Extreme Rambling: Walking Israel's Separation Barrier. For Fun.

by Mark Thomas

  At his insistence, Elzak will tell his story, then I am to ask him questions. He pulls his chair nearer to the table, takes a sip of coffee, issues a short smile and, as a blurred figure of a swimmer on the other side of the glass passes behind the curtain, starts to speak.

  Elzak came to Ariel in 2006 with his wife and eight children as something of a cause celèbre in the settler movement. In 2004, the then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, had initiated his policy of disengagement, by which 9,000 Israeli settlers in the Gaza strip and all the accompanying military presence would vacate Gaza, in a bid to improve security and Israel’s international standing. The settlers were asked to accept compensation and leave voluntarily. The army then forcibly evicted those that refused to go, which led to fierce divisions in Israel. Elzak was a community teacher, a spokesman and one of the last Jews to leave the Gaza strip.

  The Netzarim settlement in Gaza, ‘was a very calm and spiritual place,’ Elzak begins. ‘There were many debates as we examined the true values of Zionism.’

  He looks at me through his wire-framed glasses as next to him, on the TV, appears a flashing image of a plate of sushi. He continues, describing a Zionist idyll – the organic farm, the school for religious study and his first home.

  ‘We stayed, even though the state offered compensation. We were sure of our righteousness; we were sure that at the last moment God would deliver us and intervene.’ A televised bottle of Sprite hovers by the side of his head, then a plate of fries.

  Elzak gave the final address in the synagogue before the army evicted them.

  ‘Just before I gave it, someone said to me, “Remember, we don’t cry.”’ He looks down, pushing his empty coffee cup further onto the table as he does so, and rubs his bearded cheek with one hand for a moment. ‘We are not violent. We are not doing this for ourselves; we are doing it for the whole Jewish nation. They have to understand how important it is to hold every piece of land.’

  Another bather walks behind the gauze curtain and I glimpse the outline of her swimming costume through the muslin mesh. The image seems to frame a sense of loss. These half-seen bathers are not part of his world, indeed the club itself is a culture that has little to do with his own. The presence of the adverts on the TV screen are almost mocking in their indifference to his experience, and hint at just how far away he is from an organic farm.

  ‘OK,’ I say, ‘I have a question now.’

  He motions with his hand that now would be the time to ask.

  ‘Did your experience of being forcibly evicted and of feeling betrayed give you any empathy or understanding of how Palestinians might feel when they are moved from their land?’

  ‘No.’ The answer is sudden and abrupt. One word bluntly hurled, without menace or threat. Yet the total absence of doubt is almost violent. ‘No. Because these things are a reaction to terrorist actions and if people are violent, this is what they deserve. I am sure they have done something.’

  ‘What about during Operation Cast Lead when thousands of people had their homes demolished without any direct connection to terrorism?’

  ‘They started a war and during wars this happens. This is why I have no guilt or compassion for these people.’

  ‘What about in Jerusalem now, where over eighty homes are to be destroyed? There is no war there.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but I am sure the judicial system will have considered all their human rights.’

  ‘But your own experience …’

  ‘The judicial system didn’t help, but with Arabs … they are always more sensitive of their human rights.’

  It is now my turn to push my coffee cup away. As I do, the sushi advert flashes back onto the screen for a repeat.

  ‘Thanks for your time and I appreciate the chance to speak to you,’ I say, scraping the chair back to stand.

  ‘I want to say something before you go.’ Elzak beckons me to sit back down for a moment. ‘The whole cultural world is based on the Bible, and this includes Europe and even Islam. Everyone who is involved in the cultural world has to understand that in the Bible it says that the land belongs to the people of Israel. This is simply the place we should be and we do not have to apologise for that.’

  For a man who seems so out of place, he seems remarkably certain of where he should be. He leaves the country club with its glass walls, TV screens at the table, patterned sofas and high-backed bar stools, and doesn’t pick up a membership form on the way out.

  There’s a short silence at the table after Elzak’s departure.

