In the Danger Zone (38 page)

I walk a few hundred metres along the barrier's central road until I come to an access gate, and suddenly I'm on the Israeli side. On the hills where the Palestinians' land used to be there are some enormous settlements being built. Some of this land may have been bought, but many of the Palestinians say that their lives were made intolerable by the Jews and they had little choice but to sell it and move away. They also claim that whilst Israelis are allowed to build on disputed land, it's almost impossible for a Palestinian to get building permission anywhere.

As I leave, four large troop carriers pull up on the Israeli side, and the drivers give me a friendly wave. Soldiers emerge and start setting up trestle tables and urns for tea and coffee as they chat with each other in the sunshine. It's like the advance team preparing for a WI meeting.

I return to the village to meet Abu Emad of Bil'in's ruling council and one of the organizers of the weekly demonstration. He's an affable, reasonable-sounding man sitting on a mountain of anger: 'The world thinks that we Palestinians live like everyone else and that we can support ourselves. But we are enclosed like a bird in a cage. Israel cages us, and now we are not allowed to travel, not allowed to build factories, we're not allowed to use the water or any basic utilities. And still they tell us we are free and to get on with our lives. But we are just prisoners in our own homes.

'For the Palestinians losing land is the same as losing food because we are traditionally subsistence farmers.' The villagers say that five existing settlements are expanding onto their land, and an entirely new one is currently being built. They say that eventually the settlements will form part of the largest Israeli settlement in the West Bank, called Modin Illit, although they can only legally do this if they buy land from the Palestinians and most settlers claim to have bought land legitimately.

The call to prayers rings out and I go to wait outside the mosque for the demonstration to begin. Opposite the mosque is a house for foreign nationals who are here to monitor the Israel Defence Force (IDF) activity and offer support to the residents. It's strange waiting for a regular bout of violence to begin; I wonder if this is what a football hooligan feels like before a match. Many journalists have been injured covering this demonstration and I wonder whether I should put on my flak jacket and helmet, but decide that I will look ridiculous and possibly even draw fire.

Prayers end and the villagers emerge from the mosque chatting and joking and greeting the foreign nationals. The mayor of Bil'in, Abu Salim, has attended every protest. 'This wall is unjust,' he says. 'It strips us of our dignity and our land, and casts a shadow over all aspects of our lives. We have lived and worked on this land. It is our livelihood, and we shall never give it up no matter what. We shall continue to resist.'

The foreign nationals unfurl a banner saying 'Fuck the Occupation' and about 100 people march out of the village towards the barrier chanting, shouting and singing. I pass the hilltop again to find 20 or so photographers and cameramen filming the march, all wearing their helmets and flak jackets. I wonder if I've made a bit of a mistake. There are nearly always injuries here, and three weeks ago a protester was left with brain injuries after being shot in the head with a rubber bullet. Across the other side, below the barrier, are 50 or so IDF soldiers, all casually holding their weapons and watching us approach. There's no sense of aggression. When we get within 400 metres, though, I hear some loud bangs and the first tear-gas grenades fizz through the air. They land amongst us, and I get caught in the immediate cloud of the first gas, and get the full experience. Once you've tasted the stuff I swear you'll never look back, because it's without doubt the most powerful tear-gas around. If you've never tried tear-gas before, here's what you've been missing: it smells of spent fireworks – that acrid, slightly sulphurous, gunpowdery smell (similar to the smell of burnt-out stereo when you've been overloading the bass) – and rips my nostrils to shreds, while my eyes feel like I've bathed them in lemon juice. The sting swiftly transmogrifies into an unbearable rawness, spreading across my face, into my nose and throat. I stumble away from the gas cloud in the direction of the village but I can't really see where I'm going and my whole face is in excruciating pain. I finally manage to get out of the cloud and find Marc, who's feeling pretty grim, but doing better than me. The sensations begin to fade after about five or ten minutes, but leave me weakened and shaken.

