MA'ALE ADUMIM, the West Bank -- So I was driving with a friend from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv a few months ago, and we came to a security checkpoint after twenty minutes. It was then that I realized that we were taking a path different from the one used by the buses -- and that I was about to enter the West Bank for the first time.
Route 443, which we had been taking, is the quickest way to get from Israel's political capital to its metropolitan one. It goes through the part of the West Bank just northwest of Jerusalem. After Palestinian terrorists began attacking passing vehicles with bombs and sniper-fire during the second intifada in the early 1990s, the Israeli government blocked access to the highway from Palestinian towns. Late last year, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the government must allow Palestinians to use Route 443. (This picture is from Wikipedia.)
As my friend and I approached the security checkpoint, she slowed down. As she drove through the checkpoint, an armed guard glanced our way. And that was it. We were back on our way. In Israel and the Occupied Territories, Israelis (Jews, Arabs, everyone) get yellow license-plates while Palestinians receive green ones. So it's easy to tell who is driving a car.
As we drove through this part of the West Bank, I was struck by how normal it seemed. Honestly, I did not know what to expect. Perhaps I thought we would have been stopped at something like Passport Control in international airports. Perhaps I thought we would be stopped and questioned like that which occurs at El Al terminals for every flight coming from or going to Israel. But, in reality, it was nothing. It was almost as though we were driving from Massachusetts to Connecticut on the way to New York. In other words, it was all just a different part of the same country. Moreover, once we were in the West Bank, the geography, architecture, and locations in that part of the territory were indistinguishable from those in Israel proper. All of the signs were in Hebrew, and most of the buildings that we passed seemed to be owned and operated by Israeli Jews. If it were not for the security checkpoint, I would have thought that I was merely in another part of Israel proper. After all, there is a popular shopping-mall just off the road in the nearby settlement-city of Modi'in.
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The second time I went through the West Bank, I was taking a taxi from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv because I was extremely late for an appointment. The taxi driver, an Arab Israeli, asked me which route I wanted to take. I told him: "Whatever is quicker at this time of day." I didn't realize that this would mean another journey through the West Bank -- albeit a different one altogether.
Once we left Jerusalem, I had thought we would take Route 443 again directly. I was wrong. The taxi driver thought that another way would be quicker, and I trusted his judgment because I had haggled a flat rate -- the quicker he got me to Tel Aviv, the better for him.
As it turned out, he took several smaller roads through the West Bank in order to avoid traffic congestion and get to Route 443 as soon as possible. But I was nervous. A few minutes after we left Jerusalem, we were in a part of the West Bank that I did not recognize.
All of the signs were in Arabic. All of the people walking on the sidewalks were Arabs. All of the cars had green license-plates. Moreover, I was able to see first-hand the economic disparity between Israelis and Palestinians from the vantage point of a taxi's window. This part of the West Bank was much poorer than Israel proper -- the buildings were in disrepair, and there were more trash and litter in the streets. This neighborhood resembled the poor, blue-collar, Israeli city of Lod -- which is also known for the violent confrontations that sometimes occur between Arabs and Jews there.
And then, a few minutes later, I saw a road sign that said Ramallah, the unofficial capital of the Palestinian Authority and a past center of terrorist activity, was only a few kilometers away in a given direction. But before I became too stressed, the taxi driver turned away from Ramallah and headed towards Route 443. I breathed a sigh of relief. I do not want to sound paranoid, but, after all, this is the Middle East. Just to be safe, I had told the taxi driver during our small-talk that I was an American tourist. I would not want an Arab taxi-driver taking me through the West Bank to know that I was an Israeli citizen as well. It may be racist, but that is life in this part of the world.
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The third time I was in the West Bank was earlier in the morning a few days ago. I went with a friend who was taking his daughter to a park in Ma'ale Adumim, a suburb-settlement just over the Green Line between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. When Westerners think of the word "settlement," they likely imagine a few pitched tents on a hilltop. Sometimes this is true (and the Israeli government calls them illegal or unauthorized "outposts"), but not in the case of Ma'ale Adumim. As of 2007, the settlement had 33,000 residents -- more than my hometown of Belleville, Illinois -- and there are institutions like a shopping mall and library. It just seemed to be another ordinary, quiet suburb.
On the way back to Jerusalem, I realized that Ma'ale Adumim -- and the three settlement-cities that are even larger -- killed the traditional, two-state solution. Most mainstream commentators and analysts have always posited that such a peace needs three agreements:
- Palestinians stop all violence and recognize Israel as a Jewish state
- Jerusalem is divided
- Israel withdraws from all territory beyond the Green Line (which was originally the cease-fire line between Israel and Jordan in 1948)
From what I have seen, the third stipulation is now impossible. The people of Ma'ale Adumim are not going anywhere. Getting them to leave would be like the mayor of Boston asking an entire neighborhood to pack and get out. It's not going to happen. The so-called "facts on the ground" are indeed the facts on the ground.
It is a common view that the people who live in settlements are all religious Zionists because most of the major, biblical events occurred in the West Bank (also known as Judea and Samaria), but that is not entirely accurate. The ones who live on "outposts" deep in the West Bank are usually religious, but those near the Green Line in places like Ma'ale Adumim are a mix of religious people and those who want cheaper rent. Israel has one of the highest levels of income-disparity in the world.
The lower prices are understandable since the market is taking higher risk into account. Of course, there is a slightly-higher risk of terrorist attacks, but the greater variable is likely that the property itself is unstable. No one really knows what will occur in these areas in the coming years or decades. It is possible -- but not likely -- that the government will one day order the evacuation of places like Ma'ale Adumim just like it carried out in the Gaza Strip. And if that occurs, people owning homes here would lose nearly everything they have. (Many former Gaza residents, for example, are angry at the government because they are unemployed and have yet to receive their promised compensation.)
Still, nearly all of the settlements and outposts are officially religious or have local codes like the sign pictured above that is posted at the entrance to Ma'ale Adumim.
The true division in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is over the status of the West Bank. But now the issue is not Israel proper vs. the West Bank. It is between the Israeli West Bank vs. the Palestinian one. As I stated, the major settlements near the Green Line are de facto permanent. The issue is which parts of the West Bank will go to Israel and which part will go the Palestinians in any future two-state solution.
In any proposal, Israel will want to keep the parts of the West Bank with major settlements -- most of which are behind the controversial separation-barrier. In return, most mainstream analysts agree that Israel will have to offer a part of Israel proper that will equal that taken by the settlements. Critics argue that Israel will offer to trade low-quality land, but this misses one point: As my pictures reveal, the parts of the West Bank in places like Ma'ale Adumim are not arable anyway -- the settlement is located in the foothills of the Judean Desert, and the land on the border is arid and rocky. The land's only possible uses are growing olive trees and perhaps light grazing by animals.
The Palestinians, for the most part, still insist that they receive all of the West Bank. Cynics argue that the Palestinians know that this will never occur, giving them an excuse to keep attacking Israel. However, the reluctance is understandable -- the Palestinians believe that they deserve all the land beyond the Green Line for historical and religious reasons.
Overall, it is likely that the status quo will remain the status quo as far as anyone can predict. The West Bank will continue to be an interesting -- and divisive -- place.
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