Walking The Line
By Lydia Aisenberg
July 27, 2008
When International Department staff member David Mendelsohn was visited by friends Tom Schram from Holland and Jabulani Mashishini from South Africa, it was only natural that David would want to show his overseas guests the ins and outs of Wadi Ara.
Asked to guide Tom, Jabu and new immigrant David and wife Roni, proved to be a most interesting day for yours truly. I have long ago nicknamed the tours of the northern West Bank (Area C), Barta’a village (East and West) and surroundings as being Magical Mystery Tours – never knowing exactly with who one will engage in conversation from among the local population, whether Israeli Jews, Arabs or Palestinians.
Explaining the topography, shifting political and physical positions and attitudes, reasoning behind events that have taken place in the area over the last four decades (and much more) make the tours unusual - and for most people quite unforgettable.
In the case of Tom, Jabu and the Mendelsohn’s, the tour started at Megiddo (taking in the view of Jenin from the ancient tel’s car park) and finished high up in the mountains above Umm el-Fahm. The tour incorporated a number of spontaneous meetings with Palestinian businessman Reit Kabha of East Barta’a and later on farmers and cousins, Mohammad and Ahmad Yasin, who had been allowed to cross over from their village Anin for a few hours to tend their olive trees on the Israeli side of the security fence.
Tom, Jabu and David have known each other for some years as all are involved in studying communities and conflict resolution creatively using language as a tool for bringing folks together. The threesome will jokingly tell you that they ‘did time together’ but they actually did spend 3 weeks as a team working with prisoners in South Africa going in to the prison itself – but let out at the end of a working day!
Jabu is involved with an organization named Phaphama, running among other projects The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) and TALK (Transfer of African Language Knowledge), a system of training methods and encouragement for tourism activities for which he has also written a teaching manual.
Tom was sent to check out the Phaphama organization for potential financial support from The Netherlands.
“I went to South Africa to explore the ways in which Phaphama organizes its Alternatives to Violence Project workshops and in my view this program could be usefully introduced in the Netherlands where problems of violent behavior of youth are mounting in schools and in the public domain in a more culturally diverse environment,” explained Tom.
During their stay in Israel Tom and Jabu ran a two-day workshop together with David for Israeli Arab residents of the Wadi Ara village Arara where David, a former Canadian wrestling champion, has been teaching wrestling to local children as well as working with adults on community awareness themes.
In East Barta’a local businessman Reit Kabha invited everybody to sit on his shaded veranda and overlook the bustling main street below. He talked about the division of the village and the relationship between those living in East Barta’a and those of West Barta’a – all of whom are members of the same extended family.
Reit married a lady from West Barta’a. The couple and their two children plus a kitten rescued from over the Green Line, live in East Barta’a above the home of his parents. Reit studied business in India, speaks very good English and is an ardent admirer of Ghandi.
Born and brought up in East Barta’a, Reit is a Jordanian citizen and also has Palestinian papers since the Palestinian Authority took over. In recent years he has received Israeli citizenship through his marriage to an Israeli born member of the extended Kabha clan. Both his children have Israeli citizenship.
As a result of receiving Israeli citizenship, Reit is no longer allowed to travel to autonomous areas of the West Bank, such as Jenin where he used to work or to Bethlehem where a younger brother lives.
The more Reit explains the more one believes one is hearing modern day versions of the ‘Stories from Chelm.’
Following a visit to the Reichan (Barta’a) checkpoint one and half kilometers behind the village, we took a short journey to the Mei Ami vantage point over the security fence down to and across the Jezreel Valley and had an unexpected meeting with Palestinian cousins and Anin residents Mohammad and Ahmad Yasin.
The cousins were returning from a few hours toil in their olive orchards on the Israeli side of the security fence. Their village is perched on a lower hill a very short distance away – but the security fence goes around it on three sides and they have quite a walk before they can cross through a small checkpoint and go home.
From their abodes, the cousins can gaze across the valley to the apartment blocks of Afula sitting squarely in the middle of the valley floor, see Nazareth up on the mountain range opposite and overlook a few dozen kibbutzim and moshavim and their extensive fields immediately below them.
Standing a few meters from the security fence (on the Israeli side), the gentlemen explain that they are allowed twice a week through a small gate in the security fence near their village so that they can work their land near Umm el-Fahm and the Jewish community of Mei Ami. The both speak English. One of the cousins worked as a surveyor for 10 years in Saudi Arabia for an American company.
We were all standing exactly where the security fence veers from the Green Line, making a sharp turn in to the West Bank and around four Jewish settlements perched up on the mountain ridge overlooking Palestinian villages down below and the sprawling city of Jenin, tucked away in the corner of the valley.
There are no signs saying this area is the so-called ‘Green Line’ or ‘Area C’ of the West Bank in present day terminology. The Yasin cousins are well aware of where it was and still is as far as Palestinians, who are not allowed in to the State of Israel, are concerned.
Crossing lines is a daily occurrence for the folk who live in this area. The Jewish population probably does not think twice as they drive around the bend that used to be a border between the State of Israel and Jordanian controlled West Bank, going from their homes in Area C to work in Hadera or further away.
The Palestinians in the area however are acutely aware of their A, B and C’s. The Yasin’s village of Anin is an Area B, cut off from Area C by the security fence. The nearest bank, medical services and so forth are only a short drive from Anin – in the autonomous Palestinian town of Jenin, also visible from the Mei Ami vantage point where the lines are becoming more than blurred.
At the Megiddo junction stands a powerful reminder of why the State of Israel erected the security fence just over the other side of the hills. A memorial fashioned from steel reminds one of the 17 mostly young Israelis who perished in a burning bus at Megiddo junction during the height of the post-2000 second intifada spate of horrendous terrorism.
Dusk falls on yet another educational, emotional and deeply thought provoking Wadi Ara visit with people from abroad trying to understand what many of us Israelis do not understand ourselves.