hand in dousing the flames.
Some years ago when I visited friends on Metzer their small zoo was full of Meiser mothers, wearing long dresses and their heads covered in colourful headscarves, accompanying their children for their almost daily afternoon stroll on to the neighbours patch and duck pond.
Many of those Muslim neighbours also attended the funeral of Yitzik Dori, the only victim to be buried in the kibbutz private cemetery. Since the terrorist attack, media focus has been ceaseless on the kibbutz community and their on-going attempts to strive for co-existence. As the month of November approaches and memorials planned for the murdered Israelis, they know they are going to be inundated once more with local and overseas media people.
"Just in the last couple of weeks I have had to deal with a number of television crews from European stations, two from France alone.
"One television crew had not intended coming to Metzer as they were only due to film in the West Bank for their station. When they arrived in Kafin and asked them about the fence and what they thought of Israelis, they were told by the Palestinians there that they should also make the effort to come to Israel and speak with their friends in Metzer," said Dov. "The Palestinians in this area have lost so much and so have we," muttered Dov Avital as he temporarily turned his back on Kafin and the fence and began to walk back toward his kibbutz.