While it might be hard to imagine while sitting in the US, one can pass an entire week in Israel without intersecting with or discussing the "matzav", or security "situation." If you read my first three Israel blogs, there was nary a word about it. 

That will change with this installment. On Monday, I spent 12 hours touring east Jerusalem and the West Bank. It was an eye opening trip and in many ways reassuring about the prospects for the future. While positions among American Jews have hardened - witness the increasingly vituperative debates about Israel taking place in our own Milwaukee Jewish community - many Israelis and Palestinians (not those at the extreme of either community, however) are more realistic about what needs to happen to arrive at a peaceful situation. 

At 8:00 am, we boarded buses lined with bulletproof glass (a necessity back during the intifada but needed now only to placate insurance companies). We drove to the "seam line", the old border between east and west Jerusalem, which, between 1949-1967 was the border between Israel and Jordan. 

As we traced the armistice line of 1949 (in orange above), we considered how the future map of Jerusalem will be drawn. We spoke first with attorney Danny Seidman. For decades, Dan has been a central figure in the official, as well as back-channel, conversations about Jerusalem's boundaries. An interesting point Danny made: the final boundaries will work only if they accurately map the routes people already have adopted in daily practice. If you want to see how the final borders will emerge, he suggested, just look at a map of the cell phone usage of Palestinians and Israelis (many, like the iPhone, collect GPS-like location data) - that map will prefigure the eventual settlement. 

Danny Seidman, esq. - pointing - talking about the seam between east and west Jerusalem - east on the left of this picture, west on the right.

To learn more about Danny Seidman, esq., and his NGO, Terrestrial Jerusalem, go here. 

 We then traveled to Beit Aryeh, a suburb of Tel Aviv which sits on the first ridge of hills above the coastal plain. From Beit Aryeh, one looks down to the west onto the landing pattern of Ben Gurion Airport, one of Israel's most important assets. 

The view from Beit Aryeh looking down on the coastal plain and Ben Gurion Airport. A red circle points to a plane taking off.

At Beit Aryeh, we met with Colonel (res) Danny Tirza, the architect of the security fence, sometimes referred to as the security wall, that forms a barrier between the West Bank and Israel. Since its erection, it has eliminated the suicide bombings which, in 2000-2005, had become a frequent occurrence in  Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Netanya. 

Col. (res.) Danny Tirza, holding the map of the security fence he was responsible for mapping

To learn about Colonel (res.) Danny Tirza, and read his article, "The Strategic Logic of Israel's Security Barrier", which summarizes what he shared with us, go here. 

 After a quick bag lunch, we headed into "Area A", the part of the West Bank over which the Palestinian Authority has full control.  Below is a map of the West Bank with the areas A, B and C, delineated. Area C is under Israeli control, area, B is under Palestinian police control but also under Israeli army control for security matters, and area A is completely under Palestinian control. Israelis are, by law, not allowed to enter Area A, unless prior arrangements are made with the Israeli army and the PA, which in our case, had. We went to the area just north of Ramallah, toward the center of the West Bank. 

Once in area A (which took awhile - one of the bus drivers refused to drive into area A, even though the bus company had agreed to - the second driver had to run shuttles back and forth), we headed to a massive new housing development called Rawabi. Rawabi, which means "hills" in Arabic, is being developed for an emerging middle class of Palestinians and is being modeled after the Israeli city, Modiin (where Nir and Anat Barkin live). With schools, shopping, parks etc. all integrated into the plan, it will be the Palestinian version of Yuppie-Heaven. Here is a picture of what Rawabi will look like: 

a vision of the new city of Rawabi

The developer of Rawabi is Basheir Al-Masri. The Al-Masri family is a most venerable Palestinian family, hailing from Nablus (Shechem).  He has started fifteen companies all over the world. He lost a fair amount of money on projects in Gaza when Hamas took over, and should that happen in the West Bank, this project will be finished (as a business man, he's no fan of extremists, like Hamas, nor are they of him). 

 Basheir Al-Masri meets with rabbis 

to explain the development of Rawabi.  

And the project has a ways to go. Occupancy is predicted for 2013 but, as you can see below, there's a lot of work to do before then. 

The upside of such a development? The more Palestinians reach an average Israeli standard of living, the more likely peace will be. The downside is that Rawabi, when it's built, will be a "fact on the ground." Like larger Israeli settlements, it will be less likely to be given up in a land exchange as part of a peace treaty. Stay tuned! 

Back to studying the texts. I"ll write again in a few more days. Best regards from Jerusalem, 

Rabbi David B. Cohen