In early 2011, I was invited to Palestine's West Bank, to assist in the establishment of a venture capital fund.
It was close to Easter 2011, when we found ourselves at Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, negotiating our way through long (sometimes aggressive) lines of Italian and Russian pilgrims heading to
Jerusalem. We made our way through Immigration OK, were met by a Palestinian driver and taken up a back route to Ramallah, the administrative centre of the West Bank and the unofficial capital of the Palestinian Territories.
¦ Part One - Initial impressions from the Palestinian side
In order to secure its establishment and survival, Israel has had to fight three official wars, 1948, 1967 and 1973. The most successful was the so-called Six Day War in 1967, when it was able to recover Jerusalem and push Jordanian troops out of the western side of the river Jordan and Syrian troops out of the Golan Heights on the eastern side of Lake Galilee.
Israel had not initiated this war but, once provoked, it succeeded in advancing its strategic interests spectacularly.
The conquest of the Golan Heights had relatively little effect on human settlement but the conquest of Jordan's West Bank effectively ensnared over two million Palestinians in Israel's net. Many of these people were already displaced refugees from Israel's earlier, post 1948 development. Many, also were Christians, descendants of the original Christian churches established, firstly by Jesus himself, (remember his encounter with the woman at the well in Samaria?) and the Apostles of the early Church.
Certainly Ramallah, whose Christian population was reportedly 30 per cent prior to the 1967 "Six Day War" has some beautiful churches and Bethlehem, still in the West Bank, is a major focus of worship for Middle East Arab and coptic Christian communities.
Sadly and strangely, almost 50 years after the Six Day War, nothing has been resolved for the Palestinians. They live in a twilight zone - no country of their own, still occupied by Israeli soldiers, severely limited in terms of freedoms and life options and watching Israel, by means of its creeping, illegal settlement programme, steal the best resources from their small and diminishing remnant of a country.
The West Bank covers approximately 5500 square kilometres (compared with New Zealand's 268 thousand sq kms). The West Bank would cover 2 per cent of our own national footprint, or the equivalent in area of two Wanganui Districts.
And yet it is the home of 2.5 million Arabs and now 350,00 Israeli settlers.
Its territory is fascinating, if just from a topographical perspective; its highest points are around 1000 metres above sea level and can attract a decent snow fall during the brief winter months. Secondly, just 30 minutes drive from Ramallah, you'll be in the Jericho Valley, 400 metres below sea level and, if you fancy it, bobbing like a cork in the nearby Dead Sea.
More importantly, and herein probably lies one of the main causes of Israel's reluctance to leave, the West Bank covers the biblical lands of Judah and Samaria. It is in these territories that pretty much all of biblical history, so integral to Israel's story and justification for existence, was played out. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, will only ever refer (to domestic media at least) to the West Bank as "Judea and Samaria".
The turn-off from the main highway from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem into the West Bank is not signposted, and it only allows entry in, not exit out. Immediately you sense you have passed from one world into another; from a fully-developed first world country into a backward third world one.
Apart from those roads built by the Israelis to facilitate military movement around the West Bank and to move Israeli settlers in and out, the roads to which Palestinians are restricted are rough and poorly kept.
Ramallah, the official administrative centre of the Palestinian Authority is only 10km from Jerusalem. Nonetheless any trip between the two cities took at least 40 minutes through various back roads and involved crossing at one major checkpoint where, depending on the time of day or year (especially during Ramadan) Palestinians, authorised to cross, could be held up for hours.
Ramallah is quite small, only 40,000 inhabitants. The major Arab towns in the West Bank are Hebron in the south and Nablus and Jemin to the north.
Ramallah has one world class hotel. It is needed because of the endless stream of foreign leaders, diplomats and aid agency officials who come to visit the leaders of the Palestinian Authority (successors of the late PA leader, Yasser Arafat), to offer support.
It was in this hotel, the Movenpick, that we stayed during our look-see. My clear impression at the time and abiding memory since, is that it was as if we had been deposited into 1980s Soweto; chaotic, vibrant, some signs of prosperity but the inhabitants were heavily circumscribed. In short, 2.5 million Arabs were being held in a large, still quite comfortable, open prison.
The people we met were intelligent, well educated, warm and welcoming.
The Israeli settlements in the West Bank were mostly occupied by zealous Zionists, often recent immigrants to Israel. Their settlements were normally built close to the big Arab towns, often embedded right next to them, or on strategic hill top sites. Their surrounding land is lush and green, with water from the Jordan river taken a priori, by Israel.
While lip service is paid to peaceful co-existence, the Israeli settlers can, with apparent impunity, take what they want from the Palestinians. We often read and heard about Palestinian olive groves being burned and locals being harassed, and occasionally killed by settlers. The consistent pattern after such incidents was that the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) would tut tut, promise to hold an enquiry and then nothing further would be heard.
In the next instalment I'll consider Israel's view on the West Bank and reasons for its view. In this first article I simply want to record that, from first hand experience as a neutral observer, (if anything I started with the usual westerner's inherent sympathy for Israel), I felt deeply the lack of justice and humanity in Israel's dealings with the Palestinians in the West Bank. The status quo suits Israel. It can continue to marginalise the West Bank and its people, taking from it what it wants, while it recovers and repopulates with its own people, those sites, such as Bethel, Shilo, Hebron and numerous others, so integral to its history and traditions. Israel impedes the flow of goods out of the West Bank, thereby inhibiting the development of its economy and making sure the West Bank remains reliant on international aid. Israel continues to obfuscate around the issue of negotiating the mythical "two state solution". Its a game it knows how to play to perfection and sadly, I saw little evidence of a desire to change its approach during the six months we lived in Ramallah.
¦ To be continued ...