  ‘What now, then?’ pipes up Phil. ‘We’ve walked the fingernail,’ he says, referring to the Barrier around the tip of Ariel. ‘Anything else to walk around here?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ I reply.

  ‘Right then; leisure time. What do people do around here for kicks?’

  ‘I think we are doing it.’

  ‘This is it?’

  ‘We might get one of those individual chocolates on the saucer with the coffee.’

  The waitress arrives and pulls back the muslin drape to reveal the glass wall and the swimming pool on the other side. It shimmers in clear, chlorinated glory. The water looks warm and bright as a swimmer does lengths, and a mum in a swimming hat holds her daughter’s hand as they try not to totter too quickly along the side. A shriek of fun goes up as a young boy lying on an inflatable rubber ring, his limbs hanging over the edges, is spun in the water.

  ‘I’ve got swimming trunks back at the B&B,’ I say, turning back to Phil, who is looking slightly wistful.

  ‘I have, too,’ he says.

  ‘We could …’

  ‘Yes,’ he sighs. ‘We could …’

  ‘It would be fun.’ I nudge him.

  Phil blows out his cheeks. ‘It wouldn’t really. I mean it would be nice to swim, but not here. Not in a settlement. It wouldn’t feel right. It would feel like we have been seduced by the comfort of this place.’ Phil twiddles with his goatee, slightly hunched and twisted as he battles with his conscience. He grimaces with resolution.

  ‘I just can’t,’ he says.

  There is a very obvious gap here between the water-rich and the water-poor, and the settlement’s pool sits firmly on the side of the water-rich. It is a divide we have seen many times on our ramble, and it takes different forms. The most obvious and startling one is that the grass on the Israeli side of the fence is literally greener, not always, but often enough to notice. In fact, the colour of the land is an obvious manifestation of inequality. You would be hard-pressed not to notice the sight and sound of sprinklers on Israeli farms, the jetting sprays and constant stinging hiss of the water as it arcs across the crops. And you would be hard-pressed not to notice the countless pieces of thin, black irrigation tubing stored between the plastic greenhouses on the Palestinian side of the Barrier. These observations do not represent hard evidence; it would be fair to say they are circumstantial – except for the fact that Israel controls Palestinian access to water supplies in the West Bank and Palestinians get on average just seventy per cent of the World Health Organisation’s recommended daily minimum water requirement. That figure drops to a mere twenty per cent in some rural areas – a level usually associated with a humanitarian disaster. Israelis, meanwhile, consume four times the WHO’s minimum requirement.21

  Ron Nachman, the – as it turns out – unavailable mayor of Ariel, knows all to well the importance of the settlement apropos Israel’s water situation: ‘This is the heart of Samaria and underneath the surface of the land there is the water aquifer. One third of the Israeli water is coming from this area. So if you control the land you control what is above and what is below’22.

  These words could have been in the minds of those who drew the route of the Barrier, as it runs over large parts of the Western Aquifer (the main source of potable water in the West Bank) and in doing so, further denies Palestinians the ability to extract water from it. The Barrier not only takes land, but water, too.

  A few days before arr
iving in Ariel, Phil and I had been driven into the countryside south of the settlement on the Palestinian side. The driver was Ashraf Zuhud, the head of Health and Environment for the town of Salfit. Tall and dressed in black, he had a face devoid of hopeful expectation. The track was rough and we bounced along in the back seat as we were driven through the dappled shade of overhanging trees, then out along the bottom of the ridge that Ariel sits on, high above. We had stopped by the side of a brook, a delightfully noisy one, the water flowing by in background blather. On the opposite bank, the slope rose steeply towards the settlement dotted with olive trees and spread with terraces.

  Down by the stream, the shrubs and shoots were green and plentiful, grass and weeds sprouted from the bank side and a donkey contentedly munched on them. The sun was deliciously warm, too. It was almost an idyll, though the look on Ashraf’s face should have warned me otherwise.

  ‘We are metres away from the Al Matwi spring and this,’ he had said, pointing at the stream, ‘is where the waste water comes down from Ariel.’

  ‘Untreated?’

