A risk worth taking?
By Larry Derfner.
"First they threw stones, so we shatterproofed our windshields. Then they started shooting, so we built bypass roads and bulletproofed our buses and built fences. Then they started throwing bombs at the buses and firing mortars over the fences, and the bypass roads became the most dangerous roads in the country. The only thing that's left is to go live underground and have our oxygen piped in,"
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(June 18) - For Jewish residents of the territories, deciding what safety precautions to take in the face of Palestinian terror can become a tough ideological choice.
When the rock that killed five-month-old Yehuda Shoham crashed through the car windshield, his parents were driving with him about 10:30 p.m. on a West Bank highway that's been riddled with flying stones and bullets of late. The family, residents of the Samarian settlement of Shiloh, was coming back from Yehuda's grandparents' home in Petah Tikva.
"It's a main highway; there's no alternative major road to the Tel Aviv area," says Shiloh spokeswoman Yael Avraham. "The only other route passes [the settlement of] Neve Tzuf, and that road is just as dangerous."
One of the puzzling details of the killing - Yehuda died on Monday, after being struck in the head on the previous Tuesday - was that the rock came through the windshield with such force; for years, all West Bank and Gaza settlers have received free shatterproof windshields.
Avraham explains that the car the Shohams were driving didn't have a shatterproof windshield, but it wasn't their car - they'd borrowed it from Yehuda's other grandparents, who live in the settlement of Ginot Shomron.
"The Shohams don't own a car; they ordinarily get around by bus," says Avraham, noting that buses in the Shiloh area are bulletproof. The grandparents from Ginot Shomron were out of the country, so the Shohams borrowed their car, sort of as a "treat," she continues.
But as settlers themselves, wouldn't these grandparents have had a shatterproof windshield on their car?
"From what I've gathered," Avraham says, "the grandparents' car was in the garage, and the car they gave the Shohams to drive was a 'loaner' [with a regular windshield]."
Were the Shohams being reckless, driving at night with their baby on a terror-ridden highway? Or were they just being human, enjoying a brief "treat" of freedom before going back to their routine on the moving fortresses Egged operates in the territories?
After that rock hit Yehuda in the head, Avraham, a social worker and sociology teacher, bought herself a bulletproof vest for driving. Her husband won't wear one, she says. Two of her six children are still at home, and she allows them to travel only on bulletproof buses. Compared to other settlers she knows, Avraham figures she's probably more cautious than most. But she's not embarrassed or ashamed about it.
"We have to draw the line," she says, "between heroism and stupidity."
In the Jewish settlement of Hebron, there is no such line.
"Freedom means security, protective measures mean cowardice, and all they do is worsen the terror," says Hebron spokesman Noam Arnon. Given this attitude, the killing of 10-month-old Shalhevet Pass, shot on March 26 at the entrance to the settlement's playground by a Palestinian sniper, poses much graver dilemmas than does the death of Yehuda Shoham.
The playground sits in the line of fire of Abu Sneineh, the Palestinian hillside neighborhood some 300 meters away. Snipers in Abu Sneineh had been shooting down at the Jewish settlement for months when Pass's father brought her to the playground in a baby carriage that day.
"It was an irresponsible act," say a senior IDF official. Before the killing, the IDF had offered to build a concrete security roof over the playground to protect it from snipers, but the Hebron settlers refused.
The same offer was made after Shalhevet was killed, and the settlers refused again. "They're taking a completely unnecessary risk to their lives and their children's lives," says the army official.
BUT HEBRON settler Ruth Hizmy says that even if they'd accepted the IDF's offer of playground security, it wouldn't have saved Shalhevet.
What the IDF wanted to build was not exactly a roof, she says, but a bitonada - a wall of modular, high concrete barriers at the entrance to the playground. Shalhevet, she says, was shot just in front of the entrance.
"And even if you build a bitonada for the playground, what happens when the children leave the playground?" she asks.
In the Hebron settlement, home to some 150 adults and 300 children, there are no partial solutions - protective measures aren't foolproof everywhere, all the time, so they're no improvement at all.
When driving, Hebron settlers would just as soon wear Peace Now T-shirts as bulletproof vests. So what about Haim Baga'on, the settler who was driving recently through the West Bank when Palestinian bullets bounced off his bulletproof vest, leaving him unharmed?
"I can name people who were killed even though they were wearing bulletproof vests," retorts Arnon, pointing out that they were shot in the head. In Hebron, it's all or nothing.
There are settlers outside of Hebron who do wear helmets when they drive, along with bulletproof vests. Avraham, however, says a helmet is one step too far for her - mainly because of the physical, not ideological, discomfort.
