A tour of the seam zone along the western edge of the West Bank, Sept, 10, 2003

The buildings in the distance are part of the West Bank village of Rantis, situated about 20km east of Tel Aviv, just east of the green line. Rantis was the hometown of the two suicide bombers who struck Israel on Sept. 9. I took this photo to illustrate how easy it is to cross into Israel under current arrangements -- and why the Israeli government has started to replace such as hoc barriers with its security fence: The concrete blocks may stop cars. But it is very simple to amble through and have a car pick you up on the other side. This crossing has generally been unguarded in recent years -- even after the current intifada began in Sept., 2000. 

On the day I showed up, the Israeli army had deployed a two-man observation crew to the top of a nearby gas station. But according to this gas station employee -- he identified himself as "Ran" -- they had just shown up that day, in response to the Sept. 9 bombings. (After the blasts, the Israeli army staged raids in Rantis, rounding up suspected Hamas terrorists.) Ran told me that he had often observed Rantis residents using this crossing to casually pass in and out of the West Bank. His impression was that most of them were simply traveling to jobs inside Israel.

The security fence structure is typically about 50 meters wide. Starting from the left (the "Israeli" side), you can see a layer of barbed wire; then an asphalt road used by Israeli military patrols; then a strip of sand that is used to capture intruders' footprints; then the fence itself, which is about 10 feet high and is equipped with cameras and motion detectors. On the other side of the fence is a dirt road, which is also used for patrols. Then an anti-vehicle trench, and then another layer of barbed wire. My layman's impression is that the fence itself could be easily breached by a well-trained and -equipped terrorist squad. But the motion detectors and cameras would make it difficult for any such crew to avoid death or capture.
Unfortunately, the fence also serves to keep Palestinian farmers from accessing lands that are "trapped" on the Israeli side. In this photo -- taken near Kibbutz Metzer, about 15km north of Tul Karm -- you can see a patch of olive trees on the left-hand side. These belong to residents of Qaffin, a Palestinian village on the eastern side of the fence. Qaffin resdients can access their groves through gates. But they complained to me that the gates are rarely open.

A close-up shot of the fence near the Palestinian West Bank village of Jayous.

This is an access road near Kibbutz Metzer that Israeli construction crews carved out of Palestinian land while building the fence. Many Palestinian olive trees were dug up. But the army maintains that they were replanted according to their owners' directions -- or sold, with the money going to the owners. The cross-section in the ground you see illustrates why the ground is suitable for olive trees: a thin layer of soil with a layer of rock that traps any penetrating rainwater.

When you see photos of Israel's security fence in the newspaper or on TV, they always show something like this: a cement wall with a watchtower. Such images -- like this one I shot near Qalqilyah -- reinforce the Palestinian description of the security fence as an "Apartheid wall." But in fact, only about 8km out of the 140km length so far constructed is composed of this kind of cement structure. The rest is wire fencing, as shown in the other photos. The concrete sections were built on those segments that run up along Israel's Highway 6, a major artery. Palestinian snipers were firing at Israeli motorists, and a wire fence would not have served to block them.

This shot, also taken near Qalqilyah, has nothing to do with the fence itself. Rather, I caught a glimpse of one of the giant armoured bulldozers the Israeli army uses when it destroys Palestinian structures in hostile zones. I have often seen these vehicles described in the press as "two stories high." The size is illustrated well in this shot -- check out its size relative to a standard armoured personnel carrier.

A map of the security fence completed as of August, 2003
(red lines indicate constructed fence)

Here is the article I wrote for the National Post based on my trip.

Will a good fence make good neighbours?

Jonathan Kay
National Post
Saturday, September 20, 2003


RANTIS, West Bank - If you want to understand why Israel is building a fence around the West Bank, visit the Palestinian town of Rantis. Getting in and out is easy. In fact, that's Israel's problem.

Eleven days ago, a 19-year-old local resident and alleged Hamas member, Ihab Abed Qader Abu Salim, exploded outside a hitchhiking stop near Tel Aviv, taking eight Israelis with him. Five and a half hours later, his cousin and neighbour, 22-year-old Ramez Simi Izzedin Abu Salim, blew himself up in Jerusalem, killing seven.