  ‘They remove the solids and then dump the waste water. It has a very high BOD, which shows a level of pollution.’

  ‘BOD?’

  ‘Biochemical oxygen demand. If you have less oxygen in the water, that means there are more micro-organisms, more waste.’

  Up close, the water in the babbling stream was a battleship grey colour, and it flowed round rocks and stones, by green stalks and under fallen branches, while the donkey merrily munched to the sound of the flowing waste. A short drive, and Ashraf stopped the car again. At this point, the stream was wider and the trees more abundant but we didn’t get out; Ashraf just wound down the windows and waited until my face crumpled at the stench that pervaded the air.

  ‘It stinks of shit.’

  Having made his point, he drove on. By then, the light had turned to the amber glow of late afternoon. The road along the valley had seemed smoother but perhaps it was just the hour of the day, when the first signs of tiredness creep in. Stopping the car next to a field where the valley spreads a little before turning to the hills, Ashraf had said, ‘The plan was to build a water treatment plant for Salfit here.’

  The plan had obviously failed because all that was there were some cattle grazing between greenhouses and a caravan.

  ‘We had done all the paperwork, we had got permission and we had got the money to build the plant from the German government. So I was shocked when the Israeli army came here and just asked us to leave. They stopped the work. They said it would interfere with the settlement.’

  Having prevented one waste water treatment plant, the Israeli authorities did later agree Salfit could build another but in a different location, and on the condition that the Palestinians would not just process their own waste water but Ariel’s, too. The plant remains unbuilt.

  *

  Back in the here and now of the Ariel country club, as a couple of well-dressed women beckon the waitress to their comfy sofa to take their order, I turn again to look through the glass wall at the pool beyond, still sparkling and still virtually empty.

  Phil gulps his coffee down, eager to leave.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go for a swim?’ I ask. ‘There won’t be another chance before … well, actually, I don’t know when there will be another chance.’

  ‘No, I’m not swimming,’ he says, climbing off the bar stool. ‘I feel guilty enough just going for a crap in this place.’

  ______

  * There is no Tesco in Ariel but you get the point.

  chapter 10

  THE POPE OF DEMOGRAPHICS

  ‘Fuckity, fuckity, fuckity, fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck.’

  We are late. We are in an old Renault van belonging to Itamar’s mother and driving from Ariel, when Phil decides to point the camera at a checkpoint. The security response only just stops short of a colonoscopy. But, more important is the delay, today of all days. I have a meeting with Professor Arnon Soffer, the intellectual architect of the Barrier, and we are late.

  The delay has put me in a mood so foul I could curdle dogshit with a glare. Phil and Itamar are in the front seats and silent.

  ‘How much horse power has this thing got?’ I snap.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Itamar. ‘I am going as fast as I can.’

  ‘Would the car go faster if I whipped it?’

  ‘No, that would not help,’ he says evenly.

  ‘I’m sorry, everybody,’ says Phil.

  ‘I don’t think that helps, either,’ adds Itamar, concentrating on the road.

  ‘Why don’t you phone him and explain we’re a little behind?’ says Phil.

  The professor is at a settlement called Matan near the Barrier. He answers the phone and I calmly explain our delay. Equally calmly, he replies: ‘I only have an hour, I have to be somewhere.’

  ‘Well, I really appreciate your waiting for us. I’ll be there in ten minutes.’

  ‘I will be in a silver car. Near the fence. Don’t be any later, please.’

  As we draw level to the professor’s stationary car, he glances at the Renault van as if we are here to collect laundry.

  ‘Professor,’ I call out.

  ‘Come,’ is his simple instruction as he gets out of his car, reaches for his jacket and sets off towards the Barrier.

