Jennifer Rubin: Traveling in the West Bank (Part 1)

Here is an excerpt from the first part of an article by Jennifer Rubin, illustrating how little those who offer their opinions about the West Bank settlements actually know about the area

...Even well-informed consumers of international media imagine that the West Bank is crowded, dangerous and replete with roadblocks and officious Israeli security forces. So when one leaves Jerusalem, crosses the Green Line -- a cement wall and a checkpoint (not unlike the set-up for an agent at a U.S. border) -- and travels up and down the highways of Samaria (the portion of the West Bank extending north), you realize how little non-Israelis know about the Jews who live in territory that is the focal point of so much international attention.


The media terminology doesn't comport with one's direct observations. "Settlements" are not hovels tended by goat herders. Settlers are not uniformly religious. The Palestinians who demand the right of return are generally the descendants of those who left Israel proper in 1948; the region is still sparsely populated and was even more so in 1967. And while negotiators have shuffled back and forth trying to reach a peace deal, there are at least signs of peaceful coexistence between some Palestinians and Israelis who shop and work together.

...Now ninety-five percent of Palestinians are under the jurisdiction of the PA, which is responsible for everything from local police to schools. Israel's official interaction with West Bank Palestinians is limited to intelligence gathering and extraction of terrorists. Israelis don't patrol the streets of Ramallah or Nabulus. There are currently 330,000 settlers in Judea and Samaria, roughly a third are entirely secular, a third "knitted kippah" Jews like Bennett and a third Haredi (ultra-orthodox).

Five or ten minutes after we crossed the Green Line we stopped at a new, very large grocery store, a place where Jews and Palestinians shop together. Palestinians are under an edict by the PA to boycott Israel goods, but the PA cannot enforce the boycott at the consumer level. Jews and Palestinians buy everything from fruit to Cocoa Puffs. What is most striking is how utterly ordinary is this place, in the middle of territory about which the entire world argues. A Palestinian father pushed two small children in a shopping cart; men with kippot filled the shelves.

Read the whole thing.

"The media terminology doesn't comport with one's direct observations"
Jennifer Rubin is being kind.

Technorati Tag: West Bank and Israeli Settlements.