Rantis, population 2,500, is less than two kilometres from the green line -- the western edge of the disputed territories seized by Israel in the 1967 war. The most formidable barrier the two bombers likely confronted en route to their targets was the set of waist-high concrete blocks that separate Rantis from Israel's road system. From that point, it is just a 20-minute drive to Tel Aviv, and an hour to Jerusalem.

On the day I visited the area, Israeli soldiers were manning an observation post on the roof of a nearby gas station. According to Ran, a gas station employee I spoke with, they were newly arrived. "[The Palestinians] come here and cars pick them up," he said through a translator, pointing to the blocks. "All the time, I see them going back and forth. Most are probably just going to Israel for work -- trying to make money. But who knows what they are doing? They pass as they please."

That will change. Soon, travellers from Rantis will find themselves confronted not by cubes of crumbling concrete, but a 50-metre-wide obstacle that incorporates two layers of barbed wire, an anti-vehicle ditch, and a three-metre high fence fitted with cameras and high-tech motion detectors. This "security fence," as the Israeli government calls it, will extend the length of the West Bank, and anyone seeking to cross will be required to pass through Israeli checkpoints.

The Palestinian Authority -- which regularly refers to the fence as an "Apartheid wall" and a "crime against humanity" -- views the project as a plot to seize Arab land and impose contours on a future Palestinian state. The Israelis, on the other hand, say the fence is not a permanent border, just a temporary security measure that will protect Jews from Rantis and the thousand other terrorist incubators in the West Bank.

Either way, the fence could radically change the dynamic between Arab and Jew. If it succeeds in eliminating suicide bombings, Palestinian leaders would no longer be able to play the terrorist card. Israel, meanwhile, would have less reason to stage counterterrorist raids in the West Bank or otherwise interfere with the daily life of Arabs. Passions would cool on both sides and, eventually, a peace deal might be struck.

In other words, by separating Jews from Palestinians, the fence may bring them closer together.

- - -

This is not the first fence Israel has built. In the 1990s, the Jewish state fenced off the Gaza strip. Since that time -- as fence boosters often note -- terrorist infiltration from Gaza has dropped to zero.

Following its 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Israel upgraded the fence on its northern border, adding motion detectors and aerial surveillance. Hezbollah agents, who control Lebanon's southern strip, have managed to penetrate that barrier several times, but now mostly confine themselves to artillery attacks.

The idea of extending the fence model to the West Bank began gaining traction three years ago, around the time of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's failed effort to reach peace with Yasser Arafat at Camp David. Some of Barak's advisors argued that if the Palestinian Authority Chairman wouldn't agree to a negotiated two-state solution, one should be imposed on him.

When the current intifada broke out several months later, the fence emerged as an issue that bridged left and right. The former saw it as a way to implement the UN-sanctioned principle of land for peace. The latter looked to safeguard Israeli security and end-run the Palestinian leadership.

Under Barak, the project stalled, however. "The most likely explanation is that he was still trying to get an agreement with Arafat until the last minute," says Gerald Steinberg, a Bar-Ilan University conflict resolution specialist and long-time fence supporter. "He didn't want to compromise his shot at peace by engaging in unilateral action."

When Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister in early 2001, he too dragged his feet. Any fence that insulates Israel from the West Bank would also isolate remote Jewish settlements on the other side -- an unpalatable result for the PM and his hawkish coalition allies.

But with every terrorist attack, pressure for the fence grew. Last summer, Sharon finally felt he had no choice but to break ground.

"The hard right and militant Jewish settlers oppose the fence," says Steinberg. "The same is true on the hard-left -- the ones who think Arabs and Jews should all be living together in one state. That leaves the 80% of Israelis in the middle -- the same 80% who polls show support construction of the fence."

Where Israelis are less unified is on the question of the fence's planned route.