"It's hard enough driving in a bulletproof vest - it's so heavy and awkward - and a helmet makes it that much worse," she says.
Practical as she tries to be, though, Avraham readily acknowledges that as a Zionist, as a settler of Judea and Samaria, she hates what she's doing.
"It's humiliating," she says. "I feel like a prisoner in my own country."
In the last eight and a half months, since the fighting with the Palestinians began, most Israelis have become more careful. But on the "Israel proper" side of the Green Line, decisions of whether to drive this road, take that bus, or buy that apartment are usually taken without ideological considerations. "Is it safe?" is the main, and often only, question most Israelis ask.
But to a greater or less extent among the 200,000 West Bank and Gaza settlers, personal safety cannot be separated from ideology. In the settlements the question, "Is it safe?" is usually balanced against questions such as, "Am I giving in to Palestinian terror?" and, "Am I helping weaken Israel's backbone?"
In choosing where to live, the settlers, in varying degrees, thought more about ideology than did most other Israelis. Likewise, they're thinking more about ideology now in choosing how to live.
"The overwhelming majority of residents of the settlements would be happy to take as many safety precautions as possible," says an IDF official. Many hardcore ideologues, however, deliberately court danger.
One was Gilad Zar, the Samaria security officer shot to death through the windshield of his car about a month ago. He refused to drive with a bulletproof vest, and refused the IDF's offer of a bulletproof car, saying it wasn't right for him to have one when other settlers didn't.
Many radical settlements near Nablus and Hebron, such as Yitzhar, Tapuah and Har Bracha, refused the IDF's offer of a perimeter security fence. Young residents of the many small "annexes" set up outside of settlements have also refused perimeter fences. "These places really have no self-protection at all," says the army official.
Avraham estimates that one-quarter to one-third of the settlements have refused to fence themselves off. Shiloh is one of them, and Avraham still agrees with the decision.
"These fences don't have electronic or other security devices, they're just fences. Anybody who wants to can cut through them, although I guess the fence would slow him down, so it might be a small deterrent. But," she adds, "I don't want to live inside a ghetto."
WHEN it comes to recklessness in the face of danger, Hebron is in a class by itself, say army officials. But even in Hebron, which is crawling with soldiers and heavy IDF metal, the settlers' contempt for taking safety precautions does not interfere with the army's job, and does not make it any harder or more dangerous.
"The soldiers will do their best to provide the residents with security, regardless of what safety measures the residents take or do not take," officials maintain."
One sun-beaten afternoon this week, the main intersection next to the Hebron settlement comes to a halt as two long flatbed trucks carrying a huge crane and massive blocks of stone roll into the army post. A crowd of Palestinian youths gather to watch.
"Oh-pah," says Arnon, sitting under the protest tent set up after Pass's killing. "The army always likes to give money to some cement contractor."
The IDF, which is not contemptuous of safety precautions, is fortifying its Hebron post.
"We're building it up with Jerusalem stone," says a young officer. "This will make it stronger, safer, and also make it look more permanent."
Arnon isn't impressed. "Why don't you build a real high tower so you can look down on them?" he asks, pointing to Abu Sneineh.
"We're going to be real high," the officer assures him.
MK Eliezer Cohen of Yisrael Beitenu has come by for a solidarity visit, and a few settlers are making their pitch to him for an end to the policy of "restraint."
"When I sit in my bedroom, I feel like I'm being watched by some terrorist in Abu Sneineh, like he's sizing me up as a target," says Hizmy, sitting in the tent hung with a sign that reads, "Shalhevet's blood cries out - conquer Abu Sneineh."
Yet IDF officials say the settlers turned down an offer to bulletproof the windows of their homes. Asked about this, Hizmy, a mother of seven, replies, "The reason I don't hide inside my house is because I want to survive."
For her, every Jewish safety precaution projects fear to the Palestinians, inciting them to escalate their weaponry.
"First they threw stones, so we shatterproofed our windshields. Then they started shooting, so we built bypass roads and bulletproofed our buses and built fences. Then they started throwing bombs at the buses and firing mortars over the fences, and the bypass roads became the most dangerous roads in the country. The only thing that's left is to go live underground and have our oxygen piped in," she says sarcastically.
In sharp contrast to the rest of Israel, in Hebron, danger is neutralized by ignoring it.
"The more mobile I am, the safer I am," Hizmy declares.
The Hebron settlers also refused the IDF's offer of an armored minivan to transport adults and children. They turned down a protective concrete wall for the seven mobile homes of Tel Rumeida. Despite the IDF's advice, they insist on "traveling wherever we want at all hours," says Arnon.
