Mending Wall

With the passage of time I become more and more a creature of habit.

For example, every day I invariably stop at exactly the same place on my way to work to view the valley and the mountain. The valley of course is the Jezreel Valley and the mountain none other than Mount Gilboa.

Later on in the day I open the shutters of our living room in order to see the valley and the mountain again.

The Security Fence

We all have our personal landscape or landscapes. Some are faded childhood visions while others like my valley and mountain scene tend to become interwoven in the fabric of our lives.

I think the mountain is the more dominant of the two. It looms above and closes the valley to the south. Legends and history cohabit the mountain in a strange symbiosis.

The casual visitor, unfamiliar with the past may dismiss this unremarkable highpoint as just another hill. Not quite what Emily Dickinson meant when she wrote:

The Mountains—grow unnoticed—
Their Purple figures rise
Without attempt—Exhaustion—
Assistance—or Applause—

We on the other hand know different.

The poet Avraham Shlonsky immortalised the Gilboa in a poem born of personal experience during the settlement of the valley. He invests its peaks with memory:

They remember the whiteness of our tents

That spread across the valley like doves

They remember the altars of our nights

Consumed by the flames of our songs.

The late Shlomo Rosenberg I mentioned a few weeks ago kept small stock of nostalgia. And although he lagged behind the ever changing kibbutz he never longed for the “good old days.” He described the valley and the mountain in sombre shades. In his panorama the bare slopes of the mountain formed a melancholic backdrop to the already uninviting landscape. It was the veritable visitation of David’s curse – “Ye mountains of Gilboa, Let there be no dew nor rain upon you, neither fields of offerings.” 2 Samuel. 1:21

Not all the pioneers who pitched their tents by Gideon's Spring had the mental and physical stamina needed to continue. Some found the challenge too much to bear.

Another poet, Moshe Tabenkin wrote pointedly of their despair:

Dreams like people

Will die one day,

Prematurely.

With no sin or for no reason.

Dreams too are murdered

With the sword of disappointment,

In the fury of betrayal,

By the blade of criminal forgetfulness.

And dreams too will die by their

Own hands.

Rosenberg lived to see the valley and the mountain transformed. The swamp was drained and replaced by a patchwork of orchards, cultivated fields, citrus groves and fishponds. Trees were planted on the slopes of the Gilboa lifting the curse.

In “Innocents Abroad” Mark Twain describes a scene similar to Rosenberg’s landscape of the early twenties before the transformation.

“Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be
the prince…..Every outline is harsh, every feature is distinct, there is no perspective--distance works no enchantment here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land.”

In the fifty years that elapsed between Mark Twain’s visit and the pitching of the first tents by Gideon’s spring nothing changed. In the decade that followed the swamp was drained, land reclaimed and new communities dotted the landscape.

Last week I participated in a tour along a section of our security fence. Starting by the banks of the River Jordan near the place where Christian pilgrims come to be baptised. The site is conveniently arranged, far more convenient than the place further south generally thought to have been used by John the Baptist . We continued to Naharayim near Ashdot Yaakov where our guide David Shatner, a person well versed in security, water resources and borders provided a lot of relevant background material. Shatner has participated in the Israeli teams negotiating with both the Jordanians and Palestinians.

In this arid region some observers have predicted wars will be fought over the control of water sources. In fact The United Nations Human Development Report, classified the Middle East as the world's most water-stressed region.

David Shatner cited one case where a dispute over water rights was resolved amicably. The Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty of 1994 is an example of successful negotiations based on flexibility, readiness to give and take and the need to purposely leave matters not yet ripe for discussion, vaguely phrased. Admittedly the issues at stake were less complicated than the issues facing Israel and the Palestinians today, nevertheless flexibility on both sides facilitated relatively smooth negotiations.

Fearing a negative response from the public the first use of recycled water from effluent sources wasn’t widely publicised

By the end of the twentieth century nearly half our irrigation water came from recycled waste sources.

At that time Israel was still the only country to recycle waste water extensively. Global warming means our neighbours will increasingly need to do the same.

The need to innovate and develop efficient purification technologies has lead to new marketable products in this field. Today Israel’s exports of water-saving technologies total $1.5 billion a year.

Later the same morning we arrived at a viewpoint near Kibbutz Meirav close to the “green line”, the security fence and a short distance from Jelabun a Palestinian village in the West Bank/Samaria. I will mention Jelabun again when I write about Hannukah . Further to the west we could see Faqua another West Bank village. We in the Jezreel Valley have a long reckoning with both these villages.

“Good fences make good neighbours,” wrote Robert Frost.

I don’t know how good our neighbours in Jelabun and Faqua are today. In the past they spawned a few nasty terrorists.

Although 98% of the security fence is fence and not wall, the anti-wall activists refer only to the wall. In his poem “Mending Wall” Frost begins:

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” His neighbour mending the wall quotes his father’s adage about good fences. Frost considers the pros and cons of distancing himself from his neighbour as follows:

“Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall.”

Not all of the fence was erected precisely along the “green line.” Some of its inroads defy reason and are difficult to explain especially because they always diverge inside the West Bank/Samaria. Admittedly, not much but often causing great inconvenience.

Whether we love it or not the wall/fence is remarkably effective.

I recall taking an English friend to see the fence from the same viewpoint near Kibbutz Meirav. He seemed a little disappointed. “It’s no more than a cattle fence,” he said “how on earth can that keep anything out?”

While he was talking we noticed a few shepherds from Jelabun grazing their flock near the fence. Apparently they were too close for the comfort of the people at the observation post situated several kilometres away. Within minutes an IDF patrol vehicle arrived and ordered them back across an invisible line demarcating the safety limit. My guest changed his mind.

The fence is not impenetrable; however its highly effective surveillance system also serves to deter would be infiltrators.

For the most I view Mount Gilboa from across the valley at Ein Harod and when I drive along the scenic route that traverses the mountain I stop mainly to look at the valley. Only on rare occasions do I face the other way in the direction of Jelabun and Faqua.

Further west we stopped near a village called Barta. Barta is an anomaly.

Due to a mapping error that occurred a little after the 1949 mixed armistice agreement Barta was inadvertently divided by the “green line.” Only an agreement with the Palestinians can extricate Barta from its state of limbo.

The village is a gap in the fence and will remain that way till an agreement is reached. Robert Frost’s wall mending neighbour could help us here..

We completed the tour near Katzir overlooking Um el Fahm an urban sprawl that began as a hamlet of charcoal burners in the thirteenth century and is now a city.

The tour like many Israeli tours didn’t follow a pattern of a passive receptive audience and a knowledgeable guide imparting information.

A tour along the security fence was bound to be controversial especially at places where we faced Arab populations.

Shatner had no intention of avoiding the Wadi Ara dilemma. Wisely he confronted it head on presenting it in historical perspective. The Leiberman proposal to move the green line north of Wadi Ara was aired along with previous proposals to divest ourselves of some of our Arab minorities.

So far they are no more than theoretical chessboard exercises.

This week a survey of countries facing terrorist threats ranked Israel in 14^th place. I don’t know if this is good or bad. One thing is certain, the security fence makes living here safer.

Have a good weekend.

Beni 18^th of November, 2010.