Nonetheless, the protesters go back for gassing again and again. An ambulance turns up to help people who are really suffering, and some of the younger protesters start throwing stones using slingshots. The IDF start firing rubber bullets (these ones are like small corks and heavy with a slug of metal in the centre), and things begin to get a bit hairy, so I put on my flak jacket and helmet. A few people are hit by the bullets – one guy is hit in the leg and can't walk. He'll have one hell of a bruise tomorrow. The tear-gas is pretty effective at keeping the protesters from the fence until a gang breaks from the main group and runs off through the bushes. They make it to the fence below us, but are immediately arrested and driven off in an IDF van.

A few rubber bullets sing past me so I decide to move to the right-hand flank to see what's happening. I find Mayor Abu Salim screaming obscenities at the IDF. He's got a lot to say, and he shouts a bit fast, but his basic line appears to be this: 'You are the bastard sons of Druze Arabs, and your mothers are Druze whores. Take this to Sharon, take this to Olmert, to all the Israeli government! Get off the land! Take your fucking wall and stuff it up your fucking arse, you fuckers.' Although I'm not entirely sure about the Druze angle, the rest is clear enough, and Abu Salim appears to have taken shouting lessons because he's terrifically loud. The IDF clearly appreciate his efforts because they fire a set of rubber bullets as a thank you, one of them zipping right by me. I decide to take my leave before Abu Salim gets me killed.

Because this is a regular weekly protest, both sides know what to expect, and as a consequence it's like a terrible, vicious game. The protesters keep trying to reach the fence and the Israeli army tries to stop them. In many ways everyone's a winner here: the Israelis have the protest nicely under control with the gas and rubber bullets, and from the soldiers' body language they don't seem particularly concerned. They are probably talking about their girlfriends and their plans for the weekend as they expertly plop another tear-gas grenade in front of us. And the Bil'in villagers have done pretty well out of it too: there must be 20 international TV and photo journalists reporting the gig, so they've managed to get pretty extensive press coverage.

(Since I left the villagers have won their appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court, which has ordered the government to re-route the barrier so that the villagers can access their land properly. So far this ruling hasn't been implemented and the protests continue.)

Itamar

I am still under strict instructions from C____not to travel to Jewish settlements in the West Bank unless I carry a flak jacket and drive in an Israeli-owned armoured van: a Palestinian-owned car won't be allowed into the settlement, but cars with Israeli number plates are often attacked as they travel in the West Bank. So I have hired Shimon, the world's slowest driver, to drive us there in Big Momma, his tomb on wheels. One of the reasons he's so slow is the sheer weight of his truck, which is clad in thick steel as a defence against roadside bombs and gunfire, and it's dark and gloomy inside due to the lack of windows.

I'm on my way to visit Itamar, a particularly isolated Jewish settlement set deep inside the West Bank, which sits on a hilltop overlooking the 130,000-strong Palestinian city of Nablus. Established in 1984, most of Itamar's 1,000 residents are members of Gush Emunim, a messianic settler movement that believes there is a biblical imperative to inhabit the West Bank and the settlement now has around 4 square km of land to the fury of the Palestinians. They are frequently attacked and most male adults cany a gun at all times. Palestinians have killed over 15 residents of Itamar, the last attack leaving six dead, including a mother and her three children who were shot in their house and the attacker himself.

The settlements are probably the most contentious aspect of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the Arabs see settlers as colonists stealing land from them (as do a fair few secular Jews who see the settlers as the main cause of attacks on Israelis). Settlers are generally Jews who inhabit land in the West Bank and Golan Heights (and more problematically, in east Jerusalem) that Israel invaded and took control of during the 1967 war and still occupies today (there were also settlements in Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, but the Israeli government forced their closure). This is land that the Palestinians claim as theirs and that was generally expected to end up being part of Palestine, but is still under Israeli control with little movement towards resolution. The settlers are frequently attacked by Palestinian fighters, but they are well armed and protected by the IDF, who are often stationed alongside them. According to the UN, the settlements are illegal, but this is disputed by Israel.