"Over 90% of our residents agree with these decisions, and the handful that don't certainly abide by the will of the majority," he notes.
Arnon believes the army's offer of safety measures is actually a cynical plot to "cover its behind, to come up with a false solution to Arab terror, to evade its responsibility to eradicate it." The armored minivan would have been the "first step," Arnon claims.
"Then, if one of our people had been shot driving his car, the army would have said, 'Why didn't you drive in the armored vehicle we provided you?' - instead of doing its job, which is to make the roads safe for Jews."
In the playground where Pass was killed, a class of kindergarten children is playing with their teacher. Mothers stand by their infants in baby carriages. They're all positioned a way back from the entrance, out of Abu Sneineh's line of fire. One mother, who gives her name as "Rina," says a kindergarten teacher told her that since Pass's death, this is the policy. (The guns of Abu Sneineh have been largely quiet since the infant's death. The IDF shelled the neighborhood for a long time afterward, leading many Palestinian residents to abandon their homes.)
Rina is also standing out of the line of fire, but only because of the shade, she says.
"Of course we try to be careful," she says, but when asked how, the only precaution she can name is "being more aware when we're walking on the street."
Otherwise, protective measures are useless, she says, because "everything is in God's hands," and because it incites more terror.
"I wish we hadn't shatterproofed our windshields," Rina says, as Arnon nods in agreement. "If we hadn't, they wouldn't be shooting at us today."
EFRAT is a very different community from Hebron. It used to be thought of as a "quality of life" settlement, a safe suburb of Jerusalem in Gush Etzion, but three residents have been shot to death nearby in the current fighting - Baruch Cohen, Sarah Blaustein and Esther Elvan.
Mention of the "tunnel road," which was built to be a safe bypass between Jerusalem and Gush Etzion, now scares people with its connotations of shooting and death. Tall concrete barriers now stand along the edges of the road to protect drivers from Palestinian terrorists on the hillsides.
Annette Rubin belongs to Efrat's bulletproof vest "library," borrowing a vest when she needs to drive the family car, then returning it. Her husband usually drives with a vest, too. They never drive together.
"God forbid something could happen to both of us - we're responsible for four children," she says.
A dental hygienist in downtown Jerusalem, Rubin takes one bulletproof bus straight to work and straight home.
"Otherwise I admit, I'd probably be driving to work like so many other people here," she says. She drives as little as possible. "Every time it's [like playing] Russian roulette," she says. And she won't drive with her kids.
"I'm very right-wing; I think the government should be taking much stronger action, but I don't think there's anything wrong with swallowing your pride to save your life or your children's lives," she says.
For Rubin, the dividing line between heroism and stupidity is staying where she is. "I'd never consider leaving Efrat," she says.
Kiryat Arba's Aharon Domb, one of the most moderate voices in the Judea and Samaria leadership, disagrees with the settlements that ignored IDF advice and refused perimeter fences.
"They have a lot of children there, and a perimeter fence at least gives them psychological comfort," says Domb.
But personally, Domb rambles around the territories as he always did.
The only place he won't go anymore is Rachel's Tomb, which has come under Palestinian sway. "Why won't I drive past there now?" he asks. "Because I assume I wouldn't get out of there alive." He dismisses the question of why settlers don't bulletproof their cars.
"I only wish I could drive a bulletproof car," says Domb, explaining that only a very heavy vehicle like a jeep, SUV or Mercedes can be bulletproofed, and the cost - including that of the vehicle - comes to a good few hundred thousand shekels.
(IDF officials say they recently delivered the first bulletproof Mercedes to the settlers' Binyamin Regional Council, and five other regional councils are due to get them soon. A few dozen bulletproof minivans are to be given to settlement schools by the next school year, army officials add.)
What Domb won't do is take any safety precaution that seriously curbs his quality of life, and which "projects fear" to the Palestinians - such as riding around in a bulletproof vest and helmet.
"It's a humiliation, a disgrace. It's the antithesis of everything I was raised on - that this is our country, a free country. The next thing will be for people to move out of the settlements, then out of Gilo, and where will it end," he demands. "And besides, I have six children - should all of them also ride around in bulletproof vests?"
One of Rubin's neighbors does just that, although they only have four kids. Each has on his own bulletproof vest, in descending size, when they climb into the family car. "It's so sad to see," she says.
"Some of the kids look like the vests weigh more than they do."
IDF officials say that at the start of the current violence, settlers in general talked defiantly, refusing to fence themselves off, refusing to curb their travels, refusing to give in. "But events brought most of them around," they say.
"The killings have a cumulative effect on you," says Avraham. "This is war." |