  Soffer does not walk anywhere: he strides purposefully. In fact, I doubt he could queue for an ice cream without it seeming a matter of top priority. He is in his seventies and his dress is casually immaculate: a small, golden belt buckle hangs on the loops of pressed black trousers; his sunglasses are in the ‘off-duty military’ mould; his hair is closely cropped. But it is his height and dynamism that define his manner: he is tall and animated, like an expressionist cartoon. He also has an impressive array of academic titles: ‘I am Emeritus from the University of Haifa. I am Head Chair of Geostrategy at the University of Haifa and simultaneously I am the head of the Research Centre of the Israeli National Defence College of the Israeli army. I share my life as a professor for almost the last forty-one years and, at the same time in the Israeli army that I am teaching in the National Defence College, I’m teaching in the Staff and Command College. I am often visiting West Point and other military academies all over the world.’

  But for all his qualifications, after an hour in his company I can safely say Soffer is essentially a cross between a cab driver and Dr Strangelove. He peers from behind his dark sunglasses and rails in florid description not normally heard in academia, against all and sundry. In his heavy European accent, he rasps that Israel is a ‘paradise’, that Arabs are ‘flooding in’ and are good for little but ‘tahini and hummus’, the settler leaders are ‘ego maniacs’, their ideas ‘idiotic’, and don’t get him started on Tel Aviv.

  ‘The West Bank, this is the cradle of the Jewish people. Not Tel Aviv. I say no bloody Tel Aviv. I hate Tel Aviv … They [the Palestinians] decided to hate Israel and the Tel Aviv people with their cats and dogs demonstrate for peace … Bloody Tel Aviv with their small dogs and croissants!’

  We are standing by the backyards of the settlement homes on the scrubland next to the Barrier and in the mid-morning sunlight, Professor Soffer is doing what he does best: towering and glowering.

  ‘Ask me and I will tell you why I am so eager to see this bloody fence,’ he commands.

  I comply. ‘Does it cheer you to see this?’

  His arms dramatically fly open towards the Barrier. ‘I am thrilled by this, to me it is beautiful. I am very happy and I will tell you why. Since we had this fence we reduce the suicide bombers to zero. This is the beginning, this is the end, this is the issue.’ Then, turning to face me, he smiles and says, ‘But I have much more to tell you.’

  Professor Soffer doesn’t so much as interview as perform: it is half-lecture, half-cabaret burlesque – I’m worried that if he puts one foot in the wrong direction he’ll end up in a bowler hat singing, ‘Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome’.

/>   ‘I convinced Sharon,’ he says modestly, ‘that by creeping into the West Bank, we will very quickly become a bi-national state. Very quickly, the Jewish people will be a minority. Very quickly it will be the end of the Zionist state. It was my philosophy.’

  At this point some of you might be hearing a strange creaking or hollow straining noise; don’t worry, it is just the definition of the word ‘philosophy’ buckling under pressure. Essentially this ‘philosophy’ is that if settlers take over the West Bank, Israel will be left with a country full of Palestinians, who will then outbreed them.

  ‘The Tel Aviv people; every family has two dogs and one cat,’ says Soffer. Then, pointing to the Palestinian side, adds, ‘And each one of them with twelve children. They will win the battle.’

  With the glee of a tabloid contrarian he then asserts that this hypothesis is the Palestinians’ objective.

  ‘If I was Arafat* or Abu Mazen** or Fayyad or just this guy or that guy I would postpone any solution with the Jewish people … [I would say] we have just to wait, and the demography and the settlers will bring us all of Palestine.’

  In his world, the Jewish settlers are falling into a trap where no sooner have they finished colonising the West Bank, than the Palestinian leaders will scream into a giant tannoy: ‘BREEEED! BREED LIKE YOU HAVE NEVER BRED BEFORE!’ Or perhaps it will be at the sound of a whistle that thousands of Palestinians rise from their slumbers and start humping with gusto, rutting in nationalist fervour to literally fuck the Jews into oblivion. Faced with this vision of a heaving mass of copulating Arabs at the gates of civilisation, who could help Israel in her hour of need? Fortunately, Professor Soffer was at hand.

  ‘I had the pleasure and the duty to teach Sharon, Bibi and Ehud Barak [the then Israeli prime minister] what it is all about,’ he says, clasping his hands together and bowing his head in false humility. ‘Mr Bibi Netanyahu, our current PM, called me, and he said, “Are you ready to be my private teacher?”’