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The Guardian: "One wall, two very different views - life on either side of the great divide"

(Peace Now's) Hagit Ofran argues that the barrier was designed not only to protect Israel but also to protect many of the settlers, who are now included within the barrier's reach.

7/7/08

It has been called a 'wall', a 'security fence' and an 'obstacle' to terrorists. When it is finished it will run 450 miles and will have cost Israel around $4bn. For some it means security, for others it is a means of undoing their future. Four years ago this week the international court of justice said Israel's West Bank barrier was illegal where it crossed into Palestinian territory. Today, Rory McCarthy explores the lives of the people on either side of the barrier and throughout this week guardian.co.uk will examine its implications for a settlement in the Middle East's most intractable conflict

Rory McCarthy
 
Monday July 7, 2008 
 
Israeli side: Alfe Menashe

Six years ago, when Stan and Joyce Freedman retired they left their home in Edgware, north London, took Israeli citizenship and bought a plot of land on a hilltop in a small but popular sun-drenched Israeli community where their daughter already had a house. They built a three-bedroom home with a breezy patio offering views to the east across the hills of the West Bank and west towards the apartment blocks of Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean beyond.

They named their new home Tulip Cottage and attached a sign next to the front door, which reads in part: "We have no enemies, only friends."

"There was nothing here when we first came to this street," said Mr Freedman, 75, who worked as an executive driver in Britain, chauffeuring senior businessmen and politicians, including many high-profile Israelis. Sitting in the shade of his patio he described how the house was constructed to their specifications in just six months. Now their street is full of houses and families. "It's a wonderful life and the neighbours are fantastic," he said. "The quality of life is amazing," said Mrs Freedman, 76.

The town they chose to live in is Alfe Menashe, a fast-growing community of about 7,000 Jewish Israelis who make up what is in fact a settlement, built about two miles into the occupied West Bank, east of the large Palestinian city of Qalqilya. Alfe Menashe was first established in 1983 and quickly began to attract secular middle-class Israelis looking for cheaper housing and a good quality of life, not far from the major towns of central Israel. Today, Alfe Menashe boasts large hillside houses with broad views, neat streets with carefully tended lawns, thousands of trees and plants and a large sports complex with two pools and several tennis courts.

There is another element to Alfe Menashe's success. On all sides of the settlement, save for a narrow strip that leads into Israel, there is the 50-metre wide West Bank barrier.

Israel says it is intended to keep out suicide bombers and prevent terrorist attacks. But the barrier also crosses into the West Bank and surrounds many settlements such as Alfe Menashe, even though all settlements on occupied Palestinian land are widely regarded as illegal under international law. The barrier unilaterally takes at least 9.5% of the West Bank on to the "Israeli" side and in the case of Alfe Menashe it appears, at least to the residents themselves, to have guaranteed the settlement as part of a future Israel in any final peace deal with the Palestinians.

Four years ago this week, the international court of justice said in an advisory opinion that the barrier was illegal where it crossed into the West Bank and should be torn down. But construction continues.

"To my mind we have got to have it. We have no other option," said Mr Freedman, discussing the barrier. As far as he is concerned Alfe Menashe's future is clear. "This is now Israel and it won't go back. It can't go back," he said. "It will never go back."

Since the settlement is on a hilltop with views of Tel Aviv, he said, it is now a strategic asset that might be used to fire rockets into Israel if it were ever returned. As he spoke there was the sound of an industrial digger on a nearby hill where builders are putting up a new series of apartment blocks as the settlement continues to expand. Beneath the construction work is a poster of an attractive woman and words, in Hebrew: "Building quality of life."

Originally the barrier route did not encircle Alfe Menashe but followed the Green Line, the 1949 armistice line between Israel and the Arab armies, and excluded most settlements. But Alfe Menashe's mayor, Hisdai Eliezer, worked hard to change the route, even bringing the then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to the settlement to hear the case for himself.

The result was not only that Alfe Menashe was brought on the "Israeli" side, but along with it land for the settlement to expand. However, it also brought in five nearby Palestinian villages that were cut off in a closed area. Those villages' 1,200 residents now require short-term "permanent resident cards" to live in their own homes. This has severely disrupted their access to health and educational facilities and created a situation where friends and families require special permits to visit.

In a rare ruling, Israel's high court said in September 2005 that it found no "decisive security-military reason" for the path of the barrier encircling the villages. It said: "The enclave creates a chokehold around the villages. It seriously damages the entire fabric of life." The court then ordered that an alternative route be considered. However, nearly three years later, the path of the barrier has not been changed.

From his office at the heart of the settlement, Mayor Eliezer talked about his plans to double Alfe Menashe's population within a few years to up to 15,000. A secular retired lieutenant colonel and former businessman, Eliezer has lived in Alfe Menashe for 18 years. "It's quite obvious that Alfe Menashe cannot be bargained over," he said. "The people here don't feel like settlers. They moved here not for political reasons but for quality of life at a reasonable price." Houses in the settlement were once regularly advertised as being "five minutes from Kfar Saba" - one of the main towns in central Israel.

He grew up believing the Jewish people had the right to settle what he called all the Land of Israel, including the West Bank, but said he grew more pragmatic over time and now saw the barrier as a likely future border. "I saw the complete Land of Israel as something you should die for," he said. "Over many years you change your opinions and concepts according to the changing reality."

Yet he said he believed the international community, particularly Europe, was unfairly biased against Israel: "I definitely think our right to the West Bank is a historical, given right. The fact that the Palestinians have been living there for 100 years or so doesn't give them the edge over us."

There are now more than 450,000 settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and construction of settler homes continues apace, despite the peace talks with the Palestinians and Israel's commitments under the American-led road map to freeze all settlement activity. The majority of settlers have come in the years since the 1993 Oslo accords, the supposedly groundbreaking deal that was to lead to an independent Palestinian state.

Hagit Ofran, who runs the Settlement Watch programme at the Israeli group Peace Now, argues that the barrier was designed not only to protect Israel but also to protect many of the settlers, who are now included within the barrier's reach.

She advocates a two-state solution, in which Israelis and Palestinians agree the future border that would divide them. "We cannot continue to control the territories," she said. "For Israel a unilateral division is also not a solution because it is not going to be accepted by the Palestinians. You cannot have a Palestinian state with all these enclaves where they don't get their full lands back."

Stan and Joyce Freedman think a peace deal with the Palestinians is unlikely in the short term. Mr Freedman, who voted for the rightwing Likud party two years ago, draws his own distinction between his settlement and others deeper in the West Bank. "I don't agree with settlements that put up a single hut in the middle of nowhere and have 40 soldiers to guard it," he said. "We are in Israel. We are not in the West Bank, as they say. I don't consider myself a settler. I'm an immigrant."

About this article
This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday July 07 2008 on p17 of the International section. It was last updated at 12:29 on July 07 2008.