Already, about 140 km of fence has been laid, covering roughly a third of the West Bank's western contour, extending from the territory's northern extremity to the Elkanah settlement east of Tel Aviv. But this portion was built close to the green line, roughly following the configuration proposed by Barak in 2000 -- and so has been relatively uncontroversial. Only about 3,700 Palestinians have been swallowed by the Israeli side, less than 0.2% of the West Bank's Arab population.

The unconstructed segment from Elkanah to Jerusalem, on the other hand, is more problematic. According to one plan -- reportedly favoured by Sharon -- the wall would dip about 15 km into the West Bank to envelop the massive Israeli settlement of Ariel (pop. 18,000), and hook northward to take in a set of large settlements on the outskirts of Nablus.

While such a "maximalist" fence route would placate the included settlers, it would also trap more than 100,000 Palestinians, outrage Israel's international critics and inflame local Arab opinion. Notwithstanding Israeli avowals to the contrary, everyone involved tacitly understands that the path of the fence may well set the western border of a future Palestinian state. Even the Bush administration, which typically gives Israel great latitude on security matters, has stated publicly it wants the fence to hew as close as possible to the green line, and is threatening to cut loan guarantees to Israel if Sharon doesn't comply. Caught between Washington and his own settler-friendly Cabinet, Sharon opted last Wednesday to delay a decision on the fence's route until further notice.

Meanwhile, Israeli government officials have made every effort to present the fence in humane terms. "Our goal is to minimize the hardship the Palestinians will experience," said a high-ranking officer in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), my guide during an inspection tour of the fence in the hills between Qalqilyah and Tul Karm last week. "We have no interest in hurting ordinary Palestinian farmers or taking their land. They are not our enemy. Our only enemy is Hamas and the other terrorists."

The Arab landowners whose property has been seized for the fence project have all been offered compensation, he told me; and the 63,000 Palestinian olive trees uprooted for the fence have all been replanted on their owners' instructions. My guide was also careful to point out the Israeli work crews who were upgrading Palestinian water pipes damaged during the construction process.

But however noble Israel's intentions, building the fence in this region has necessitated an abundance of messy compromises between security and humanitarian factors. In particular, it was plain to see that the fence separated many poor Arab villages from their valley-planted olive groves and greenhouses.

To human rights activists and Palestinians, this often looks like outright theft. But the reality is more complex. Standing on a hilltop that afforded views of the Palestinian towns of Jaiyus and Falama, for instance, I asked my guide why the fence could not be run to the west of the Palestinian olive plantations in the valley below, which the fence had instead bisected. He explained the IDF needed a "buffer zone": If a motion detector is set off, it takes several minutes to mobilize a patrol, and the Israeli military wants to be able to intercept intruders before they melt into Israel.

To illustrate his point, the officer rattled off the names of several suicide bombers who he said had recently travelled through that very valley en route to Israeli targets.

In legal terms, ownership of these orphaned Palestinian farms has not changed hands. The fence makes it difficult for Arab farmers to tend them, however. And while the Israelis have so far installed 41 access gates along the fence's route, they are kept locked. Farmers must telephone Israeli authorities if they wish to use them. At several gates, I observed bored-looking Palestinian men sitting by the side of the road with their donkeys, apparently waiting for an Israeli official to appear.

Mindful of such hardships, some Israelis agree with Palestinian supporters that the fence should have followed the green line. Among them are residents of Metzer, a left-leaning kibbutz that sits directly along the 1967 border, 15 km north of Tul Karm. While everyone on the kibbutz I spoke with favours the fence in principle, they are angry the segment in their area had been built on Arab land.

Last week, Doron Leiber, Metzer's economic co-ordinator, took me to see the fields where his fellow kibbutzniks raise cows, wheat and bananas. "This is the green line," he said, pointing to a row of faded 1940s-era concrete markers. "Before the fence, our farmers worked the land up to here and no farther. On the other side, the Palestinians from Qaffin [village] had their olive trees. We never had problems."

But last year, when the army came to build the fence, they broke ground not on the green line, but several hundred metres to the east, leaving acres of Qaffin-owned farmland in the Israeli-controlled zone.