There are currently around 460,000 Israeli settlers in the occupied territories, including around 200,000 in East Jerusalem. Settlements are started in various different ways, sometimes by groups of Jews parking caravans on hilltops in occupied territory and slowly but surely establishing a community and beginning to build proper homes. At first Israel refused to allow settlements and even forcibly disbanded them, but in the absence of peace talks to resolve the issue of a Palestinian state, and the continuing attacks in the Intifada uprisings and numerous suicide bombings, the Israeli government now rarely stops them from doing this (although building by Palestinians or the Bedouin living in Israel is strictly controlled, with houses frequently demolished because they lack permits), and instead assumes a duty to protect them as Israeli citizens and provides power and amenities.

If you're finding this confusing, I'm not surprised. Why on earth would people do something so blatantly antagonistic, and how does Israel justify it? The Palestinians claim that the settlements are there to pre-empt or sabotage any peace treaty that might give them sovereignty, and that the land belongs to them. Israel contends that this land was captured during a war against their aggressors and that the settlements are a strategically and tactically important consequence. Also, there were some Jewish communities in the West Bank before 1948 so many people see this as resettlement of land that originally belonged to Jews.

Much of the landscape of the West Bank is made up of parched and rocky ancient terraces that seem best suited for olive trees and bony goats. Yet on the hilltops the Jewish settlements like Itamar are surrounded by high security fences and topped with army lookout towers watching over the modern tarmac roads and the streets of homes, all built to the same modern design that wouldn't look out of place in a cul-de-sac on the outskirts of a commuter town. Around here, however they look strange: suburban Barratt Homes slap bang in the middle of the Bible.

The van makes the gate guard nervous – unfamiliar armoured vans are seen as possible terrorist vehicles around here. But after I get him to radio the head of the settlement, he lets us in. There are a few men wandering the streets with Ml6s hanging over their shoulders as they push prams along and they eye me with the suspicion I deserve.

I am here to meet Alon Zimmerman, an ex-surfer from California ('I'm a college drop-out, a leftover of the '60s') turned Messianic settler. He's here to retake the Promised Land on behalf of Judaism, and he rejects the term West Bank' in favour of the Zionist names of Judea and Samaria.

I've had a lot of difficulty trying to meet settlers because they tend to dislike publicity, and they especially dislike the BBC. Alon has allowed us to come and film because he's keen to get publicity for the organic produce he grows and sells here, and for his fruit leather (like a bar of dried fruit). But it's a two-way street, because the Zimmermans are having a 'Perdion' (a ceremony to celebrate the arrival of the first male grandchild) in two days' time for their first male grandchild, and I would like to watch the ceremony, meet other settlers and try to get a sense of how the community lives.

However, Alon warns me that his wife Rachel is very orthodox and practical and has refused to talk to me because, frankly, she can't see what good will come from me being here. As for my guide Efrat, a very secular Jew from Tel Aviv, she doesn't look too kindly on the settlers – she's especially incensed that she has to wear long sleeves and trousers to avoid offending them – and she dislikes Rachel before she's even met her. This is going to be interesting.

Alon speaks with spiritual, messianic and evangelical conviction about cucumbers, bread and war; he sees food as a key building block of his faith, but also a root cause for conflict. 'If you understood Hebrew you'd know the root word of war is bread.
Lechem
is the middle word of war, so in other words all wars are basically based on bread.'

The Zimmermans have nine children who take up the vast majority of their time, and Alon's kitchen is
balagan
(a filthy mess) according to him. But the kitchen has nothing on the bathroom where their son rears chickens. The little chicks have taken over half of it, running about next to the washing machine, spreading crap around the floor and over clothes. Efrat is astounded at the squalor, and she breathes through her mouth to avoid the smell.

Rachel storms into the room. She's a ball of energy, rushing around telling us that she can't see what the point of all this is anyway, before departing abruptly. I am instantly terrified of her. Alon sighs and takes us off to see his hothouses on an edge of the settlement, where I help him pick broccoli and prepare the earth for a new crop. It's sweaty work, and my hay fever makes my throat and eyes itch like the devil's own scrofula as I try to keep up with his phenomenal speed and energy.