Letter from the West Bank

The Israeli army can destroy Gaza. But they will find the real battle for the future of Israel and Palestine, in the West Bank, much harder to win
January 17, 2009

While Israel's invasion of Gaza continues to dominate the headlines, a more vital battle for the future of Israel and Palestine continues largely unnoticed. And in this struggle, Israeli forces are pitted not only against a resilient Palestinian population, but against a fiercely determined Israeli one too.

I recently spent three months working for the EAPPI, a human rights organisation in the West Bank. I got to know Rashid, a farmer from Yanoun, a tiny Palestinian village in near Nablus. He invited me for dinner—lamb and rice—which we ate in a bare room warmed only by a small gas stove and the bodies of six fidgeting children. January is always chilly in the Nablus hills, but Rashid doesn't mind the cold, he told me. Like everyone here, he is a farmer, and working hard in the fields and olive groves, you get used to it. Besides, as the floodlights from watchtowers glaring through Rashid's windows reminded me, he has more pressing matters on his mind.

Yanoun, halfway up the side of a horseshoe-shaped valley, is encircled by outposts of the Israeli settlement of Itamar. The peaks surrounding the village are dotted with watchtowers, floodlights and chicken sheds, all on land confiscated when armed, ideological Israeli settlers moved here in the late 1990s. They established their presence on the hilltops with caravans and protected themselves with machine guns. The Israeli authorities supported them: they saw settlements in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967, as an important bargaining chip in "land-for-peace" negotiations with the Palestinians. The international community considers these settlers illegal under the Geneva Conventions.

In 2002, with the second Palestinian intifada in full swing, the settlers of Itamar began a campaign of violence against Yanoun. They mutilated sheep and beat shepherds grazing their flocks on the hillsides. They smashed up property, burnt Yanoun's electricity generator and felled hundreds of ancient olive trees. When a Palestinian gunman, unrelated to Yanoun, infiltrated Itamar and slaughtered five of its inhabitants, the settlers issued dire threats and ordered the inhabitants of Yanoun to leave. The village's 60 terrified residents fled for the nearby town of Aqraba, apart from two old men too sick to move. It was the first time since in generations that a Palestinian village had been forcibly evacuated.

Remarkably, however, it was empty for all of 24 hours. Israeli and international human rights activists immediately established a "protective presence" in the village. With foreigners living here full time, life can carry on, albeit overshadowed by uncertainty. An uneasy tranquility has returned; children play in the streets. Rashid has lost over 80 per cent of his land, but he still has livestock, a bullet-scarred tractor and a few dozen olive trees.

Itamar is still there, though, jutting over the horizon. Until recently, young settlers would often hike through the village on Saturdays, with machine guns in their hands and dogs at their heels. The recent cold has apparently discouraged these excursions. But perhaps this has to do with more than just the weather.

For all the support it receives from the state, the settlement movement is becoming increasingly distanced from the rest of Israeli society. The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 alienated a generation of young, ideological settlers, who hold little loyalty to the state that dragged many of their people from their homes. "There were 8,000 [settlers] in Gaza. People had built their whole lives there," Raphael Cohen, head of the Zionist youth movement Betar told me. "You have to understand, you're growing up, you get to 15, 16 and someone takes your home. Then you have to serve in the army, to serve the state. Those kids have stopped believing in anything."

Equally, many on the left of Israeli politics detest the settlers, who they see as vigilantes determined to undermine any peace deal eventually reached with the Palestinians. Ze'ev Sternhell, a left-wing professor who recently found a pipe bomb on his doorstep allegedly planted by right-wing extremists, accused the settlement movement of "Jewish terrorism." "God is with us, and God will see to it that we will get rid of the Palestinians. That is more or less their philosophy," he said.

Before Israel's assault on Gaza in late December, talk of further withdrawals from the West Bank was widening the rift between secular politicians and settler leaders. They appeared ready for a showdown. The settlers had declared a "price-tag" policy on the dismantling of settlement outposts, (the kind of improvised porta-cabin colonies that line the hilltops around Yanoun): this meant that Israeli security forces—or more often, local Palestinians—would suffer "revenge" attacks whenever the outposts that are illegal under Israeli law were demolished.

In November, when the Israeli police evicted Israeli settlers from a house they had illegally occupied in Hebron, the latter responded by hurling rocks at them. They then rampaged through the Arab parts of town, setting fire to property and shooting live ammunition at local Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the riot a "pogrom"—a strong term in a nation where memories of the holocaust are still deeply lived. And his defence minister, Ehud Barak, warned that he was ready to use an iron hand against settler hooliganism. He threatened to ban certain individuals from the West Bank, or detain them without trial under a law normally used against suspected Arab militants. "Such people belong behind bars," he said at the time.

The invasion of Gaza has overshadowed these lower key, day-to-day battles in the West Bank. But with Israeli elections coming up on 10th February, they may soon occupy centre-stage once again—particularly if Barak, who seems determined to resolve the settlement problem, does well. A few months ago his prospects looked unfavourable, but in a poll taken three days after the start of the assault on Gaza, seats projected for Barak's Labor Party in the 120-seat Knesset (parliament) had risen from 10 to 16. Although that sounds insignificant, given Israel's system of proportional representation and multiparty coalitions, it may just secure him the office of prime minister. And if Hamas is—albeit temporarily—immobilised by the invasion of Gaza, Barak may well return to tackling the settlers. Once again, the village of Yanoun will be caught on the front line of a battle between Israel's army and some of its toughest, best-armed civilians.

It will be a long and ugly struggle. Settlers committed to the eternal land of Israel will not be easily persuaded to abandon their dreams, regardless of battles in Gaza, shifts in Israeli politics or the arrival of a new president in the White House. Those floodlights on the hilltop look set to shine through Rashid's window for some time to come.