In response, Kibbutz Metzer petitioned the government to reroute the project. "Our legal argument was that the army's route endangers us -- because it is going to destroy 50 years of neighbourly relations," he told me. "We even offered to contribute our own property, so that the fence could sit exactly on the boundary and occupy equal parts Jewish and Arab land."

According to Leiber, he was well on his way toward successfully negotiating a three-way understanding between Qaffin, Metzer and the Ministry of Defence. But while his proposal was being considered, a gunman infiltrated his kibbutz and murdered five of its members -- including a 34-year-old mother and two young sons to whom she was reading bedtime stories. Overnight, everyone lost their appetite for conciliatory gestures.

"I gave up," says Leiber. "If another [terrorist] attack took place while this was being worked out, I would have been lynched."

As for the residents of Qaffin, they offer the usual Palestinian complaint that they cannot access their lands. But according to the town's Mayor, Taisir Harashi, the fence has hurt his town in other ways, too. "We live in the northwest corner of the West Bank, far away from its industrial areas," he told me. "The village depends on a labour economy. Almost everyone here [with a job] worked in Israel. With the fence, we cannot go. We've lost our main source of income."

On the question of land seizures, Harashi admits Israel has offered compensation to Qaffin's farmers. But the situation is complicated by Arab politics. Since the mid-'90s, the PLO has threatened to apply the death penalty against any Palestinian who sells land to Jews. Technically, Israel is merely renting the land on which the fence sits. However, Palestinian landowners are still understandably loath to accept Israeli money.

To supporters of the fence, such humanitarian fallout in the West Bank is small beer compared to the larger evil of terrorism the fence is meant to thwart. Military analysts disagree, however, on the question of how much the fence will help in that respect.

"In Gaza, we walled them up, but they attack us with rockets and mortars," says Hirsch Goodman, a senior research associate at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv. "There is also the problem of sleeper cells. In the Jerusalem area, tens of thousands of Palestinians will be on the Israeli side of the fence. The fence could be useful for stopping cars full of explosives. But all Hamas has to do is throw an explosive belt over the wall to someone on the other side. Remember -- all you need is one person to commit a suicide attack, especially if that person is angry about being cut off from his school, his family or his village."

Goodman also discounts the effectiveness of Israel's existing barriers. "Supporters of the fence always talk about Gaza. But the Palestinians have been able to smuggle all sorts of guns and ammunition through the area. Russian prostitutes sneak into Israel from Egypt. Marijuana comes in from Sinai. Hundreds of tonnes of hashish make it across from Lebanon."

But according to Elan Tion, CEO of the Herzliya-based advocacy group Public Council for a Security Fence, the pattern of attacks in recent months has already shown that the fence can repel terrorists.

"Hadera and Netanya were always being targeted, and they both had dozens of victims," he explains. "But they are now protected by the fence, so there haven't been any recent attacks. Look at the map. Rosh ha'Ayin [a city near Elkanah], which is the exact spot where the fence ends, just suffered its first attack. This was a tragedy. But it also shows the fence works."

According to Tion's data, only one Palestinian has so far gotten past the new fence -- an intruder who snuck through a gutter near the city of Qalqilyah. Once the project is complete, he says, the country might be close to terror-free.

With the peace process stalled and Israelis desperate for a solution to the terror scourge, it is Tion's optimism that is winning the day. The mainstream consensus among the public is that the fence should be built as quickly as possible -- preferably without controversial detours that would trap thousands of Palestinian Arabs on the same side as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Certainly, it remains doubtful whether Sharon can stall on the remaining construction for long.

"Around the world, journalists talk about the fence like it is the Prime Minister's idea," says Tion. "But the truth is that Sharon's been delaying it as much as he can -- because he doesn't want to give one inch to the Palestinians. He still believes in the idea of a 'Greater Israel' that includes everything. But the truth is, we can no longer afford to dream like this. The whole fence could have been built in a year. It should have been built already, in fact. And then, hundreds of people wouldn't have died for nothing."

Jonathan Kay is Editorials Editor of the National Post; jkay@nationalpost.com